Editorial

The campaign legacy

Continued from page 1

pitches. Old warhorses like Emmett Hall and Simon Reisman were thrown into the battle.
Workers were threatened with massive job losses, U.S. retaliation and market crashes.
Even Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher openly came to Mulroney’s rescue in the
crucial last days of the campaign.

The din rose to a crescendo then to pandemonium.

It was only under intense pressure — which forced Mulroney to promise publicly and
categorically that our sovereignty and social programs will remain intact after implementa-
tion of the trade deal — that some were convinced to take that “leap of faith.” They will be
cruelly disappointed.

The amazing thing isn’t that the Tories took a majority of seats (170) with a minority of
votes (43 per cent) — the result of Canada’s unfair electoral system — but that, despite the
unprecedented, hard-sell, pro-free trade blitz, 56 per cent of Canadians voted against the
Mulroney trade deal.

Brian Mulroney received no public mandate for the FTA. On Nov 21, one million more
Canadians opposed it than supported it.

Accordingly, there must be no capitulation by the 125 MPs who were elected to defend
Canada’s sovereignty and to oppose the deal. There must be no phoney “co-operation” for
its speedy passage and implementation.

The clearly-stated opinion of 56 per cent of the country must not be ignored. These 125
NDP and Liberal Members should be told by their electors to stand up for Canada when
Mulroney calls Parliament into session Dec. 12 to ratify the FTA. They must continue to
oppose the deal, to vote against it, thereby fulfilling the mandate they received on Nov. 21.

But the most important feature of Election ‘88 was the massive intervention into political
life of the broad people’s movements —the pro-Canada, anti-Tory forces which turned this
election into a genuine, passionate, wide-ranging debate on those issues vitally affecting our
country’s future. :

The Pro-Canada Network and other forces, born in the struggle against the neo-
conservative agenda and the sell-out of our country, added a vital new dimension to people’s
consciousness. ‘lens of thousands, even perhaps millions, are now products of an intensive,
seven-week political school.

Having played this new role, one of massive intervention into political life, having forced
the Tories out of their cocoon, haying piled up a majority of the popular vote — the
Canadian people are not likely return to “normal” until 1993 and let the Tories run
rampant.

The fact is, this new political reality of an involved public is the real guarantee that the
Tories are challenged every step of the way as they strive to impose their agenda on the
country.

And what is that agenda? The trade deal and its many-sided impact on Canadian life, the
regressive child-care package and pending federal sales tax; the costly and dangerous
provocative military program, the continued drive to privatization and an increased attack
on the labour movement, just to name several items on Mulroney’s list.

The unity and mobilization seen in the election battle is needed today more than ever.
Rather than ending the debate on Canada’s future direction, this election in a real sense has
begun it.

The key will be to maintain and strengthen the pro-Canada, anti-conservative people’s
movements. The battle against Mulroney’s agenda has now moved to phase two.

Building upon the tremendous achievements and experience of the past weeks and
months is the key to the next stage of the battle.

URS -10-398 ° ;

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The following editorial appeared in the
Nov. 11 edition of the U.S. People’s Daily
World.

President George Bush. Vice-president
Dan Quayle. Those titles do not do our
nation proud. They mean that the~

Commentary

favoured candidates of big business, of the
military-industrial complex and of the
right wing will control the White House
for four more years.

It was a sleazy campaign, but the organ-
ized peopl@s forces can be proud of their
role. Their opposition to Bush and Quayle
was virtually unanimous. Labour, Black,
Hispanic, women, peace, environmental
and civil liberties organizations put unprec-
edented energies into this election and suc-
cessfully mobilized a majority of their
constituencies.

Those who worked so hard to reverse
the direction of our country, to stop the
government’s attacks on workers’ living
standards and democratic rights and just
plain decency which were the hallmark of
the Reagan years and to make govern-
ment responsive to people’s needs will feel
an understandable disappointment.

But it would be a misjudgment of the
situation to allow that disappointment to
lead to pessimism or inaction.

Bush won, but his administration is
starting out in a much weaker position
that Ronald Reagan’s eight years ago, or
even Reagan’s last year. Bush won an elec-
tion but not a mandate.

How did Bush win, you might ask, if all

the constituencies of the broad people’s
movements mobilized to their utmost?

First, one must mention the ugly, sleazy
character of the Bush campaign. He ran a
campaign of smears and fear-mongering
that would have done Joe McCarthy
proud. He cleverly and unscrupulously
appealed to the basest sentiments, includ-
ing racism. As befits a former director of
the CIA, he ran a campaign of disinforma-
tion. The American people who are in
their majority fair and democratic-
minded, have already begun to reject this
ideological offensive but it did for a time
obscure the issues and disorient the electo-
rate.

Second, Bush had a powerful ally, or
tool, in the media, which are owned and
sponsored by the very big business forces
that overwhelmingly favoured Bush. They
held back damning stories about Bush.
They brazenly attempted to create a
bandwagon effect — pushing polls, inclu-
ding ones that were later shown to be
inaccurate — that put Bush ahead. On
election night, Dan Rather really let the
cat out of the bag when he opened an
interview with Senator Ted Kennedy by
asking: “When is the democratic Party

going to stop nominating these union-
label liberals who always lose?”’

Third, although the organized working
class and people’s movement did its
utmost, it does not include the majority of
the electorate. And people who are not
organized are easier prey for the kind of
demagogy that emanated from the Bush
campaign.

To overcome these circumstances, the
organized sector must organize more and
they must define issues in a way that cuts
through the reactionary fog of confusion
and misinformation.

One might also ask: Why did Dukakis
lose?

While posing an honourable alternative
to Bush on many issues, Dukakis insisted
for most of the campaign that politics is
about “competence, not ideology”. That
is not true.

Politics is about classes and their inter-
ests in the first place That is what ideology
is all about. Dukakis, while battling
charges of the “‘l” word, refused to invoke
the “c” word — class. His refusal — until
the tail end of the campaign — to appeal
to workers on a class basis left him
defenceless against Bush’s scurrilous
attacks.

No Reagan mandate for George Bush

It left him unable to go on the attack

_ against right-wing extremism.

And it left him unable to generate
momentum among his natural supporters.
Congressional candidates who were also
attacked, Bush-style, as “liberals” but who
answered the charges directly, by and large
did well even in districts in which Dukakis
did poorly.

The road that lies ahead is rocky.

We have a monumental legacy of prob-
lems left over from the Reagan years,
including a $3-trillion debt, and the
Washington address of the wrecking crew
will still be on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The illusory prosperity projected by the
Reagan administration was bought on
credit and the payments are coming due. It
must be a top priority in the coming period
to see that that bill is not presented to the
people for payment.

The major role which the people’s
movements and the labour-Afro-Ameri-
can alliance, in particular, played in
determining the make-up of the new Con-
gress creates a firm foundation from
which to launch a struggle for a new
agenda in Congress.

The alliance between labour and the
Afro-American people has grown tighter.
The independent political role of that
alliance is becoming clearer.

There is no reason to be demobilized by
the election results — to roll over and
play dead. New victories can be ours, as
long as unity continues to grow.

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4 e Pacific Tribune, November 28, 1988 °