By Steven Hiatt
A week before the US elections, the Democratic presidential ticket of Bill Clinton and Al Gore maintains a 15% lead in national polls over Republican incumbents George Bush and Dan Quayle, while the Ross Perot's revived nationalist/populist candidacy threatens Bush's other flank.
Much of left/progressive opinion views the election as an opportunity to end 12 years of right-wing domination under the Reagan-Bush administration, and to check the influence of the crusade of the Republican far right to establish a white Christian state. (As populist columnist Molly Ivins put it, the Republican convention in August came across more like a human rights violation than a political conference.)
Yet the moderate Clinton-Gore program offers only a glimpse of a progressive agenda that responds to the country's problems: its main theme seems to be "It's time for a change (but not a very big one — we don't want to alarm anyone)".
For example, Clinton actually boasts that his budget would cut defence spending only 5% more than Bush's proposals. But if the defence budget remains locked up, how can Clinton find the money to finance initiatives that he recognises need to be undertaken in education, job training, environmental protection and a host of other areas?
Beyond removing Bush from the scene, the Clinton program offers an improved civil rights climate, including governmental support for abortion rights, and a series of modest programmatic initiatives that progressives can fight to expand and develop.
In the longer run, however, the left must seek its own mandate for change. Patricia Horn's survey of current third party projects shows how progressives are preparing the ground for such an insurgent movement, and what obstacles they must overcome to do so. Meanwhile, as Irwin Silber points out, H. Ross Perot's independent campaign for president forecasts the content of much of the public political agenda in the near future, and the tests it will pose for the left.
[Steven Hiatt is an editor of the US magazine CrossRoads.]