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ASYMMETRIC ISSUES. This article on Democrats using free trade as a cudgel against their Republican opponents is an interesting one. In the abstract at least, free trade enjoys broad support. But trade, like abortion or taxes, is a voting issue. While "fair trade" isn't the most broadly agreed upon policy -- unlike the minimum wage or Canadian drug reimportation -- for the fraction of voters affected or unnerved by globalization, it moves them to the polls.
In recent elections, Democrats have tended to emphasize the issues with the broadest constituencies, not the most intense ones. So they've ended up touting policies the electorate agrees with but does not vote on -- after all, if the electorate agreed and did vote on that issue, the GOP would quickly notice its wisdom and make it a central policy plank. So while this strategy garnered very high numbers of Americans telling pollsters they agreed with the Democratic position, it didn't lead to all that many voting for the Democrats.
Strategies built on smaller, more intensely supported policies have been more successful, at least to judge from the Republican Party's recent history. And many of these issue are asymmetrically intense -- someone in agreement will vote for you because of your support, but someone in disagreement will not vote against you because of that issue. My guess is trade is one of those issues, where those affected will make it a first-order priority, while the rest may vaguely believe in free trade, but won't particularly allow it to influence their vote. And if that's right, you may see a lot of Democrats mounting stronger-than-expected challenges in the Rust Belt.
COMMENTS (27)
Good points. The will it changes votes question is a good way to look at the "trade" issue.
But don't implicitly buy into the idea that NAFTA, CAFTA and the rest are really "free" trade agreements. They're not. And that's a common trick recently in politics - just label something nicely so that people will ignore the contents.
Trade is a very complicated issue - although tariffs are the obvious issue - that's the simple part. What's tough is how to handle the standards governing different products - what safety standards will be required, what disclosure requirements, what food safety rules, What accounting rules, etc. Those are the complicated issues.
And that's where the trick has been - in the major trade agreements that US has negotiated these details have been set to protect the interests of investors, and slighted workers and consumers. And that's not surprising because investors have invested a lot of money in lobbyists to get those provisions in.
That's the issue - what rules should we have to govern the trade of goods and services going in and out of our country? Not just Free-Trade - yeah! yahoos like Friedman.
Posted by: Samuel Knight | September 26, 2006 2:35 PM
Didn't they used to call these "special interest" issues?
Posted by: Sean | September 26, 2006 2:49 PM
That's the fundamental asymmetry of politics. The Right's primary constituency is small, and must be supplemented with wedges to build a governing coalition. The Left operates in the negative space defined by the Right's choice of weapons, i.e., the Left assemble its coalition out of what's left.
Among other things, that's why we don't have, and shouldn't have, and can't have the same order of discipline as the other side ... and why trying to be like them won't make us winners like them.
Posted by: RonK, Seattle | September 26, 2006 5:09 PM
Niche marketing. Thanks to the internet everyone does it now.
Posted by: MNPundit | September 26, 2006 8:25 PM
I think the phrase "trying to be like them" is a little too broad to be useful. I mean, they try to win elections, and so do we - does that mean we're trying to be like them?
I don't think that just because the Republicans use certain tactics, we would fail if we attempted to use similar tactics - on certain occasions, some of the time. Obviously, you're right, Ron - we'll never have their discipline. But I don't see how that affects the ability of at least certain Dems to use the issue of trade effectively.
Posted by: DavidNYC | September 26, 2006 9:27 PM
Ezra: Isn't it kinda silly that the Democratic Party wants Canadian drug reimportation like you suggest? In Canada the newspapers are telling citizens that the US Drug Companies will cut off the Canadian Pharmacies if they sell back to the USA. But I guess this FACT is better to hide just to drive Democratic voters to the polls.
Did you see ezra that Fortis healthcare owns the hospitals in Delhi, India? Yup, in 2 short years they have more beds than any competitor and are expanding throughout India. It's nice that India and their 1 billion people now have Private Sector FOR PROFIT hospitals.
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