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What's at stake in the 2000 elections?
Editor's Note: What's at stake in the millennial elections? Salon went beyond the Beltway to take the nation's pulse. Here, 31 writers, thinkers, business people and activists talk about what they expect, wish for and dread in the coming year's elections. Their answers may surprise you.
The majority of the group is moderate to conservative; not quite half is vaguely liberal. But across the political spectrum the most commonly cited problem is the wealth gap in this wealthy nation, and the educational divide it creates -- which in turn perpetuates the wealth gap. Of course the solutions prescribed radically differ. Our respondents also worry about race relations, the nation's divorce rate, the erosion of privacy in the information age, whether the military can survive the post-"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" approach to gays, how to reform health care and what the mere candidacy of Pat Buchanan says about American democracy.
When describing their model president, liberals hark back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, conservatives to Ronald Reagan, techies to Apple Computer's Steve Jobs (there are also individual votes for Margaret Thatcher, Gore Vidal, Eleanor Roosevelt, Cesar Chavez, Dwight Eisenhower, Chris Rock and Andrew Jackson). And if they could build a composite president from the leading candidates, he would apparently have Al Gore's wife, Bill Bradley's I.Q., George W. Bush's mother (and money), John McCain's war record, and Alan Keyes' charisma (?).
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Jan. 10, 2000 |
I don't think anything is at stake. I made a promise to myself a long time ago -- back during Vietnam -- not to be political. People act as if their candidate winning is a life and death matter. It's not. They think things will get better if their guy wins. It doesn't. I don't like stepping on people, don't like to be associated with that kind of distraught energy. I have broken my vow not to vote a few times -- McGovern, Carter, Hart. And though I've given money to Bradley I don’t intend to vote this election. We're going to be so well off in the coming century, and it has nothing to do with politicians. The computer economy is what's driving the prosperity. It's the Yahoos, Apples and Microsofts that are creating a better life, not politicians. The greatest problem we have in society is the widening gap between the rich and poor. If there's one thing the next president should try to do is to redistribute wealth a little more equitably. I don't have the vaguest idea how to do that. All I know is that here in Silicon Valley, the richest place on earth, there are people with families working seven days a week and they don’t have enough to live on. That isn't right.
This problem is going to be exacerbated by another huge problem looming in the next decade -- the lack of high Internet bandwidth for everyone. Cable and phone companies are bypassing a lot of homes for their high-speed modems and DSL lines. Those who get bypassed will be marginalized more and more, left behind in the wake of the computer-driven economic boom. The model for the next president should be Steve Jobs. He has the sharpest mind of anyone I know. He can see what's good for people and give it to them before they even know they want it. And he does it without resorting to selling junk. - - - - - - - - - - - - Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine We'll know what's at stake if the economy goes south. Americans vote their pocketbooks, but none of the candidates are talking about the economy. Go figure. The biggest problem we face is the assault on privacy and the violation of our civil liberties. We thought we had a defender in Clinton, but he sold us out with the Communications Decency Act. Privacy and individual rights are more important to this country than foreign policy, which will be run by the same lame bureaucrats that have always run it. We need a president who'll champion civil liberties and not do something stupid like Clinton did when he signed a law [the CDA] he knew was unconstitutional so that the Supreme Court's rejection would give him political cover. The next president needs to have a strong set of principles he won't sacrifice on the altar of expediency. The election result that would make me the angriest is anyone other than McCain winning. This is the first time in my life I'll ever vote Republican. Gore and Bradley are dumb and dumber, Steve Forbes looks like he's embalmed and Bush is nothing but a crack-boy wimp. We've got an eight-month ongoing investigation on [a mainstream presidential candidate]. It won't be released until we have all the signed affidavits. When politicians advocate public policies contradicted by their private behavior they open themselves up to investigations like ours. The model for the next president should be JFK. He had the ability to inspire. Nobody running today inspires. There's no class, no eloquence, just a bunch of idiots on stage. Both Democrats and Republicans are frightened of McCain and they should be. It's ironic that a POW has a "take no prisoners" attitude. But we need that and haven't had it since Harry Truman.
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