NEW YORK - Ground Zero at
midnight is a cold, emotionless, otherworldly place,
refashioned into a mix of developer's dream-cum-tourist
attraction. The only hint of humanity is a small
collection of mementos by the crater on Gate 7, beside a
huge US flag, and a simple message from the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey police: "Thank you
America for your prayers and support for all those lost
and their families."
The contrast could not be
more spectacular with the apotheosis of vertical
capitalism in Times Square - the mad flow of
infotainment emanating from a collection of towers like
a digital dervish dance. Between Ground Zero and Times
Square, between the abyss and euphoria, the United
States stares at its longest and dirtiest of all
political campaigns.
From Park Avenue to
Greenwich Village, the chattering classes are still
digesting the new Bob Woodward book, Plan of
Attack. In connection to no weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) in Iraq, President George W Bush told
Woodward, "You travel in elite circles." Woodward
believes Bush disdains "the fancy-pants intellectual
world". This means only elitists and snobs care about no
WMD in Iraq. What matters, says Bush, is that the Iraq
war was right because he has a "duty to free people".
Then "there is a higher father that I appeal to". Who
are mere mortals to argue with a commander-in-chief on a
mission from God?
Richard Clarke's book
Against All Enemies in essence argued that the
Bush system got it all wrong - before and after the
terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Woodward's book
presents an uncritical president who is not responsible,
not accountable and incapable of self-doubt. Does that
bother someone like larger-than-life, I-love-New York
media tycoon Rupert Murdoch? Not at all. His New York
Post echoes Fox News when it says that "the war was and
is on firm ground morally, legally and politically", and
"the United Nations can't be trusted to do the right
thing".
Seen from Wall Street or Madison Avenue,
Republicans and Democrats are both facing their own non
sequiturs. The occupation of Iraq is untenable. But the
Democratic critique is shallow and dour. Republicans
can't utter a single word about Iraqi oil. Democrats
can't talk about Zionism. In Iraq it is politically
impossible to pack up and go, and militarily it's
impossible to win. "It's not Vietnam. It's worse than
Vietnam," says a Madison Avenue ad executive.
The talk at the smart Osteria Fiamma in SoHo is
that Democrats want to keep Iraq as much as Republicans.
Yitzhak Nakash, chairman of the Brandeis University
Middle Eastern Studies Department, pretty much sums up
the Democratic position on Iraq. If the United States
"stays the course" (copyright Bush), the occupation will
become "untenable". For Nakash, the only chance of
success in Iraq is a pluralistic, checks-and-balances
political system. What Nakash is subtly saying is that
"technical democracy" is a better method of population
control than blunt occupation. But this may be way too
subtle for Washington neo-cons.
A lot like
Lincoln Before the February Iowa caucus that
changed John Kerry's life, Gore Vidal said the senator
from Massachusetts was looking "a lot like Lincoln,
after the assassination". The same applies today. Kerry,
now labeling himself an "entrepreneurial Democrat", has
spent April as silent as Ground Zero at midnight - aside
from proposing a "contract with America's middle class".
In his latest two ads, a resolute Kerry faces the camera
and declares himself committed to more jobs, better
health care and strong defense. From now to the
Democratic Convention in late July, this will be the
face of John Kerry. And Vietnam is inevitably part of
the package - as a metaphor for Kerry's love of the
motherland.
Kerry's contract with the middle
class is not resonating in New York with the failed,
angry, money-obsessed screenwriter forced to set up pack
shots of designer jeans to pay for his US$5,000 SoHo
loft monthly rent, or the marketing executive for a
cosmetics giant who quit her quiet previous job for a
roller-coaster that could land her in riches or in hell.
For Sikh taxi drivers and Punjabi corner-store keepers,
the masseuse from Fujian with barely a word of English
spoken and a "naked cowboy" proposing photos with gaping
tourists on Times Square, Kerry's contract is social
Darwinism on steroids. "There's certainly nothing the
government or John Kerry can do to help me pay my
bills," says a fashion photographer.
Everyone in
New York complains about taxes. The Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities has just published a detailed study on
Bush's tax policies. According to the study, families
making more than $1 million a year will have an average
of almost $124,000 in tax cuts this year. On the other
hand, middle-class families will be eligible for an
average of only $647.
Even with the odds stacked
against them, cynical New Yorkers wouldn't be caught
dead taking lessons from the ultimate tycoon for the age
of reality TV, Donald Trump. Like Trump, they may dream
of turning their entire life into a huge marketing ploy.
As on Trump's reality TV show The Apprentice,
they may subscribe to the core values of mega-corporate
America: always finish your tasks before a deadline;
always please the boss; make a lot of money; be a
winner. But they identify the persona behind the mask.
They know Trump was a rich kid given a huge head start
by Dad; they know he is nasty and mean; they know he is
a lousy manager endlessly saved from ruin by the banks;
they know that in Wall Street, Donald Trump is a joke.
To sum it all up: they know the system is heavily
biased. So what's left for these cynical New Yorkers?
The dream of exile in paradise - be it Canada or Costa
Rica.
Same same but different There's
a widespread feeling in New York of a US political
establishment gone out of control, drenched on the
macho-narcissism of the Bush doctrine.
Kerry vs
Bush will be the longest and dirtiest of US political
campaigns. If New York could cast a definitive ballot,
Kerry would win by a landslide. But of roughly 200
million US citizens of voting age (out of a population
of 293 million), fewer than half will even bother to
show up at the polling stations.
Kerry vs Bush
fits the classic Asian dictum "same same but different".
Both John Forbes Kerry, 60, and George Walker Bush, 57,
come from private-school, northeastern money and
privilege, Yale and Skull and Bones. One went to
Vietnam, the other didn't. Bush skipped Vietnam, became
a Republican and a B-list Texas oil partner before
finding God, leaving alcohol and cocaine behind and
following George Bush Sr to the White House. Kerry, a
decorated Vietnam hero, turned against that war and
became a "flip-flop senator" (copyright the Republican
Party).
Madison Avenue execs delight on how Bush
has been carefully sold as a man of the people -
including his trademark specialty of mangling the
English language. As the whole world knows, he doesn't
do nuance. As for Kerry, his elitism precludes even a
whiff of sense of humor. The Bush world view can be
summed up by the famous "either with us or against us".
Kerry, on the other hand, does nuance. He is
"thoughtful", not a flip-flopper, counterspin the
Democrats.
New York has been plunged into a
frenzy of polls. It's very enlightening to check on
voters' priorities: 39 percent of likely voters say it's
the economy, 28 percent terrorism and 22 percent Iraq.
With an interesting add-on: in 2004, Iraq is
Vietnam, thus the Kerry campaign's emphasis on his war
hero's background.
By 36 percent to 30 percent,
voters are saying that only Kerry can do a good job on
the economy. Fifty-two percent disapprove of Bush on the
economy. But by 2-1, voters are in essence saying that
only Bush can do a good job fighting terrorism. By
nearly as much, 40 percent to 26 percent, they are
saying only Bush can do a good job in Iraq. Bush's
approval rating on terrorism is still a huge 60 percent.
The election may be more than six months away, but at
least for the moment it is being debated on Bush's
terms, and to his total advantage, although Bush has
been under 50 percent in the absolute majority of polls.
Democrats are puzzled: How could Bush have
possibly not floundered with the accumulated Fallujah
and Najaf debacles and the debate on the 9-11
Commission? This means that the massive Bush negative ad
campaign ("John Kerry: Wrong on defense") has reached
its Karl Rove-masterminded target. In the maze of
poll-land, Bush always wins, as much as national
security and war hit the front page - even if they
invariably hit the front page in the form of very bad
news. Even when voters learn that Saudis are more
important to the Bush system than Colin Powell - with
the added benefit of being willing to contribute with
cheap oil for his re-election - Bush's numbers don't
sink.
A new poll by the University of Maryland's
Program in International Policy Attitudes suggests that
as late as mid-March, 57 percent of Americans believed
that Saddam Hussein had supported al-Qaeda, quoting
"clear evidence" found in Iraq; 45 percent believed
Saddam had WMD before the war; and 72 percent of these
say they will vote to re-elect Bush (see Bush's believe it or not, April 24).
University of Michigan professor and Middle East expert
Juan Cole comments that "if it were accepted that Saddam
had virtually nothing to do with al-Qaeda, that he had
no weapons of mass destruction ... and that no evidence
for such things has been uncovered after the US and its
allies have had a year to comb through Ba'ath documents
- if all that is accepted, then President Bush's
credibility would suffer. For his partisans, it is
absolutely crucial that the president retain his
credibility. Therefore, rather than face reality, they
rejigger it to create a fantasy world in which Saddam
and Osama [bin Laden] are buddies."
So the
United States in 2004 seems to be indeed a "polarized
nation". Roughly, the dies are cast. Bush has a hold on
45 percent of the voters, no matter what happens.
Another 45 percent of the voters are ABB (Anybody But
Bush), not exactly John Kerry fans. This leaves a
crucial 10 percent of voters swinging back and forth.
The "escape to paradise" version of political
strategists, Republican and Democrat alike, is to
capture the largest chunk of these 10 percent.
The view from on high Executives and
the not-so-idle rich make up roughly 0.1 percent of the
US population. But they are responsible for no less that
83 percent of political contributions in this country.
For most of them, Bush is indeed God. F Scott Fitzgerald
observed that the rich are different. Wall Street, at
least for the moment, is betting on Bush.
In
February - according to the latest data available by the
Center for Responsive Politics - Bush got almost $6
million from financial corporations, compared with $1.3
million for Kerry. Major Bush-boosters include Merrill
Lynch, UBS, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Credit
Suisse First Boston. Bush raised four times more cash
from Goldman Sachs than Kerry. But Goldman Sachs vice
chairman Robert Hormats says Kerry is set to raise much
more in the coming weeks because Wall Street is "worried
about Iraq and worried about the deficit".
This
fuses with talk in the wealthy salons of Park Avenue.
It's not uncommon to hear the well-heeled talk of Bush
Jr misdirecting the ship of state toward chimerical
escapades: a polite way of characterizing Iraq as the
Mother of All Strategic Blunders (attacking the wrong
target). Iraq is also considered "bad for business".
More than $500 billion of deficits have destabilized the
well-heeled's holdings. And the Bush clique, "quite a
few Jews and zealots", in the words of a snob, is viewed
with extreme suspicion.
The anti-Bush feeling in
the well-to-do set derives from a very clear fact. The
people in control in Washington have forgotten about
their first priority: to protect the assets of the
ruling class. This may spell big, big trouble for Bush
in the next few months. As an investment banker puts it,
"sooner or later people will start questioning why the
half-a-trillion [dollar] military budget simply does not
protect us from the half-a-trillion [dollar] trade
deficit".
Meanwhile, on ground level, the
atmosphere in New York is overwhelmingly fatalistic.
From Harlem to Ground Zero, most New Yorkers seem to
agree that the White House will do anything to win - or
steal - the coming election. There is widespread talk of
an October Surprise - a spectacular political
manipulation such as the capture of Osama bin Laden.
Fresh from breakfast at Tiffany's, a Park Avenue lady
and self-confessed disillusioned Republican sums it all
up: "This looks like a referendum to me. This election
will be Bush against Bush."
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Bush against
Bush
