IS HE THE NEW SMOOT OR HAWLEY?::

Gephardt Beats Clinton (DAVID BROOKS, 11/01/03, NY Times)

For three decades the Democrats have been split on trade, but you'd never know it from this campaign. Just as the Democratic field is chasing Howard Dean on Iraq, it is chasing Dick Gephardt on trade -- and repudiating Clinton. It is impossible to imagine the next Democratic presidential candidate pushing free-trade deals the way the last one did.

How has this shift happened? George Bush has played a role. Opposition to his policies has mobilized the liberals and quieted the Democratic centrists, pushing the party left on a number of issues. The unions have played a role. Under revitalized leadership, they've increased their influence on the party, if not the country.

But Gephardt has been crucial. If he had abandoned his position when the New Democrats were in vogue, or when Al Gore was crushing Ross Perot in debate, the protectionist side of the arguments would have collapsed.

Moreover, he's made his trade position politically palatable. He used to project himself as an economic nationalist -- as the protector of American jobs against those low-wage foreigners. Now he presents himself as a global liberal, insisting on international environmental and worker standards before trade deals are signed. The policy results are the same -- more trade barriers -- but now it sounds more humane.

Bill Clinton's one worthwhile legacy is Free Trade, but it consists of signing treaties that Republican presidents proposed and Republicans in Congress passed. One would think that the upper-class/upper-middle class Bobos who support the Democratic Party, and socked it in for Bill Clinton in particular, would be more troubled by its dangerously anti-free trade ideology.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 1, 2003 7:41 AM