Obi-Wan’s answer: resist the Dark Side of the Force. Don’t attack the executives, The Rich or Big Business. Be upbeat, and inclusive. Declare that if “everyone plays by the rules,” everyone will prosper. Then propose tough new rules (for accountants, employee stock options and boards of directors, for example). Let Republicans squawk on behalf of corporate America–if they dare to do so.
So, no: the name Martha Stewart will not figure prominently in the 2002 election season now beginning in earnest. Nor will the name Ken Lay, Arthur Andersen or Gary Winick.
It’s the odor the whole ravenous crowd leaves behind that could affect things, if the economy slides back toward recession. For now, President Bush’s still-lofty job-approval ratings provide air cover for GOP candidates. But the combined force of a bearish stock market, falling consumer confidence and revulsion at Enron-style greed could leave the GOP vulnerable. Or so Democratic strategists have begun to hope–and their Republican counterparts have begun to worry.
Trying hard not to forget the master’s lessons, Democrats hope to be smart and surgical as they search for partisan advantage in the moral chaos of Wall Street. They know that voters generally don’t hate the rich–they’d like to join them. They know that many corporate buccaneers are big donors to Democrats, too. (Sam Waksal of ImClone is one.) They know that “corporate accountability,” in and of itself, isn’t near the top of the voters’ hot-button-issues list. Social Security, Medicare, education and the environment are.
But Democrats see political gold on the littered streets of the financial district. Polltaker Stan Greenberg sees the CEO culture as the common thread with which to bundle together tried-and-true Republican vulnerabilities. The argument: that the GOP is championing market-based proposals–private savings accounts for Social Security, an insurance-based prescription-drug plan–because big companies want them, not because they are sensible or fair. “Enron is now about a lot more than just Enron,” says Greenberg. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are pushing a bill calling for vast new supervisory powers (including a new regulatory agency) to oversee the conduct of publicly traded corporations.
Until recently, this was all just summer heat lightning to Republicans–not evidence of an impending storm. In his now famous “slipped disc” strategy memo, Karl Rove, the White House political consigliere, didn’t think enough of the “corporate accountability” issue to propose any specific measures to counter it.
But GOP consultants outside the White House are getting nervous. Bush needs to clean up Wall Street, says Republican polltaker Bill McInturff, not because the Democrats are attacking–but because he needs to restore the confidence of investors, including tens of millions of middle-class stockholders. If he doesn’t succeed, McInturff says, the overall economy will deteriorate, and then the Democratic attacks will work. “I think we should be more aggressive in reminding people of what we have done.” Bush took note of the rising concern late last week. “In this era, where we expect for there to be personal responsibility in America, we expect there to be corporate responsibility as well,” he said. In other words, everyone has to play by the same rules. That was Clinton’s suggested message. Bush is shrewd to use it. Now he’s got to enforce it–for the sake of his party and the country.
