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Jewish World Review Oct. 12, 1999 /2 Mar-Cheshvan, 5760

Cal Thomas

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Econophone

The shape of things to come

http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
IF THE 2000 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN were a movie, we'd now be watching the trailer.

From the Democrat perspective, it appears the campaign will be run, as usual, on a strategy of dividing the country along racial, class and gender lines.

While he has talked about ending racism and uniting the country, President Clinton continues to exploit racial divisiveness with far more subtlety, but almost as effectively, as the segregationists once did. Al Gore can be expected to do the same.

Following the Senate's rejection of Judge Ronnie White to a U.S. District Court judgeship because his record on crime and the death penalty was not to the liking of Republican senators, Clinton claimed the Senate was engaged in extended delays in considering Latinos for judicial positions. The president made his charge before the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute in Chicago. Hispanics and Latinos are a prime target of both parties because they will soon replace African-Americans as the largest minority.

It matters not that the Senate has confirmed four Latinos, four women and an African-American among the 19 Clinton nominees so far this year. Nor does it matter that White was the first judicial nominee to be rejected in 12 years. Minorities have been taught by liberalism that they are victims, never masters, of their lives. Such demagoguery still resonates in their respective communities.

In the class war, Democrats will continue to brandish the idea that when certain people don't have as much money as other people, it is the fault of the other people. That's why both Vice President Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley have spending plans that would consume the entire projected $1 trillion surplus for the next 10 years. They claim such plans would capitalize on America's prosperity. In fact, it would stem America's prosperity, as spending by a majority Democrat Congress and many state legislatures did in the '80s, leading to a recession.

Health care is replacing abortion and other social issues as the center of both party campaigns. It is a truism that human nature demands more and more from others and, if it can get it, will not settle for less. It takes discipline and leadership to argue for doing things for oneself and calling on government only after individual initiative and right choices have failed.


If Texas Gov. George W. Bush is the GOP nominee, he must "compassionately,'' but forcefully, explain that the less government does, the more freedom each of us has.

Medical savings accounts (MSAs), rather than government-sponsored and regulated care, are the ticket to competition and individual choice, which will simultaneously improve care and control costs. MSAs also encourage individuals to take better care of themselves because part of their medical expenses come from their own pockets.

Women, who have for so long been lied to about so many things, especially abortion, will be told by Democrats that only their party can best serve women's interests. Has it ever has been in the best interest of women to kill their unborn children?

Don't believe what you're reading about a "weak'' Al Gore. He'll come back, and accompanying his campaign will be hysterical and apocalyptic diatribes against all things Republican. "Robert Bork's America'' of "back-alley abortions'' will be nothing compared to what Democrats cook up in 2000 when the Supreme Court and the House of Representatives will be up for grabs. That's why Gore has hired Donna Brazile as his campaign manager. In 1988, while working for the Walter Mondale campaign, Brazile spread a rumor that President George Bush was having an affair, and she was forced to resign. But scandal and bad judgment are not disqualifiers for Democrats.

We are seeing the shape of things to come.

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