RALEIGH – The weekend papers were full of news that first-term U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina is putting together a serious campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. In the Raleigh News & Observer, for example, Washington correspondent John Wagner traveled to Iowa to see Edwards work a union crowd (see http://www.newsobserver.com/sunday/front/Story/845671p-831347c.html).
Wagner’s story played up the possibility that North Carolina might join other states in moving its primary from May until February. While possibly helping Edwards get an early win, the switch might also hurt him by further “front-loading” the Democratic race, thus giving the advantage to Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, Tom Daschle, or Dick Gephardt — the Dems with far greater name recognition, organizational advantages, and experience.
Okay, the primary switch remains an important tactical issue. But it remains far off. I think Edwards’ first test as a potential presidential candidate comes much earlier, on the issue of trade. GOP lawmakers from North Carolina like Robin Hayes and Sue Myrick are already getting slammed by labor unions and other protectionist lobbies for their approval of a bill giving President George W. Bush so-called “fast-track” negotiating authority. Some North Carolina workers,executives, and other misguided souls are blaming NAFTA, GATT, and free trade in general for the state’s manufacturing woes, although this is evidence more of the state of economic illiteracy than anything else.
But politically, protectionism retains some potency, particularly among Democratic constituencies. At the Iowa labor event, Edwards reportedly boasted of his deep roots among “working people.” Will he take the pandering further and opt against free trade to please union voters in the Democratic primary — and at home? Might seem like a safe bet, except that one of the things about Bill Clinton’s New Democrats that made them attractive to swing voters as well as donors in the high-tech field and other export industries was that they had abandoned the old-style protectionism of their forefathers and made peace with the world economy.
Indeed, one might argue that Clinton’s (and Gore’s) free trade policies were the saving grace of the previous administration, helping (along with the inflation-busting of Alan Greenspan’s Fed) to cut the government’s effective tax burden on the economy to offset Clinton’s 1993 tax hikes and thus permit healthy growth.
Free trade, in other words, is what saved Clinton’s bacon and repositioned the Democrats to be competitive in a political climate where grown-ups see the worldwide economy as an opportunity, not a threat. If Edwards sides with the protectionists, then he’ll be exposed as a Democratic throwback, not a leader of the future.