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SAN DIEGO: For all the hype the California Senate race has generated,
the differences between the candidates are not that substantial. Indeed,
you can trace the movement of the San Andreas fault line of California
politics by looking at Matt Fong's and Barbara Boxer's similarities.
In this moderate-middle ground the politicians are tough on crime, green-lite
on the environment, favor legal abortion, favor a foreign policy that
keeps America safe and an economy that keeps American's working.
Both Fong and Boxer want additional money to raise pay and benefits
for the military. Both support the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on
gays in the military and both back expansion of NATO to include Poland,
the Czech Republic and Hungary. Boxer is the unabashedly pro-choice
candidate. Fong has had to do more of the Republican tap dance on the
issue, trying to please moderates without antagonizing the anti-abortion-under-any-circumstance
wing of the Republican Party. Both agree, however, that a woman has
the right to chose an abortion in the first trimester and both favor
a ban on late-term abortions, although Boxer favors an exemption where
the mother's health is involved.
Both are "tough on crime" and support the 1994 Federal ban on 19 forms
of semi-automatic assault weapons, though Boxer wishes to expand the
ban on new categories of guns. On the environment, both support existing
offshore drilling moratoriums. Both believe Federal law should be changed
to allow patients to sue HMOs in disputes over care, although Fong wants
to place limits on money judgements. On such minor differences, the
fate of the nation does not hinge.
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Where then, does the divide still loom? The Air Force Reserve lieutenant
colonel favors additional spending to promote combat readiness and to
resurrect and deploy "Star Wars" technologies. The mother and former
Marin County Supervisor favors increased readiness spending funded by
cuts in "unnecessary" weapons systems like "star wars." Fong distrusts
open-ended peacekeeping missions and excessive U.S. fraternization with
international organizations. Fong represents a trend in post-cold war
Republicanism: a return to pre-cold war isolationism. Boxer reflects
Democratic internationalism, supporting U.S. peacekeeping operations around
the world and a commitment to a multilateral foreign policy. Yet Fong
is the free trade advocate while Boxer is hostile to NAFTA.
On the economy, Boxer favors traditional New Deal-style fiscal stimuli,
targeting research and experimentation tax credits and reductions in
capital gains taxes on profits from start-up companies. Fong, the supply-side
Republican, favors a new flat-tax code (with and exemption for mortgage
interest), abolition of inheritance taxes, an end to the marriage penalty
and some form of social security privatization.
The national swing to the right in the '80s and '90s did not bury liberalism
or destroy the New Deal. The national pendulum that swung far left in
the '60s, may well have overcompensated in its swing to the right, and
now heads back to the new American middle.
--Carl Luna & Joe Mac McKenzie
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