« Sporadic Posting | Main | Louisiana: Gov. Race Wrap-Up »
Thursday, November 20, 2003
North Carolina: We Can Always Dream
Posted by DavidNYCFor some reason, some Dems want to believe that North Carolina is competitive on the presidential level. My only guess is that folks who are familiar with the relatively liberal "Triangle" area (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) over-generalize about the political nature of the state as a whole. In any event, though I think NC is firmly out of reach for us (margin: 13%), it's always nice to read things like this:
When the Bush administration moved on Tuesday to impose import quotas on certain Chinese textiles and clothing, it was responding to a furious outcry from North Carolina businesses, workers and elected officials....
But even as textile executives and unions attribute their woes to China, there are questions whether quotas like those proposed by the White House - temporary limits on the growth of imports of Chinese knitted fabrics, robes and bras - would do much to solve their problems.
Like most manufacturers, textile makers have been eliminating jobs for years, in large part to become more competitive in price. But they still face enormous pressure from low-wage countries, to the point where some economists question the practicality of trying to hang on to such work for Americans.
...
But people here have little patience for arguments about trade theory and global competition, and they are putting considerable pressure on President Bush.
Textile companies and their employees are organizing get-out-the-vote drives and warning that even ordinarily reliable Republican voters will turn against Mr. Bush and his allies in Congress if they fail to address their demands.
"The Solid South is no longer the Solid South for George W. Bush," said Jason C. Copland, executive vice president of Copland Fabrics and James's son. When Mr. Bush visited Winston-Salem earlier this month and talked about the need to retrain workers displaced by shifting trade patterns, people here were not soothed. "It was kind of like a slap in the face," the younger Mr. Copland said. "Why are we sending jobs over to Communist China? It was just like he didn't get it." [Emphasis added.]
From a purely political perspective (economic policy aside), tariffs in general just seem like a terrible path to choose these days. As soon as you favor one industry with tariffs, another comes clamoring for aid. Textile manufacturers are, unsurprisingly, pushing for a much broader array of tariffs than the Bush administration has implemented - in fact, they want to see all $10 billion of China's exports covered by trade "safeguards".
This time, though, the industry likely to be adversely affected by tariffs - clothing retailers - is very likely to put up a fight. That's because Wal-Mart knows how acutely higher clothing costs would hurt their always-narrow profit margins, especially at a time when its customers are shopping as frugally as possible.
Even if the textile industry winds up with just scraps, and even if the frustration in those quarters continues to boil over, I still think, as I noted above, that things won't be close in North Carolina. But anything that causes Karl Rove to spit out his morning coffee in anger should make Dems happy. (We know it's gotta be Rove and not Dubya because our President doesn't read the papers.) And if it forces the GOP to spend a few extra bucks in an otherwise safe state, that's good news for us.
Anyhow, the more important question is how Democrats ought to handle this situation. Old-school guys like Sen. Ernest Hollings (who's retiring soon, anyway) have long supported tariffs. But will free traders be tempted to back protectionist policies to score points against Bush, and if they do, will that in turn hurt them with other industries? Is there a middle path we can walk? I'm really not sure, but I hope that every politician to the right of Hollings on the issue of trade is thinking about this one.
(Wal-Mart link via CalPundit.)
Posted at 12:25 AM in Safe States | Technorati
Comments
Actually NC is not out of the Dems reach.
It's important to remember that in the last presidential election the Democrat vote was seriously depressed in several states.
One of them was NC.
(I've got to go. More soon I hope)
Posted by: A.E at November 20, 2003 12:55 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Please put a link to our site on yours. We are LevisayWeb.com and on our site are links to others liberal sites, authors, commentary, and humor. Also, there is a group of political verses under the title "The Chronicles of Compassion or, A Trip to Emerald City." Some of what we have to say might inspire others and we want to be a part of the project to gain reasonable, viable change for our republic.
suzanne levisay
Posted by: Suzanne Levisay at August 21, 2004 08:02 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Agh. Blog spam!
On the other hand, how sweet to see this article again. David (if you ever see this again): Wouldn't you agree that NC, while still tantalizingly out of reach, is a lot more competitive than anyone would have guessed back in November?
Posted by: osterizer at August 21, 2004 08:55 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment