[Occupymendocino] The Real Referendum

[Mark Safron]

The Real Referendum
By Paul Krugman, The New York Times

01 October 12

 
Republicans came into this campaign believing that it would be a referendum on President Obama, and that still-high unemployment would hand them victory on a silver platter. But given the usual caveats - a month can be a long time in politics, it's not over until the votes are actually counted, and so on - it doesn't seem to be turning out that way.

Yet there is a sense in which the election is indeed a referendum, but of a different kind. Voters are, in effect, being asked to deliver a verdict on the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society, on Social Security, Medicare and, yes, Obamacare, which represents an extension of that legacy. Will they vote for politicians who want to replace Medicare with Vouchercare, who denounce Social Security as "collectivist" (as Paul Ryan once did), who dismiss those who turn to social insurance programs as people unwilling to take responsibility for their lives?

If the polls are any indication, the result of that referendum will be a clear reassertion of support for the safety net, and a clear rejection of politicians who want to return us to the Gilded Age. But here's the question: Will that election result be honored?

(If exit polls show that a majority voted for Obama but the vote "count" goes to Romney; I think we might have our own "Spring" this fall. I don't think the people will stand for another election like 2000 where Gore won by 500,000 votes; but 5 people - "The Supremes" decided for Bush without ALL the votes being counted in Florida. I find this thought very unsettling. Maybe I should get my paranoids removed.   M.S.) 


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