Quote:
Originally posted by: Mavdog
There was a huge amopunt of opposition from the conservative side of the aisle to both the deregulation of the telecommunication industry, and a great deal of vocal opposition to NAFTA. I certainly never saw Perot as anything but a conservative, and he was very vocal in opposing NAFTA. Remember "that great sucking sound"?
The Democrat platform is not protectionist, it is not proposing to reinstate regulation where it has been removed (save for environmental issues), and is for open markets. Perhaps you're confusing it with the Green Party platform.
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Sigh. So many comments.
First, Perot was not a conservative. Pro-choice; anti-free trade; wanted to raise taxes; cut military spending. I could go on, but I won't. In reality, he was a single issue candidate-the deficit. I am not saying he was a liberal either. There are people that are neither, you know?
Second, there were a lot of people opposed to NAFTA. If you want to break it down by interest groups, you have farmers, ranchers, small business owners. You can say they are all GOP-leaners (you'd be wrong, but you can say it). On the other side were the unions who hated it then and hate it now. It really was a miracle the damn thing passed. But it squeaked by because it was in the best interest of the country as a whole, which is how things like that work. BTW, Clinton got it passed, but the Bush administration negotiated it. There is zero doubt in my mind that Bush would have gotten it passed, too.
You use protectionist and regulation and environment in the same sentence, but all three have dramatically idfferent meaning in a political sense. "Protectionism" is a free trade concept. The democratic by and large is protectionist, because that is what the unions want. Regulation is not really related to trade, but rather the conduct of business in this country, which republicans tend to oppose and democrats tend to favor, in all areas, not just the environment.