BBC On The Record - Broadcast: 24.09.00

Film: DEMOCRAT VT Iain Watson looks at what lessons Labour can learn from Al Gore and the Democrats in the United States.



IAIN WATSON: The message is getting through to Labour MPs...the fuel crisis has caused unprecedented political volatility, and when they return to the Commons next month, even those in apparently safe seats will be a little jittery. To be sure of a working majority after the next election, Labour must reconnect with its voters Labour strategists at their Millbank headquarters here in London are devising a delicate balancing act - an election campaign which seeks to reawaken their catatonic core support without losing all those people who voted for them for the first time back in 1997. And they are looking west for inspiration. All eyes are on the US elections, where the democrats candidate, Al Gore, is pulling ahead in a tight presidential race. STAN GREENBERG: They believe the changes that took place on the right with Ronald Reagan and that took place on the left with Bill Clinton, you know, pre- stage changes that eventually took place in Britain and Europe, so I think they'll be watching closely in my experience ROBERT REICH: I would suspect watching from this side of the Atlantic that after Tony Blair modelled new labour after the new democrats of 1992, that were Al Gore successful with his sort of midpoint position between old and new democrat that Tony Blair may make similar kind of modifications MATTHEW TAYLOR: On the one hand they need a message which appeals to the grass roots, populist rhetoric which gets out their core vote, but on the other hand the policies have still got to be centre ground in order that they can attract a majority that gets them into power, WATSON: That's why labour are paying such close attention to the US elections. This is Detroit, Michigan's motor town -if Al Gore can produce a win here, he could be well on his way to the white house. Detroit is the home of Motown records, but, to outsiders at least, it can appear to be pretty soulless. As the centre of the US auto industry, it's home to a high concentration of blue collar workers. It's this 'base support' as the Americans call it which Al Gore must motivate if he wants to hold on to high office. As vice president, Al Gore used to live in Bill Clinton's shadow. But now he's the frontman, and with the help of new advisers, he's manufactured a more distinctive image - his old reassuring tone has been replaced by a more radical rhetoric. His passionate new persona was first paraded at last month's Democrat convention. AL GORE (ACTUALITY) My focus is on working families, people trying to make house payments and car payments, working overtime to save for college and do right by their kids WATSON: His more traditionally-tinged message is going down a treat. But verbally caressing the core support isn't enough - they also have to be persuaded to go out and campaign for victory. In a close race, pulling the vote out on election day, November 7th, will be essential. Gore's strategy appears to be working; the latest poll suggests that nine out of ten registered democrats will support him; and these trade union activists have been inspired enough to sell the political message on the suburban streets of Detroit. So far, the locals are hardly chasing them away. ACTUALITY WATSON: Turnout at presidential elections is low, so trade unionists insist that their contribution must be valued by the Gore campaign. UNNAMED MAN: As labour activists we like to think we're important, we like to think we are the key to the success of democratic candidates, and a few years ago there was a democratic candidate for governor of Michigan that didn't really have the backing of labour, and he got beat pretty badly. WATSON: But these grassroots campaigners also want their payback. UNNAMED WOMAN: He needs to address the minimum wage, get it so that its at a decent level for people who really need it, I mean not everybody can make a good living but we all should, so we can wipe out poverty that exists in America. UNNAMED MAN: When Al Gore talks about health care and issues like that, those are the things that stir democrats or people who think like democrats so its very important he continues down that path. CAMPAIGN ADVERT WATSON: This is the message Gore's hammering home in his campaign ads. They have stressed core voter concerns, such as a higher minimum wage and better health care, while implying that his republican opponent, George W Bush, is in the pocket of big business. The transatlantic traffic in political tactics and ideas is now well established. Bill Clinton's New Democrats won in 1992. That victory, after 12 years in the wilderness inspired Tony Blair's New Labour, which swept the board here in 1997. A team of Labour advisers travelled to the democrats' convention last month in Los Angeles. So Al Gore's tactics are being monitored closely. But a former Clinton adviser is warning Tony Blair that it may be too risky to follow some aspects of the Gore campaign; Gore hasn't won yet. DICK MORRIS: I think that the base of the Labour Party is probably the biggest threat Blair has to his re-election, because they can drive him away from the centre. Whenever a liberal politician, be he Labour or Democrat embraces a labour union, its a little bit like an alcoholic walking into a bar, he may not have a drink, but you're scared nonetheless. WATSON: And, in the US capital, the modernising vanguard of the democratic party is sending a cautionary note. They're warning that a traditional political message could limit the party's electoral appeal. ED KILGORE; Electoral history shows abundantly that shrill 'energise the base campaigns' tend to energise your opponent's base too; its also a simple matter of arithmetic. When you win over a swing vote, you essentially win two votes, you pick one up AND deny one to your opponent; if you energise your base you pick up one vote at most. WATSON: The key to victory is, of course, to pick up votes from everywhere possible. For the democrats to make the running in this campaign, it's not enough simply to inspire the core vote. The so-called 'swing', or floating voters have to be kept firmly on-side, too. Here in Clinton township, local families are watching their children compete on the football field. But they themselves are being just as closely observed from the political sidelines. Al Gore's pollster Stan Greenberg, first came here in 1992. This is the heart of Macomb county in Michigan, about 20 miles outside of Detroit. It had become home to the so-called 'Reagan democrats' America's equivalent if you like of Worcester woman and Mondeo man rolled into one. Stan Greenberg carried out an almost anthropological study of the local inhabitants to find out why so many middle income families had deserted the democrats for the opposition republicans. He advised Bill Clinton to ditch the party's old high tax, high spending image and it paid off. Even to this day the voters of Macomb hold in their hands the key to the presidential race. Their attitudes however have changed, and with it the Democrats' political message. GREENBERG: These voters are much more comfortable with the Democrats, the economy is much stronger than it was, this election's about the future, it's not about the past, Democrats do not have to go into Macomb County and try to apologise for the past or come to terms with the past. WATSON: That message is delighting Labour observers of the campaign. But they are also learning that to hold on to 'swing' voters, you need constantly to reassure them that your on their side. ROBERT REICH: The vice president is certainly trying out some new language - he's not talking solely about 'working families' - that's code for the working class; he's not talking only about middle-class families - he's talking about "hard working families", hard working middle-class families, he's sort of embracing everybody. WATSON: This language comes directly from the mouths of America's 'swing voters' - the sort of people who don't usually think about politics too deeply. But when the political temperature is turned up at election time, and they prepare to make a decision, they prefer to hear from politicians who say they'll look after hard working families like themselves. Debbie is the manageress of Eddie's drive-in diner, at the edge of Macomb county, She's voted republican in the past, but recently, she's become interested in what Al Gore has to offer. DEBBIE: I think what he's doing right is probably the family thing, family man, standing up for the people, lower class people like us, hard working people. WATSON: Al Gore's campaign team have found that delivery is all important. If swing voters can see the benefits of public spending, then they are less attracted to the republicans' proposals for tax cuts that they feel might not add up. UNNAMED WOMAN: If he's gonna stand up for families how's he gonna do that? Is it with taxes, you know tax the rich more than the, than the middle class? I don't know, can he do that? I don't know. WATSON: Do you think you should? UNNAMED WOMAN: Yeah. Yeah absolutely right. UNNAMED MAN: I personally don't mind paying more taxes if I can see something come out of what I'm paying taxes for, the thing that, that irritates me is when they raise the taxes and they raise the taxes and you don't see the services increase. WATSON: The newest film at Michigan's only drive-in movie theatre is The Art of War. The battle ahead for centre-left politicians is to convince enough voters that finding the funding for public services is every bit as important as coughing up cash for a night out. The democrats think the argument is moving their way, and their findings have been passed onto Labour. The distance from Macomb in Michigan to Millbank in London isn't as far as you might think. The voters of this Motown suburb could determine the fate of Al Gore's presidential campaign. But they have another use, too. They could also help determine Labour's future election strategy in the UK. Al Gore's pollster, Stan Greenberg is the business partner of Phillip Gould, Tony Blair's pollster. And his research from over here is making it's way into the hands of key Labour advisers over there. So don't be surprised if you hear some of the phrases and language used by Al Gore in his resurgent campaign in the week ahead - at LABOUR party conference. Stan Greenberg also has close links in his own right with Labour. So the party may borrow more than just the language of the Democrats' campaign - they may also import some of the strategy. Downing Street is keen to go beyond sloganeering, and is impressed by the ability of the Gore team to underpin each piece of populist rhetoric with specific policies. GREENBERG: Specificity was critical, the voters are hungry for, desperate for, specifics, that you respect them enough to tell them how you're going to do this. They are very cynical about rhetoric, you couldn't throw out words like working families and make gains simply on these words, what was powerful was the specificity, and in the speech Al Gore said, he says I know this is going to be boring, it's not what most politicians do, but I'm going to tell you exactly what I want to do, and people appreciate the respect of being told you know what you're going to do, how you're going to do it, how you're going to pay for it. KILGORE Work/family balance and family stress are huge issues, particularly to women who by and large still shoulder a majority of the childcare responsibilities, and it's a real advantage to the democrats, because republicans in this country are listening a bit too much to the business community on this, have consistently resisted family leave expansions or anything else that would annoy the business community. I think, the republicans have made the mistake of assuming that this is a symbolic issue without any bite. WATSON: The democrats very specific policies on the family are playing well with middle class voters in the states, but the former Labour director of Policy thinks that in the current climate his party could be too squeamish to follow suit. TAYLOR: I think the question of whether Labour can emphasise issues like quality of life, depends on how long a shadow is cast by the fuel crisis. If worries about the economy come to the fore, then quality of life issues which have always been around, people have always wanted to talk about them, they tend to be relegated, so I would think I would have said three to six months ago the quality of life would be at the centre of it. I think it's much less clear now. WATSON But the advice coming from Washington is more robust. Parties of the left have the space to stress a quality of life agenda, but as part of a political package which places fiscal prudence in a prominent position. GREENBERG: The sort of things that were done by Clinton and the New Democrats and I'm a big supporter of them. But that laid the foundation for doing different things, new things, now you have to maintain that fiscal balance and you have to constantly talk about it, you can't walk away from it, but within that there is room to do important things, invest in education, securing the retirement system, dealing with the various challenges that families face and the voters I think are willing to look at political leaders who have a social imagination about those issues. WATSON: Here in New York, a former Clinton adviser now makes his money on the information superhighway, running an interactive political web site. so he feels he knows the public mood pretty well - Time magazine called him America's most influential private citizen. He says the left can bang on about fiscal prudence, but voters only see the spending pledges. DICK MORRIS: Whenever a politician whose party is innately of the left gives a message that's a mix of the centre and the left, all the voters see is the left. The metaphor I used to use with Bill Clinton was I said if we had a glass of water here, I'd drink it. Now if we took one drop of ink, and put it in the whole glass of water, I wouldn't drink it, because all of a sudden it would become inky water. So that, that little bit of populism, that little bit of leftism, is so stereotypical coming from the Labour Party, that it jams the centrist message. TAYLOR; I think if Gore wins, it reinforces Blair, and he ought to be able to say to his party to a certain extent to the country, there is a long haul here, and we can win not just a second term, but a third term, we can build incrementally, as long as we stay steady, we stay in the centre ground, and we're patient. WATSON: So if the voters of a swing state such as Michigan rush out to the polls on November 7th to support Al Gore, expect Labour to import some of the democrats' techniques to re-establish Blair's electoral coalition, but if the republicans in the USA can make a comeback, then Labour may have to risk following a more cautious, perhaps even conservative route. Even at the risk of some of its traditional support staying at home.
NB. This transcript was typed from a transcription unit recording and not copied from an original script. Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy.