Good news. Did you hear about the Republican primary for governor in California? The far right voted their conscience and brought down Riordan. Anyway, Krugman was pushing it again in his latest column: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/08/opinion/08KRUG.html which is on Bush's anti-free market steel policy.
"It's possible that Mr. Clinton's determination to do what he believed was right on international trade cost the Democrats the White House — not just because West Virginia's electoral votes provided Mr. Bush with his winning margin, but because Mr. Clinton's free-trade policies fueled Ralph Nader's spoiler campaign."
Is this true? I supported Nader but was ambivalent on Clinton's free-trade policies. Nader's message was that both parties are on their knees to corporate America and those of us who supported Nader were not surprised by the Enron/Andersen debacle in the least (btw Andersen will be indicted soon). I bet Nader would have gone along with Europe's suggestion (and Krugman's?) that the way to deal with the steel industry's woes would be for the government to buy out the pension plans (with tax money raised from the rich and corporate America of course).
Krugman's incorrect in that right and wrong were never part of the equation in Clinton's thinking (with the possible exception of Northern Ireland). His policies, and Shrub's, support the theory that the Democrats, especially the New Democrats, are the party of international capital whilst the Repugs are the party of local, nationalist capital and industry.
Peter