Huh? Does the name Robert Rubin mean anything to you? Who ran around the world prying open capital markets? Contrast that with the Bushies, who have no Wall Streeters of any consequence in the admin, and a former industrialist at Treasury.
And "domestic" industry is far more Republican than the multinational kind. Who do you think is the driving force behind gutting regulations and letting the minimum wage erode? If anything, the Reps are the party of certain regions and industrial sectors, and the Dems friendlier to capital-as-a-whole.
I sez:
Doug's right. The NAM wing of productive capital -- profit-squeezed manufacturers oriented largely if not exclusively to the US market -- firmly backs the Republican Party. In addition to the economic reasons for this, which Doug elucidates, there are also overlapping cultural and regional affinities. Think of evangelical textile magnates from the South (who would have backed Boll Weevil Democrats until the end of Jim Crow), small-scale industrial parts and components makers lodged in greenfield parks of antiseptic Sun Belt exurbia, and so on. The TNC's and globally-oriented finance capital play both sides of the fence. Clinton and company were much more constisent advocates for "free trade" and overseas capital market liberalization than Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 (especially Reagan and Bush 43). The 80's were the halcyon days of voluntary export restraints and other non-tarrif barriers. Bush 41 tried unsuccessfully to fend off Clinton and Perot with all kinds of corporate welfare goodies for large-scale rice farmers in South Carolina and such. Bush 43's protectionist antics of late speak for themselves. When it's time to up the ante and use the unilateralist stick (instead of the multilateralist carrot) to force concessions from "trade and investment partners," you wanna have the Republicans in executive office.
John Gulick
_________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail