Many voters in Nevada and Florida probably didn't connect voting for the minimum wage ballot initiatives with voting for John Kerry, even though he endorsed them and his campaign proposed its own raise in the federal minimum wage.
"One of the bright spots in Florida was the passage of the amendment for an increase in the state minimum wage, starting at $6.15 an hour and beginning six months after enactment. The wage is to be annually indexed to inflation thereafter. Amendment 5, one of eight ballot initiatives here, won with 71 percent of the vote, 4,834,437 votes to 1,990,465. It appears that the amendment got more votes than Bush" (Bill Davis and Esther Moroze, "Florida Minimum Wage Amendment Passes," November 6, 2004, <http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/6051/1/239>). Nevada's Question 6, an initiative to raise the state's minimum wage to $6.15 and adjusts it to inflation," also passed, 67.58% to 31.24% ("Ballot Measure Results Contradict Notion of Wide Sweeping Conservative Mandate," November 3, 2004, <http://www.ballot.org/spotlight/2004_results.pdf>).
Why the disconnect?
Kerry's proposal was more conservative than Florida's Amendment 5 and Nevada's Question 6: "Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry today called for raising the minimum wage to $7.00 by 2007", with no indexing to inflation (June 18, 2004, "Kerry Calls for a $7 Minimum Wage to Help Families Get Ahead," <http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0618.html>). If you are an economically populist but socially conservative worker in Florida or Nevada, what makes sense is to vote for the state minimum wage ballot initiative that is more progressive than Kerry's proposal and vote for Bush who is socially conservative. For a presidential campaign that includes socially liberal positions and constituencies to win over economically populist but socially conservative workers, the campaign's populist economic proposal must be so bold and attractive as to override their initial feelings about its positions on abortion, GLBT rights, etc. and leads them to consider working with pro-choice women workers, GLBT workers, etc. in order to make the campaign's economic proposal come true.
It's also a matter of "character," though. Kerry's "character" has been defined as a flip-flopper, leading many voters -- even liberals, not to mention leftists and conservatives -- to think that he may not carry out what he says. His proposal to raise "the minimum wage to $7.00 by 2007," rather than promising an immediate raise, must have sounded to skeptical voters like a way of making the small raise look bigger than it is and creating a wiggle room for not raising the minimum if the economic situation changes after the inauguration.
Finally, a presidential campaign needs the Vision Thing, an exciting vision of a pro-working-class agenda in which the question of minimum wages fit. The Kerry campaign didn't have it, nor will any future Democratic Party presidential candidate's. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>