It would have been friendlier to labor, but not so friendly as to alienate business. It probably would have been more enthusiastic about globalization and free trade than Mr. Bush may actually prove to be. Its foreign and economic policies would have been those of the business interests that supported the Clinton administration and profited from having done so, and which largely financed the Gore campaign. We know what happened to candidates Buchanan and Nader. If a candidate today is not acceptable to the corporate mainstream, he is unelectable.
Corporate money determines national policy, and even foreign policy.
Under Mr. Clinton, industry successfully promoted the U.S. intervention with helicopters and arms into the struggle in Colombia. A national missile defense system, to which the Bush administration is committed, is an aerospace industry program, not a national security program. Most foreign policy specialists and independent systems analysts regard it as a technologically misconceived response to a vastly exaggerated threat. Mr. Bush's supporters are already promoting a new threat, which promises to be as costly to counter as building a shield against rogue missiles. A congressionally appointed commission led by Mr. Bush's pick for secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, calls for measures against the hostile-nation menace to U.S. satellites.