Paul Vitello: 'At $6 an hour, who needs a tax cut?'
Date: Saturday, March 13 @ 08:44:05 EST
Topic: Commander-In-Thief
By Paul Vitello, Newsday
It was upbeat, precise, as organized as a meeting of the board of directors, framed at beginning and end with rousing music -- a near-perfect campaign stop:
President George W. Bush arrived on schedule. He gave his speech. He moderated a panel of five people on a makeshift stage in front of a sign that said "Strengthening America's Economy." He wove their stories seamlessly into the fabric of his re-election campaign. He engaged in self-deprecating humor that even a detractor might find charming.
And then he left -- to a standing ovation -- shaking hands all the way to the exit door of U.S.A. Industries in Bay Shore, where his campaign made this first of three stops on Long Island yesterday.
Security people kept reporters from interviewing the workers at U.S.A. until the president was on the way to his next stop.
But when workers were finally interviewed -- these people who made up the bulk of the president's cheering audience in New York -- Bush's performance turned out to be, if anything, even more impressive.
"No speak English," said the first worker, smiling apologetically.
"No speak English," said the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth workers way-laid in the crowd.
But you think the tax cuts should be made permanent, as he says?
"Sorry, no English," said another.
It is possible that President Bush could have drawn a crowd of several hundred at lunchtime on the streets of Bay Shore to cheer his economic policies, which can be summed up in two words: tax cuts.
But if that crowd is ready-made -- the work force of a small auto parts factory whose owner has received tax breaks from the Republican-run state and town governments, and who employs large numbers of non-English speaking immigrants happy to work for $6 to $9 an hour with few benefits -- why bother?
"I understand him a little bit English," said Nubia Guzman, a packer who said she earns $7.50 an hour after four years on a job that Bush had described in his speech as evidence of the success of his tax cutting economic policies. She has no health coverage.
What did you like about him? she was asked.
"He nice," she said.
This may be all that matters in the long run. The candidate who wins is usually the one people like the look and sound of, not the one they have listened closely to. In this particular crowd, anyway, there were probably few voters. Of those who spoke English, few said they were registered.
It is the not-so-secret secret of every presidential campaign that most crowds at most campaign stops are so much stage prop. They are there to make a certain amount of noise, to look like a constituency the candidate hopes to win the votes of -- in the Bay Shore factory, Hispanic voters -- and to be as unsurprising and well-behaved as security arrangements can make them.
The campaigner is the only one with a speaking part in these entertainments. And in yesterday's performance, Bush was a star. It almost didn't matter that most of his audience didn't understand a word he said. He gave off an aura of optimism that was magnetic.
In fact, he used the word optimism at least eight times during his presentation. "I hope you get a feeling of the optimism ... " he said. "It's gotta make you optimistic ... " he said. "I am very optimistic about the future ... "
He was as upbeat as those people who do hour-long info-mercials.
Optimism poured out of him.
Optimism apparently will be one of the themes of his campaign. You don't have to like Bush to see the brilliance of it. It is apparently the counter-punch to the relentless attack of his presumed democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who criticizes Bush for what he terms Bush's many failures: failures of economic policy, of foreign policy, of environmental and domestic policies, of political vision.
Optimism is a deep vein in the psyche of all people, Americans especially; and if Bush succeeds at bottling it for his campaign, he will win.
What would you like to do with your life?, a shipping clerk at U.S.A. Industries named Wil Romero was asked. He is 26 years old. He thought for a moment.
"I would like to be an American citizen," he said.
Copyright 2004, Newsday, Inc.
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Priceless.
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