Robert Kuttner
Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, and professor at Brandeis University's Heller School. His latest book is Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism? In addition to writing for the Prospect, he writes for HuffPost, The Boston Globe, and The New York Review of Books.
Follow Bob at his site, robertkuttner.com, and on Twitter.
Recent Articles
America's Children
Robert KuttnerDec 19, 2001I t's no accident that politicians kiss babies. America is a nation that professes to love its children. Yet the policies we have in place to raise the next generation are those of a nation that kisses children off. This special report offers a tour of the horizon. In the opening piece, Janet C. Gornick and Marcia K. Meyers bring news that may surprise a lot of American readers: The European welfare state is far from dead, at least in the way that it eases the work-family straddle. Europe's profamily policies have profound implications, not just for the well-being of children but for the changing role of gender in paid work and nurturing. If we want mothers and fathers to have equal opportunities, both at home and in the workplace, somebody competent needs to be looking after children. Otherwise, someone suffers. If not children, then parents. If not parents, then children. If not our working selves, our parenting selves. Visit TAP Online's Special Segment on Children and Families Our...
Comment: Civics as Politics
Robert KuttnerDec 19, 2001V oting turnout is very likely to decline again this year. Some of the decline reflects the fact that both candidates are widely seen as boring. But dwindling voter interest also represents a long-term trend. In this issue of the Prospect , "Rousing the Democratic Base" by Robert Dreyfuss underscores what political scientists have long observed: The mobilization of voters is not a generic civic process but rather the work of engaged political organizations committed to a particular viewpoint and candidate. In this case, the labor movement and the NAACP are working hard to get out the vote, presumably for the Democrats and Al Gore. If Gore should win, it will not be because working- and middle-class voters suddenly grasped the value of Gore's program, but because activist groups took the trouble to organize prospective Gore supporters. Oddities of our tax laws and campaign finance system do not quite require these worthy groups to acknowledge what they are doing, especially when they...
Opposition as Opportunity
With Republicans in narrow control of Congress, Democrats should think big.
Robert KuttnerDec 19, 2001At this writing, there is a chance that the courts may yet order a Florida rerun, but the next president is likely to be George W. Bush. Where does this leave progressives? The task of a political opposition is to prevent damage in the short run and rebuild for the long term--and this could be a more propitious moment than it seems. For starters, Bush's win would be the shallowest mandate in more than a century. Gore's issues did a lot better than Gore did. Conservative themes, such as tax cutting, limits on reproductive choice, the privatization of Social Security, and the voucherization of Medicare, simply did not resonate with voters. Instead of being angry at government, the public was dismayed by the assaults of the market. Voters plainly agreed with progressive Democrats on most policy questions, and Democrats in Congress are now freed from the crosscurrents of Clintonism to be a more progressive party. So the challenge for progressives and Democrats is to resist the temptation...
Beyond The Spin, Deep Differences
Robert KuttnerDec 19, 2001After one of the emptiest political conventions on record, the stage is actually set for a very consequential November election. Though the Republicans did their best to camouflage it,theirs remains a highly conservative program. There really are enormous differences of substance between the two major candidates. If the election can be made to turn on issues, it probably cuts in Al Gore's favor. If it turns on atmospherics and personality, the winner will likely be George W. So all eyes now shift to Gore: Can he rouse the electorate to focus on issues? Can he rouse himself to be a plausible messenger? And can the voters grow up? Watching the Republican National Convention, it was difficult to believe the atmospherics fooled anybody. Writing in The New York Times, editorialist Brent Staples referred to the over-representation of black and brown symbols at a mostly white party as Minstrelsy. The real divisions within the GOP over issues such as abortion rights were denied prime airtime...
What Makes People Think Bush Has Won?
Robert KuttnerDec 19, 2001''Politics ain't beanbag'' -- Finley Peter Dunne One of the many oddities of this cliffhanger election is what might be called the entitlement gap. Right from election night, the Republicans have behaved as if the election was theirs, while Vice President Gore has temporized. This sense of Republican entitlement in turn translates into a partisan rage that if Gore should win,the election will have been stolen. But consider: It's pretty clear that more Florida voters intended to vote for Gore. At least 19,000 votes in Palm Beach County were voided because they were punched twice, reflecting voter confusion over which hole meant Gore and which one meant Buchanan. These were nearly all Gore votes. Another 3,000 or so Palm Beach voters who voted for Buchanan meant to vote for Gore. There is also the plain illegality that some 15,000 absentee ballot applications in Seminole County that should have been disqualified as incomplete were cleaned up by Republican election officials. So Gore...
