European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 15, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday. November 15, 1993 commentary the stars and stripes Page 17 Naftal an important moment in . History -.-. I. I .,./" Willuam f. Buckley vice president Al Gore had a problem Las tuesday night that he could not disclose. He had taken the right preliminary precautions which were to conduct the Exchange so to speak in camera no audience in the room no aides Only Larry King. This shielded Gore from f he predictable effects of Yahoo enthusiasm which is the kind of thing Ross Perot mostly  Gore could not afford to treat Perot in the Way he deserved. The reason for this is that the White House does t want to antagonize All those people who Are vaguely pro Perot either because they have taken a fancy to him or More generally because they think of him As a useful iconoclast where the government is concerned. Gore had to try to win his Points without alienating the followers of the person he bested. That is very difficult. I am experienced in debate and i can think of a dozen occasions in which i have scored triumphantly on the motion being debated and thoroughly antagonized the audience. Even in the extra political world that can be a problem. When a College debating team opposes another an the contest is won or lost by voice vote of the audience you run into such situations Don t make the audience members sorry for the person you Are about to crucify or they la express their compassion by voting against you what Gore could t risk was mobilizing the Perot people to High pitch of retaliatory passion. But the result was an emasculated performance in which Gore never summoned the authority that inheres in the position he takes. He was instead the Nice Guy who. Pleads the simple idealism of his cause that kind of thing does t work with Perot though in the course of the 90 minutes the wounds inflicted on Perot were mostly his own doing. A two or three minute twangy sequence of exhortations by Perot can attract both sympathy and amusement. Ninety minutes of it tends to make an audience yearn for the next act. The closest that Gore came to being personal in his arguments was on the strangest ground. It had to do with the fort Worth Airport and the viewer walked away from the prolonged sawing on this Point with the vague impression that Gore was telling us that Perot stands to gain commercially from the defeat of the North american free Trade agreement to the extent that such a defeat would heighten the value of the Airport in which he has a major interest. Perot was strangely awkward in his handling of the question. He kept insisting that the equity in the Airport was his sons not his. But audiences Don t generally distinguish Between the property of the fatherland of the son. But the major error was psychological. It is simply not convincing that someone Worth a few billion dollars is going to take a political position based on his personal commercial interests in a tiny spare room of his Empire. If Perot were primarily interested in enhancing a Fortune already redundant he would not be spending As much Money As he is advertising his views and himself. Gore should have no difficulty at All in understanding this. After All the prize he himself lusted for in 1988 was the presidency. Who can put Cash value on the singular satisfactions of holding that office and if Bill Clinton was willing for All those years to serve As governor in Exchange for $35,000 Peryear a Small fraction of what his talented wife was making As a lawyer for hire Why should one be surprised if Ross Perot is seeking satisfactions other than commercial Gore seemed fixed on the matter of the Cost of the anti Naftal Campaign. We do not need to doubt that an enormous amount of Money has been spent to try to defeat Naftal. But the Point is not particularly relevant. In the first place Money is also being spent in favor of Naftal. And Naftal in t the kind of thing that gets decided by the number of dollars spent opposing or defending it. Perot s brightest moment came when he was coping with Gore s forecasts of what Naftal would do to the Job Market. He had a very easy time of it by citing the loony forecasts of the costs of medicare and medicaid. The triumphant smile on Perot s face and the incandescence in his eyes spoke his gratitude that the lord had Here delivered Gore into his hands. Gore should not have positioned himself for that Brief Triumph by  Best arguments for free Trade Are made on the basis of what we can establish As economic history. Yes we Are privately entitled to project what then Wilt happen based on historical experience. But that s different from asking people to believe that forecasters Are dependable. Later in the hour Gore talked about what has actually happened in Mexico in the years since it lowered its Tariff Walls. But his line was damaged by the Reliance on forecasts. Perot uses arguments so transparently indefensible As to leave an urbane audience gasping. To the extent that he does get away with it it i because of the Confidence of his manner and the categorical enthusiasm he shows for his Points for the Way in which Perot presents those Points and Abo Veall for Perot himself. The two novelties in the Exchange with Gore had to do with Mexico s economic usefulness to the United states and with something that came to be called the social  Perot thought it useful to demean Mexico. He did this by macroeconomic condescension Mexico s income is less than Ohio s and by  the dream of the mexican is an outhouse. His Point As he gave it again and again i that a poor country in t Worth trading with. People who can t make anything can t buy anything he said. And again the livestock in this country have better living conditions than  Gore missed an Opportunity that seems pretty obvious. He was anxious to demonstrate that under the North american free Trade agreement More americans would get work. He cited car consumption in Mexico last year but did t stress that part of the Story that most efficiently dispatched Perot s derogation of mexican economic usefulness. Said Gore last year mexicans purchased 750,000 automobiles but Only 1,000 of these were made by the big three in Detroit. Gore s Point was that under Naftal Mexico would need to relax and in due course abolish those restrictions that keep mexicans from buying american cars. But the Point to stress surely was that a nation that can buy 750,000 automobiles is a nation with palpable economic resources. In six years Mexico has travelled from a Trade surplus of s3 Bulion le., Mexico was Selling More than it was buying from America to a Trade deficit of $5 billion i.e., Mexico is now buying More from the United states than Selling. One billion dollars of purchases from americ generates 22,000 jobs. So that already we can see 100,000 american jobs dependent on mexican patronage. To the extent that Perot permitted himself to consider the Point it was to insist that . Goods going to Mexico Are there Only transiently. If a . Manufacturer ships a Carload of fabric to be stitched into sweaters by mexican workers and sent Back to sell to . Purchasers it is Correct to say that the ultimate Sale was to an american not to a mexican but the fabric producers in America and the retailers who go on to sell the sweaters Are in business because of the economic intervention of the Mexica stitchers. And the economic calculations Are based on the value of the goods mexican stitchers can buy from America with the income they received for their work. The most curious Point by Perot has to do with his new found indignation at the very  that the unite states would consent to Trade with a country that has been a one party state More or less forever and does thave human rights or ecological practices that meet . Standards. Can Perot mean it. It is inconceivable that he should. The social Tariff of Ross Perot would mean an immediate end to Trad with All of Africa China and As of about 10 years ago ail of latin America. We would immediately cease trading with All the Middle East with the exception of Israel. Perot is Here attempting to appropriate the sympathy of the human rights crowd. It happened that he took this tack the very Day that one human rights organization pointed out that a thousand haitian children Are starving every Day because of the blockade we have imposed on economic traffic. At this Point the United states refuses to Trade with Only three dictatorships Cuba North Korea and Vietnam. It would have been Nice if the vice president had asked Perot How Many americans would lose their jobs after we effected his social Tariff. The end of the colloquy was damaged by the manifestly rehearsed perforations. But even though Gore had pre framed his ending it nevertheless communicated the truth which is that Naftal is an important moment in . History and that to reject it would give out emanations comparable to the Smoot Hawley Tariff in 1930, which exacerbated the great depression. It is a pity that there should be congressional hesitation at such a moment As this but appropriate that Perot should emerge As the principal advocate of the negative vote on Naftal. /unrvef5al