The Next President: ON HTE RECORD

摘要

The last week of july the dele- gates to tne Democratic National Con- vention in Boston had a job to do: to nominate a candidate for president of the United States. Significantly, on the very first night of their four-day convention, the delegates from all around the country heard from a disgruntled manufacturing worker, a person whose job was threatened by his company's decision to shift work from America to foreign soil. His appearance was beamed live from Canton, Ohio—a Midwest city devastated by factory closings in a state both Democrats and Republicans consider vital to victory in the 2004 presidential race. The worker's prime spot on the Democrats' convention agenda says something very significant about manufactur-ing, namely that manufacturing in America still matters. It has many faces, not only the face of the worker from Canton. It has many issues, and among them are the plight of workers fuming about the shift of production overseas, the small manufacturers who complain that unfair foreign competition is driving them and their employees from the marketplace, and manufacturers large and small who charge that the cost of doing business in the United States—including a hefty burden of taxes and government regulation and taxes—is driving them from the country.