The battle lines are being drawn and it is Equality Vs Liberty. In the Red Corner (Republican) Liberty. In the Blue Corner (Democrat) Equality. Sometimes to get elected you have to start a war

I realized that president Obama was being seriously underestimated when I read a pundit—in the Time magazine accusing Obama of playing small ball in the election campaign—no big ideas only the minutiae of governance and a pundit on CNN saying that the Obama campaign has finally found its theme—the Buffett Rule but it was the wrong theme. As the Buffett Rule will only provide revenues of $47 billion of revenue over ten years whereas the total budget expenditure would be $45 trillion i.e. the president was playing small ball. 

The campaign has hardly begun and the punditry is coming thick and fast. I personally doubt that a billion dollar war machine (that is what the President's Campaign Fund is expected to be) is going to restrict itself to a small hall. Anyway, the theme of the Obama campaign seems to be already emerging and the Buffett Rule is only part of it, as is the theme of the Romney campaign. 

It seems to be a clash of two basic values of the US Constitution. Liberty and Equality. In the Red Corner (Republican) Liberty. In the Blue Corner (Democrat) Equality. Just as in the French Constitution, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity are central to the US Constitution The president has already been taking the side of the little guy and the middle classes and is likely to paint himself as their champion. And his attempt to introduce the Buffett Rule should be seen in that light. The Buffett Rule (named after the billionaire Warren Buffett) is based on the idea that the Warren Buffett pays less tax (at a lower tax rate) than his secretary which is basically unfair. I suppose what that would mean is that while in most countries around the world the higher your income the higher your tax slab, in America the higher your income your tax slab goes down (with all the tax exemptions). That seems to be prima facie unfair. Hence the Buffett Rule provides that people earning more than a million dollar a year (around Rs5 crore) should pay as much tax as people with lower incomes. The commentators carp. 

They say that it raises only $50 billion which is chicken feed in terms of the trillion dollars and counting the budget. They miss the point completely. It’s all about the symbolism. It also about president Obama saying that yes, you may be super rich but I will treat you the same as the little guy. The wisdom of such a move may be in doubt but not the symbolism. It is meant to empower the middle classes. And it plays perfectly into the biography of his Republican opponent Mitt Romney who is a millionaire several times over and was the president and head of Bain Capital, a large venture capital firm. His Republican contenders during the Republican primaries hit out at Mitt Romney for being a vulture capitalist rather than a venture capitalist.

Newt Gingrich was particularly harsh. But Romney is personally enormously rich and famously out of touch. He famously said that corporates are people too and said that he wasn't really concerned about the very poor of America. This biography will play directly into president Obama’s campaigning for the middle classes and the little guy. And Obama care as well as president Obama’s plans on contraception have to be also seen in this light as empowerment. And do remember that the middle classes outnumber the rich several times.

Mitt Romney has already taken up the gauntlet. While celebrating victory in New Hampshire after winning five states including New York, Mitt Romney spoke up for freedom. America he said was a land of freedom where people could achieve what they wanted to—the freedom to reach for the skies and to achieve your dreams. Curiously that too will dovetail into his biography. His father famously started by selling paint from the boot of a car and ended up as the governor of Michigan. He further said that getting rid of Obama care was about the freedom of choice as opposed to being governed by czars, boards and bureaucracy. And of course in any Republican campaign the Right to Bear Arms is bound to feature. Further he framed the women and contraception issue as a question of freedom of religion.

So the battle lines are being drawn and it is Equality Vs Liberty. Some are accusing Obama of starting a culture war. Sometimes to get elected you have to start a war.

(Harsh Desai has done his BA in Political Science from St Xavier’s College & Elphinstone College, Bombay and has done his Master’s in Law from Columbia University in the city of New York. He is a practicing advocate at the Bombay High Court.)