The Wall Street Journal / By HELENE COOPER / Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
LA CROSSE, Wis. -- To get a good view of the fight over the coming congressional vote on China trade, look to the Tibetans and Mrs. Silicon Valley 1999.
Two weeks ago, about 50 Tibetans piled into a rented school bus in Madison, Wis., and rode two hours to La Crosse Footwear Factory here to fight the China trade bill. They met about 200 labor and environmental activists, and begin an up-close-and-personal onslaught against Wisconsin's pro-trade Democratic Rep. Ron Kind.
Mr. Kind's sister, Cindy, works for La Crosse Footwear, a company that union members say has lost hundreds of jobs to China. "We hope Congressman Kind will support his sister's job," says Bob Glasser, a steelworker from Milwaukee.
Big Business Lags
Corporate America, too, is lobbying to make its case for trade. But critics say Big Business doesn't come close to the free-trade-foes when it comes to grass-roots campaigning.
About 2,000 miles away, at an electronics trade fair one block from Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., Debra Walker, known more widely as Mrs. Silicon Valley 1999, is about to join the fight for the trade bill. A vision in shades of cream -- from her ivory pantsuit to her knee-length blond hair to her white sash and bow -- Mrs. Walker glides through the massive trade show, stopping every so often to hand out autographed 8-by-11 photos of herself.
She stumbles into the China issue in midafternoon when Robert Nichols, communications director for the Electronics Industries Alliance, stops her and makes his pitch: If Mrs. Walker will just type her ZIP Code into his traveling computer, the computer will automatically spit out a letter to her congressman -- in this case, Democrat Pete Stark -- asking him to vote in favor of opening trade with China.
Mrs. Walker, who also holds the title of Mrs. Northern California 2000, is a quick sell. "Open trade generally advances everybody," she says with a smile. After signing her personalized letter to Rep. Stark, she signs a photo for Mr. Nichols, complete with her Web address: www.BeautifulBlonde.com.
So goes the grass-roots lobbying effort for China "PNTR," the acronym now bandied about the trade world for Permanent Normal Trade Relations. On Wednesday, President Clinton sent the long-awaited China trade legislation to Capitol Hill, beginning the final stage of what is bound to be a bitter congressional fight over whether the U.S. should permanently give China the same trade privileges it gives most other countries.
Prospects for the trade legislation are dicey, thanks to House members who rest closest to the grass roots. President Clinton wants it and the Senate can easily pass it, but Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois frets that the House may be irrevocably divided over it.
Pro-labor Democrats despise the trade deal, and religious conservatives despise China. In the end, GOP officials predict as many as 150 Republicans will eventually embrace the trade agreement, meaning 68 Democrats would be needed for passage. Mr. Hastert, however, is demanding 100 Democratic votes or he will delay until July -- well beyond President Clinton's Memorial Day deadline and late enough in the election cycle to doom the deal.
Fight to the Death
Both corporate America and the trade opponents say they have what it takes to fight this one to the death. Indeed, corporate chieftains have been swarming Capitol Hill, testifying at Senate and House hearings, and writing letters by the dozens to their lawmakers.
But even pro-trade Rep. Kind says if he based his vote on grass-roots campaigning, the free-trade-foes would have won.
At the La Crosse rally, workers hold placards reading "Hey Ron, Be Kind To Our Jobs" and "Vote Against Normal Trade Relations with Slave State Red China." Sherab Phunkyi, a Tibetan immigrant who now works as a Wisconsin state clerk, carries a sign reading "Long Live the Dalai Lama." Next to him stands a man in black-and-white striped prison garb -- presumably representing a Chinese slave laborer. Three men beat garbage cans while the group chanted "No blank check for China!"
The protest strikes a chord with Rep. Kind, but doesn't change his support for the China trade bill. "This is an election year, and when it comes to election issues, there is nothing more dangerous to an elected official than the idea that you don't care about someone's job," Mr. Kind says. "And I have to be honest with you. In my district, the proponents of [the China trade vote] are virtually absent. Their silence is deafening."
Indeed, while the business lobby has put aside more than $10 million for the China campaign, they have focused their efforts on TV ads and calling on lawmakers in Washington, a strategy many congressional members say pales in comparison to visiting politicians in their districts. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, recognizing that fact of political life, is persuading small-business executives in dozens of swing districts across the country to pitch the China trade deal to their lawmakers.
On a trip to Orlando, Fla., Leslie M. Schweitzer, a grass-roots organizer for the chamber, meets with local executives and an aide to Rep. John L. Mica, a Republican who hasn't said how he will vote on China trade. "We have an enormous problem in that we don't have a guaranteed pro-trade majority in Congress," she says. "It is easy to get on the front page if you dress up as tuna and dolphins."
Nonetheless, the computer-generated letter campaign shows how much corporate America relies on AstroTurf instead of genuine grass roots.
At the electronics show in Anaheim, a number of people appear less interested in sending Congress a pro-trade message than with getting the free T-shirt that comes with signing the letter. Mr. Nichols, of Electronics Industries Alliance, has no trouble rounding up people willing to type in their ZIP Code and sign a letter to their representative. In one day, he and a co-worker rack up close to 500 letters.
"I haven't really paid a lot of attention to this issue," says Jim Phalan, a sales manager with Dawn Electronics in Carson City, Nev. Nevertheless, he types in his ZIP Code and fires a letter off to Rep. Jim Gibbons, a Republican. "I think as much involvement as possible with China is a good thing."
The letters are all similar. Mrs. Walker's letter to Rep. Stark talks about how Beijing's "membership in the WTO will create pressure on Beijing to make needed reforms far more effectively than shutting it out of the rules-based trading system."
Mrs. Walker's letter fails to impress Mr. Stark, an old-line liberal Democrat. "What I'm concerned about is that Mrs. Walker really doesn't seem aware that the PRC [China's Communist government] whom she's supporting tortures and kills priests and nuns," he says, perusing Mrs. Walker's Web site, which mentions her belief in Christian values.
Still, the letter campaign chugs along. Every week, the Business Coalition for U.S. China Trade, which represents corporate America's pro-China forces, meets and gives mock awards to industry groups for their grass-roots campaigning efforts. Time and again, the electronics industries group, which sponsors the letter campaign, wins. One week they won by outstripping the Business Roundtable -- big business's major Washington lobbying arm -- by a 15-1 margin.
"This is not an intellectual debate," says Dave McCurdy, the former Oklahoma Democratic congressman who now heads EIA. "The China debate is pure politics." And in a purely political debate, he says, "industry needs to be visible."
-- Jim Vandehei contributed to this article.
Write to Helene Cooper at helene.cooper@wsj.com
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