Mr. Clinton comes to town

National Review, July 20, 1992 by William McGurn

Bill Clinton is the most viable Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter, which may not be saying much. His main problem is the people around him--and the person next to him.

ONE WEEK before the Democrats were to meet in Santa Fe to hash out the first draft of their party platform,. Bill Clinton was worried. The 22 men and women assigned to the task had been selected by Party Chairman Ron Brown, and it showed: carefully calibrated proportions of blacks, unionists, gays, women, etc. Nothing unusual here in Democratic circles. The committee was chosen to appeal to every group you need to get a Democratic nomination. And every group that's going to cost you come November.

So Clinton made three calls. One was to Al From, president of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the last bastion of sanity in the Democratic Party. The other two were to Senator Joseph Lieberman and Representative Mike Espy, the former a moderate Orthodox Jew from Connecticut and the latter a moderate black from Mississippi. Mr. Clinton asked each of them to serve on the drafting committee.

Perhaps because the Democrats really think they have a shot this time, there were few fights at the drafting session. The Clinton people dropped plans to write a middle-class tax cut into the text, but they did get some of their stuff in. To be sure, the final version, approved just this past weekend, includes virtually all the old reliables such as scads more money for AIDS research, affirmative action, and abortion on demand and paid for by the government. But it also included some significant DLC language: a reference to business as a "noble endeavor," the statement that welfare recipients cannot stay on the rolls forever, and the phrase "personal responsibility." Not as far as the Russians, Poles, or Czechs have gone, mind you. But pretty revolutionary for the Democratic Party.

Will He Stick to It?

WILL MARSHALL of the Progressive Policy Institute, the think tank for the DLC, calls Clinton a "transitional figure" for the Democrats. "Bill Clinton has good ties and a natural affinity with the core constituency but understands the need for change to bring people back to the fold to win a presidential contest," says Marshall, in an office whose shelves are lined with such conservative works as Hernando de Soto's The Other Path and the Heritage Foundation's Mandate for Leadership. Marshall adds, however, that he doesn't think Clinton "has yet sufficiently separated himself from politics as usual" in the Democratic Party.

What worries Mr. Marshall is the same thing that worries conservative Republicans about George Bush: that he will dilute all the good things he says and does by embracing contradictory principles. In Mr. Clinton this split is even more pronounced than in Mr. Bush, because it exists in all parts of his life his record, his campaign, and, above all, his marriage. Hillary Clinton's activism threatens her husband's candidacy by linking it to a class of people who are not just indifferent but hostile to Middle America.

"There's no question that Hillary Clinton has to address the Evita Peron syndrome," says former New York Mayor Ed Koch. "She has a strong following among some women, but she throws the fear of God into a lot of other women--and men--who think they might be electing two Presidents. I think he has to make it clear, without dis-ing his wife, that when she runs for President she'll do it on her own."

If Bill Clinton could be judged in isolation, without the Hillary factor, he would be much more credible as a break with the failed Democratic agenda of the last two campaigns. He got through the primaries with just token promises to the interest groups. And he delivered some gutsy messages. He favors the Free Trade Agreement with Mexico, and he told the United Auto Workers that to their faces. He went to an inner-city audience in Detroit and told them that they have to start understanding the fears and concerns of the middle class. He told the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees that he planned to cut 100,000 government jobs. He called for a limit on entitlements before the formidable American Association of Retired Persons. And when he took on Jesse Jackson for sanctioning Sister Souljah's racism, he did it in Jackson's home court--unlike George Bush, whose saved his L.A. law-and-order speech for a safe Republican fundraiser.

Mr. Clinton's record as governor also shows at least some independence from post-McGovern Democratic orthodoxy. Okay, he raised taxes umpteen times (128, to be exact), and if he made it to the White House the rich would be defined as anyone who makes more than $25,000 a year. Arkansas is one of the poorest states in the country--only three states have a higher rate of poverty, a lower percapita income, and fewer people receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Its school system ranks at the bottom. And it's one of only a handful of states that taxes food.