Clinton is no longer in a position to lead the country, at least on domestic affairs. The focus of the White House has become winning back control of the government in 1996. The president’s advisers, especially the Capitol Hill veterans and former campaign strategists, consistently urge him to take a stand against Republican greed. Clinton half-listens. He mouths the rhetoric, extolling New Deal activism last week at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of FDR’s death. But privately, aides say, he senses that class warfare is a dated strategy and, ultimately, a loser. Instead, he wants to find a middle way-what he calls “the dynamic center”-an amalgam of left and right that would reduce the role of government and recognize its importance.
Clinton is a strangely isolated figure at the White House these days. Endlessly sociable, he is rarely alone in a literal sense. But politically and intellectually, be has stood apart from the party regulars. White House insiders report that since the Democrats’ debacle in November, he has been querulous and dissatisfied, restlessly casting about. At a White House meeting with a few advisers shortly after the November elections, Clinton was in full whine. “They don’t give me time to think around here!” he complained about his staff “I’m a f—ing pack mule for these people.” And he was tired of having to lobby Democratic congressmen. Big legislative programs “are not what moves people in this era,” he said. “It’s what the president says and the message he articulates.”
During his first two years, Clinton blamed the entrenched Democratic leadership in Congress for dragging him under. He told his aides that he felt lashed “like Ahab to Moby Dick, with the same results.” In a sense, then, he was liberated by the November elections, freed from endless meetings with old whales like former House speaker Tom Foley. His staff even tried to build four unscheduled hours into the president’s day, so he would be free to think and shape his message.
But somehow, the message has not quite come together. In long debates with his advisers, Clinton, as ever, can see the other side of the argument. Before his State of the Union Message, some advisers, led by First Lady Hillary Clinton, told him to stand up to the Republicans for exploiting the “angry white male” vote in November. They wanted Clinton to strike a “line in the sand” tone against attacks on traditional liberal programs like affirmative action and welfare. But Clinton preferred to sympathize with the voters who had deserted the Democrats. “I know those people,” be said of the white males. “They voted my way in the ’80s. Until we understand where their frustration comes from, we will not be able to govern.”
At the same time, he is leery of advisers who urge him to preach a new code of civic responsibility. Yes, citizens should participate in their local institutions. But the last thing he wanted, he told aides, was for people to stagger home from work, turn on the TV and listen to him chastise them for not rushing out to a PTA meeting.
Most White House advisers understand the need for a new message, but they tend to fall back reflexively on the old one. Political advisers like consultant James Carville, a Cajun populist, and Harold Ickes, a pro-labor New Yorker who will run the election campaign from inside the White House, believe that government’s chief role is to protect the powerless. The gospel is captured in a laminated sign that hangs over the desk of domestic-policy adviser Carol Rasco: HOW DOES THIS DECISION AFFECT CHILDREN? The House Republicans’ vote in March to reduce the increase in federal funding for school-lunch programs was greeted as a “Eureka!” moment at the White House. The Democrats immediately accused Gingrich and Company of being heartless. At a press availability, White House chief of staff Leon Panetta waved around a ketchup bottle, a somewhat obscure reference to a Reagan-era policy (quickly dropped) defining ketchup as a vegetable in subsidized school lunches. At a staff meeting, senior adviser George Stephanopoulos gleefully read some wire copy that characterized a Gingrich speech to the chamber of commerce as seeking help to preserve a proposed tax break for the wealthy. “Pure message!” he exclaimed.
But not exactly the message Clinton is looking for. He wants to convince voters that Democrats can cut government programs as well as protect them. When his aides pressed him to criticize GOP attempts to roll back government regulation, he insisted that the White House stage two events a month extolling Vice President Al Gore’s Reinventing Government (REGO) program, which has trimmed 100,000 jobs from the federal payroll. REGO is a responsible program, and it probably reflects the public desire for a smaller but still active government. But it is not the sort of rallying cry that presidents can use to move a nation –or win re-election.
