That night, the results were impressive. Like the genie in “Aladdin,” the president morphed himself into a series of familiar figures-each created to appeal to a different coalition in Congress and the electorate. At the rostrum of the House of Representatives, Clinton was, by turns: a Perotista on the deficit; a conservative Republican (or New Democrat) on crime and welfare; a liberal on education, training and health care, and a cross between a Baptist preacher and Dan Quayle on family and traditional values. When they weren’t reluctantly applauding, Republicans looked on glumly. They were watching their lunch being eaten.
It was a preview of the second year of Bill Clinton’s shrewdly protean, but delicately balanced, presidency. Polls after the televised speech were favorable-but meaningless. One of them showed that, by a huge majority, Americans thought the president was headed “in the right direction.” How could they think otherwise, since he was headed in every direction? But now Clinton must prove, by action in Congress, that the characters he portrayed convincingly last week weren’t just overdrawn, contradictory cartoons.
Clinton’s strategy for doing so is to move simultaneously on all fronts: coopting GOP ideas, honoring middle-of-the-road Democrats, soothing liberals with big talk of new programs. With party loyalty an oxymoron and ideological signposts gone, he’ll need a unique coalition for each piece of legislation. Conservative Democrats want tougher budget cuts, welfare reform and a crime package–and won’t support health care without them. Liberals won’t accept tougher welfare rules and new criminal penalties without health care. All the while Clinton must prevent Republicans from uniting against him. “If pieces start falling by the wayside,” worries one top Democratic aide in the House, “it’ll all collapse.”
Clinton can’t forget Perot supporters, 19 percent of the vote in 1992. The president’s claim to budget-cutting fervor has some plausibility. The deficit is down–perhaps 40 percent more than had been predicted, and Clinton vowed to submit a “tough” budget next week. In many ways, it will be. He’ll propose cutting hundreds of programs and eliminating dozens of others. Some of that “carving” is designed to free money for new initiatives, but many departments–and even some pet Democratic programs–will be hit hard. “It’s real pain,” says budget director Leon Panetta.
But even that won’t be enough to win over skeptics. A forthcoming study by the Congressional Budget Office will attach some large-and credible-spending estimates to his health-care plan. Those numbers won’t sound like parsimony, even if they’re technically “off-budget.” And Clinton’s aides already are working feverishly to derail something Perotistas (and many others) love: a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. As a Senate vote approaches, Clinton will have to dramatize his opposition. “Even if we beat that one, it’s not a winner for us,” laments one top White House aide.
When Clinton talked tough on welfare and crime, Republicans knew he was aiming straight at two of their most potent “cultural” issues. Democrats already have made gains in public esteem on both fronts. Focus groups after the State of the Union showed that Clinton’s most popular sound bite was his promise to support “three strikes and you are out” sentencing legislation; the two-years-and-you’re-out language on welfare was popular, too. Republicans are infuriated that Clinton now stands to benefit politically from initiatives they helped develop–but which much of the media has attacked them for espousing.
But talk about welfare reform is cheap–or, rather, potentially very expensive. Requiring people to get off welfare and work after two years sounds fair, but it’s costly if, as Clinton plans, the government would still be employer of last resort. Offering welfare recipients child care and job training while they’re on the rolls sounds logical, but also costs money. So actually implementing Clinton’s plan to “end welfare as we know it” will cost an estimated $20 billion or more a year. The risk is that Clinton could be outflanked by Republicans who want “two years and you’re out”–and no government help thereafter.
Clinton’s tough talk on sentencing was less sweeping than it sounded. Washington actually has minimal jurisdiction over most violent crime, which remains the legal province of the states. And Clinton invited a bidding war with Republicans that he may not be able to win. The GOP will push a package of additional measures, including the abolition of most forms of parole, a “truth-in-sentencing” law requiring that convicts serve a greater percentage of their sentences, and a massive prison-construction program (10 “regional” federal prisons). “The president uttered some good-sounding verbiage but he’s not really addressing the problem,” said GOP Rep. Bill McCollum.
If Clinton is serious about his welfare and crime ideas, he’ll have to steamroller the cultural left of the Democratic Party. Some advisers think he’d benefit from an open fight. But he doesn’t want to do that. He’d rather woo them by holding out the promise Of new, open-hearted social programs. This year he won’t just talk about ensuring health care for all, but about enshrining an ambitious new commitment to “lifetime learning” that runs from an expanded Head Start program (for ages “0-to-3”) to a government guarantee of job retraining up to the age of 50. When he waved his “veto pen” last week, Clinton wasn’t trying to scare his foes (who aren’t scared) but to give the left wing of his own party something to cheer about.
For these new ventures, Clinton may be quite willing to focus on the principle-and not the money. Indeed, for budgetary reasons, his aides may actually prefer a long-term phase-in of ambitious programs. They’ve already signaled a willingness to phase in his health-care plan over a decade or more. They’re betraying a touch of desperation. The momentum for healthcare “reform” has slowed as the economy improves, increases in medical costs moderate and industry foes pound away with aggressive ad campaigns. In the end, Clinton will put his pen away and accept almost any health-care deal.
But there’s method in the big talk of big dreams. After years of Republican rule, Clinton’s aides figure, traditional Democrats will give him at least some credit for grand aspirations-and, in any case, he’ll get closer to guaranteed health care and lifetime learning by aiming high. “Whatever we get will be a good deal better than what we would have gotten otherwise,” says Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos.
In the meantime, the president can preach about the limits of what government can do–even as he proposes that it do vastly more to bring security to people’s lives. Last week he became the Baptist preacher his grandmother had once told him he might have been. With an almost millennialist fervor, he spoke of natural and moral disasters, and called on Americans to honor parenthood, family and “the better angels” of their nature. Our problems, he said, “go way beyond the reach of government” and require that we “change from within.” Republicans grumbled about a stolen theme. Cynics saw a clever reliance on low expectations about government. But most Americans saw something familiar and reassuring: a president standing comfortably, and speaking earnestly, in the Bully Pulpit.
In his State of the Union Message last week, Clinton tried to appease four constituencies:
“Next month I will send you one of the toughest budgets ever presented to Congress. It will cut spending in more than 300 programs.”
“If you send me legislation that does not guarantee every American private health insurance that can never be taken away, you will force me to take this pen, veto the legislation and we’ll come right back here and start over again.”
“[T]hose who commit repeated, violent crimes should be told, when you commit a third violent crime, you will be put away and put away for good. Three strikes and you are out …
“[T]o all those who depend on welfare, we should offer ultimately a simple compact: We’ll provide the support, the job training, the child care you need for up to two years; but after that anyone who can work must.”
“We can’t renew our country until we realize that governments don’t raise children, parents do.”
