Early hope
From The Auburn Plainsman, circa January 1993:
"With the Inauguration of Bill Clinton, only the second Democrat to occupy the White House since 1969, there is a great chance for real change. There are many challenges facing the new administration, and Clinton's record in the history books (and the next election) will depend on how they are handled.
With all due respect to President Clinton's abilities, I offer him the following advice:
First and foremost, don't let anyone else dictate your policies. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and many opportunities for bettering America have been wasted by people trying to have their political cake and eat it too.
Your job as president is to lead the country. Congress cannot be counted on to do this. On the rare occasion when members of Congress do something on their own initiative, it usually involves perks and pay raises.
Congressmen may not like everything you do, but if you lead, they will respect you and follow. People today still marvel at how Ronald Reagan got his proposals through Congress, while George Bush had little success. The secret wasn't that somebody in the Senate hated Bush. It has been said that Congress loved Bush; it just didn't respect him, and that's why it liked him.
I'm not too worried about Congress, though. Lots of these guys and gals had the fear of God struck into them in the last election. Your real problem is going to be handling the special interests. The members of Congress, especially the Democrats, are in the same boat as you. If they screw up, they're gone. The interest groups have no such problem. Lobbyists will try to suck all of the wonderful new blood from Washington like the mosquitos they often are. They are not [your] friends, because no amount of inspiration will make them realize the true condition of America.
Once upon a time, this country was nothing but people living in isolated towns and states who came together to fight for their rights and the futures of their families. Many people died to insure the freedom of those they loved. And when the time came to build a new country, Virginians trusted New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians enough to say, "My future is tied to yours."
Your greatest strength lies in your ability to bring people together, to make them believe in something greater than themselves. The president has to make people believe in America. Actually, just allowing people to believe in America in a good start. There have always been critics of the government - usually with good reason. And nowadays, government isn't the only thing we don't trust. We don't trust each other.
The immediate challenge you face is not Iraq, Bosnia or the health care crisis. You have to allow people to believe in you, because the president is the embodiment of America at home as well as abroad. Americans have forgotten what it feels like to be Americans and what it really means. The national ringing of bells was a good start - a little silliness is part of who we are. The same country that danced in the streets after World War II seems far too jaded today for such playfulness.
Every civilization is born and grows stronger, but eventually a time comes when even the strongest must either crumble and blow away or be reborn. Americans find new strength in the things that bring us together. Unfortunately the only time we stop fighting each other is when we fight someone else.
You job, Clinton, is to lead this country back to a belief in itself. And it would be nice if we could get their without getting covered in blood."
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Early fear
One month later... circa February 1993:
"...The most damaging issue for Clinton in the recent campaign was his handling of the draft issue. His actions did not bother the electorate so much as his inability to explain those actions.
Even now, Clinton seems to believe that the public cannot intelligently deal with sensitive issues. When significantly higher deficit figures were released by the outgoing Bush administration, it was obvious that existing economic plans would have to change. Unfortunately, rather than explaining this to the American people, the president's men tried to finesse the subject. Just as with the draft, Clinton has not been criticized about his actions so much as his tendency to avoid embarrassment.
Any real agent of change has few allies except the people themselves. With so many hard decisions to be made in the coming years, Clinton's aversion to talking hard truth with Americans could be a terrible handicap.
Unless Clinton publicly makes his case for change, he risks developing a credibility gap with the public that will cripple his presidency. After all, the people are the only friends he's got.
..."
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Looking Back
Clinton had big ideas, but never seemed to bring the public along on them. His first acts as president addressed gay rights and abortion rules, reinforcing the increasingly common perception of Democrats being more concerned with minorities/interest groups than with the "common man" that built the Democratic coalition. Congressional Democrats were indeed in the same boat, and they were gone in less than two years. Were the lobbyists (NRA) to blame? Maybe. I'm more inclined to blame the general air of corruption in the Democratic Congress, along with an ill-fated health care plan that turned its back on the business community that had embraced Clinton.
Robbed of his governing majority, Clinton learned from Reagan and took the fight to the Republican Congress, earning their grudging respect. After that initial push, though, he never seemed to be as interested in tackling big problems as in being popular. And in the end his inability to tell hard truths cost him - and Democrats generally - the relationship with the American people that was his trump card.
And now we have George W. Bush. He learned some important lessons from Clinton and Reagan: the importance of being positive, being assertive (even aggressive) with Congress, pushing popular measures to win political capital (tax cuts). He brought people together at first with his talk of compassionate conservatism and being a "uniter not a divider", and later through the external enemy of terrorism after 9/11.
Yet in today's USA Today, Bush sits at 31% approval. An analysis of what led us here would take pages. I'd simply note that Bush also shares many of Clinton's faults. Clinton's ambition on health care ran him afoul of the medical and business lobby; Bush's attempts at social security reform did the same with seniors. We may not have gone to bed with Perot, but in retrospect his foreplay on budget deficits seem to be something we needed and still need. Clinton's internationalism led to deadly entanglement in Somalia; Bush's internationalism has done the same in Iraq, but on a grander scale. Finally, both Clinton and Bush were effective politicians whose hardball politics, shady financial connections and tendencies toward secrecy fed conspiracy theories among the frustrated and intimidated political supporters of their opposition. Clinton survived by ceasing to do anything. Bush, more ambitious, sails on, seemingly mindless of the brewing mutiny.
So what would I look for in a presidential candidate today? After recent experiences, I'd say someone with a respect for process, for separation of powers, who acknowledges complex issues while seeking to work with others to solve them. To put that in a word, humility. No more Nixons, please.
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2 comments:
Wow -- it is very interesting to read those Plainsman articles with the benefit of a view of the past 13 years. You are much more fair minded than I am, and it is nice to hear that "fair and balanced" language for a change. I'm looking forward to new leadership -- or maybe some leadership -- and to your comments as it comes.
Why do things feel so much worse to me now than they did in 1998?
I can't speak for your feelings, but for me something was lost around that time.
There was a real sense of hope and competence. We had justifiably high self esteem. Communism had fallen and we were reaping the peace dividend. We did the hard work of balancing the budget. We reached compromises on abortion, gay rights, welfare. Not everyone liked the compromises, but there was a sense that as a nation, and a world, we had our act together. In Bosnia we protected Muslims from Christians. We worked with the world on treaties to make the world a safer place. We were building something.
Some of this was a false Pax Americana. The budget was partly fixed by an Internet bubble that later burst. Back-slapping over Bosnia gave way to finger pointing over Somalia and Rwanda. For all the feel-good rhetoric about the environment, Clinton didn't even try to submit Kyoto to the Senate. And meanwhile al Qaida was quietly blowing up US interests with little consequences.
And now? I think the sense of competence and responsibility is gone. Republicans have abandonded their belief in small government and balanced budgets while chasing after Tom Delay's vision of a domestic permanent majority (a.k.a. Absolute Power...) and an international Empire. Democrats traded in their activist dreams under Clinton in favor of constructive compromise, and once in no position to demand compromise (or no one to compromise with), were left adrift.
In 1998 both parties stood for something. I'm tempted to say they both mostly chase power now. This alienates the moderates, but they've been gerrymandered out of relevance while both parties pander to their bases.
And then there is Bush. To much of the world, Bush is America. Anyone who cares about America has to be pained by the degradation of our image overseas. To be honest though, and this is me speaking, I'm more upset at his cabinet - the people who implement policies - than at him.
In the broadest sense, he's right about the need for democratic reform in the Middle East and worldwide. Democratic countries are less likely to support terrorism and start wars that endanger everyone. They have better human rights to boot.
Bush is also right that social security reform is sorely needed, that schools need improvement (remember Ted Kennedy co-sponsored No Child...). Our energy policy is a mess, we are addicted to oil, AIDS in Africa is a serious issue that was getting too little attention. Let's not forget that in Texas he was able to get along with Democrats, he has always been very inclusive by Republican standards (no Pat Buchanan). His immigration proposals are to the left of every Republican in Congress. He preached the importance of humility in power during his campaign.
So in a number of ways, I think Bush gets what the big problems are, and means well. I give him credit for not ignoring those problems. His problem is one of competence. I think he has some fundamental misunderstandings about the world, does not foster an environment where those misconceptions can be challenged, and thereby he is prone to shortsighted actions. Ditto for the people he surrounds himself with. His strong sense of loyalty makes him inclined to promote others based on friendship rather than skills or knowledge. After all this is the model of his own life's success. And thus is the Katrina response and the Iraq post-war plan born.
In summary, when I look at America today I see a bunch of kids fighting in the backseat while Dad tilts his Hummer at windmills.
Wow, that's cheery, huh? Let's not forget that Bush is at 35% and Republicans are polling terribly in general. We may not have been as good as we wished we were under Clinton, but we are not as bad as we seem under Bush. A Republican president supports gay civil unions, and has had two African Americans as Secretary of State and a Hispanic as Attorney General, and people wonder whether Hillary or Condoleeza would be a better president.
Personally I'd watch Democrats Mark Warner, Joe Biden, Evan Bayh and (later) Barrack Obama. Republicans Dick Lugar, Chuck Hagel, John McCain and Arlen Spector have stood up for principle and common sense when their colleagues and partisan interests shouted against it. There are good, smart, decent people out there trying to make things better. Hell, even Riley in Alabama tried (unsuccessfully) to use Christian rhetoric to raise taxes to take care of the poor. If we can look past our myriad disagreements to recognize honest people we can work with on good ideas, we'll be okay.
Must stop, sore hand. :-)
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