November 10, 1996

President And Congress Move To Center In Status Quo

Ross Perot, third-party gadfly, aptly described the 1996 election in toto even though he was aiming at Bob Dole -- "weird and inconsequential."

Bill Clinton is only the third Democrat president to be elected twice. It has been 75 years since a Democrat president has been re-elected along with an all-Republican Congress. It has been 66 years since Republican Congresses have been elected back to back.

Even more preternatural is the lack of voter enthusiasm for big issues. The candidates accordingly had none.

Clinton proposed a half-hundred "valet parking" federal services but no "bold vision" which used to be the requirement for election.

Dole promised a 15-percent across-the-board tax cut which even conservative voters perceived as drastic. Yet, neither he nor his supporters explained that the tax would have been phased in modestly over a three-year period -- 3 percent, 4 percent and 8 percent.

Ironically, something along this line probably will be proposed by a renourished Clinton and Congress.

The buzz word is "status quo" -- keep the Democrat president and the Republican Congress. Voters have lost fire in the belly.

Only 48 percent of eligible citizens voted -- an all-time low. Only a like percentage of those who did vote cast a winning margin for Clinton even though they admitted they did not trust him. A majority voted for someone else.

The message is clear. Americans are tired of big change. They are said to be "centrists," but a better word would be "minimalists."

They were dismayed by President Clinton's record tax-hike and his wife's complicated health plan proposal. Voters were alarmed at the speed of changes pushed through Congress by House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Americans were disgusted with both the president and Congress for closing down the government in a political game of chicken.

People have become largely conservative now that the Great Depression, civil rights movement, war on poverty and World War II have faded into history. Their instinct is to move ahead carefully. They want a breather.

Clinton's genius -- or was it former GOP consultant Dick Morris? -- was to co-opt the Republican agenda even though this tactic angered old-guard liberals. So what? Where else could they go?

It will be fascinating to see which way Clinton now turns in the ideological spectrum. His disposition is liberal, but his ambition is to sail before the prevailing wind.

The AFL-CIO pumped $100 million of membership dues into the Clinton campaign. More than $35 million of it was spent for negative advertising to demonize House Speaker Newt Gingrich and 70 freshman Republican representatives who pushed their Contract With America.

The labor union barrage succeeded in bringing down 14 targets -- at a cost of $2.5 million each. The remaining 56 freshmen were re-elected anyway and can be counted on to oppose the union at every turn. That political investment obviously was counter-productive.

The whole question of "soft money" shoveled out by political action committees has been highlighted by the excesses in this election.

The electorate is so upset by this trend, it is certain both the president and congress will be forced to reform it -- probably as the first order of new business.

With old, liberal politics discredited, Clinton is between a rock and a hard place regarding the direction he should take in his final four years -- or maybe fewer if various Whitewater investigations prove damaging.

His ego pulls him toward cooperation with Rep. Gingrich and Sen. Trent Lott so he can put his name to some important legislation. This would give him a place in history.

However, expecting a payback are the unions which gave him big bucks, and social activists who gritted their teeth and kept silent while Clinton moved to the center. Ego versus party loyalty. Wanna bet?

Clinton's hardest decision will be what to do about Medicare. He trashed Republicans with a blatant falsehood -- that they would "slash" the basic health plan.

This so scared senior citizens in the retirement havens of Florida and Arizona they gave their states to Slick Willie for the first time in decades.

The president's own financial gurus just two weeks ago declared that Medicare will go broke in four years instead of the seven previously predicted. Now he wants a "bi-partisan" commission to investigate the pending doom and take the heat for inevitable scaling back.

"No way," say Gingrich and Lot. "That was the president's big issue. He deserves the first at-bat."

Unfortunately for Clinton, he has become a lame duck who can not deliver on favors that pay off in the future.

Now we see a mass exodus of administration officials.

Is it rats fleeing a sinking ship, or a desperate captain heaving deadweight over the side?

PARTING SHOTS

No person is a failure. He serves as a bad example.

FBI Director Louis Freeh takes a lot of heat these days for releasing confidential files to the White House, and for destruction of a critical report on his agents' behavior at Ruby Ridge.

He must feel like a cop in a nudist camp: "This badge is killing me!"

George Bernard Shaw has it right: "The government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers