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�THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
June 3, 1996
INTERVIEW WITH THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY
DATE:
LOCATION:
. TIME:
FROM:
I.
June 4, 1996
Prospect House
Princeton University
2:45 p.m.
t"'{lh l,
Mike McCurry V\fV\ '. Don Bae£):17
PURPOSE
You will meet with Jim Fallows, Bill Schneider, and Bill Whitworth of The Atlantic
Monthly. They will ask you about your long-range economic plans. This interview
will be printed alongside an interview they will conduct with Senator Dole.
II.
BACKGROUND
The interview will center on your long-term economic goals. Some of the topics that
might be discussed include: entitlements, inflation, and job creation, along with the
role of the government in the economy as we head into the next century.
You interviewed with Fallows and Schneider in Little Rock in the summer of 1992.
This interview was published in the October 1992 issue of the magazine, two months
after a similar interview with then-President Bush was published. The 1992 interview
centered on the cost of health insurance, international competition and trade (see
attached interview), along with other issues.
In addition to general economic questions, Fallows might bring up Eisenhower, whom
he sees as perhaps the greatest post-World War II leader because of his commitment
to investing in internal improvements such as education, roads, and science. See
attached article by Fallows in which he brings up the concept of a nation using
external challenges to strengthen infrastructure.
Fallows, Schneider, and Whitworth plan to interview Dole in the next week for the
same piece. The results of this interview will be published in the September issue of
The Atlantic Monthly. The interview will not be published as a transcript, but rather
~ an interpret~tion by the interviewers, similar to the method used in the 1992
interview.
�III.
PARTICIPANTS
President
Mike McCurry
Bill Whitworth
James Fallows
Bill Schneider
IV.
PRESS PLAN
Interview exclusive to The Atlantic Monthly. This might result in a cover story.
V.
SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
•
•
VI.
Fallows, Schneider, and Whitworth escorted into the room
Interview
TALKING POINTS/ATTACHMENTS
•
•
•
~.
Interview published in The Atlantic Monthly (October 1992)
Article from US News & World Report (September 1991) by Fallows
. regarding using external challenges to bolster economic growth and
development
Piece by Schneider published in The National Journal (5/25/96)
Economic talking points/fact sheets to be provided by Gene Sperling on
Tuesday morning .
. I
�Page 11
ll3TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
·Copyright 1992 Information Access company, a Thomson Corporation
Company
ASAP
Copyright 1992 Atlantic Monthly Company
The Atlantic
October, 1992
SECTION: Vol. 270 ; No. 4
Pg. 16; ISSN: 0276-9077
LENGTH: 5031 words
HEADLINE: A visit with Bill Clinton; Interview
BODY:
DURING THE Democratic primary campaign Governor Bill Clinton's verbosity
became a strange part of his "character problem." To the average voter, his
endlessly detailed answers sounded confusing and therefore deceptive. Among
journalists they raised the suspicion that he was trying to placate every
interest. group--point two will reassure the feminists, point three will appeal
to blacks--rather than projecting consistent, principled views. The economic
plan that Clinton released in June intensified this problem. It listed a huge
variety of positions but did not resolve contradictions among them or say which
were the more important. For instance, the plan called for big increases in
public investment,
which sounds good--but proposed to pay for them mainly
I
through unspecified defense cutbacks and the ever-elusive "administrative
reforms •."
This was sensible politics--being only as specific as absolutely necessary.
The trick during a campaign is to find that narrow zone in which your positions
are not so hazy that they're laughable but are still vague enough that most
people C<ln agree with them. "We can do better" always fits right in the zone, as
do recommendations for "change" and ~uch of the Clinton plan.
In a~ effort to ask Clinton about what lies behind the six-point checklists
with which he answers questions whenever he can, several representatives of The
· Atlantic' went to Little Rock to interview him. We also hoped to see at close
range how well he was bearing up under the rigors of the campaign. Part of the
"convent;ion bounce" he enjoyed may ha.ve been the subliminal recognition of how
much sheer wear and tear he had survived. Paul Tsongas could not have withstood
the physical demands of a full campaign; George Bush probably couldn't if he
didn't have the White House apparatus to prop him up. Ross Perot quit when the
press coverage went mildly sour. Bill Clinton.kept on plugging.
Clinton has resisted the vindictiveness that comes naturally in political
As a law of nature, politicians hate the press. Most end up thinking
that there's some special reason the press discriminates against them. Mario
Cuomo is notably touchy about antiitalian stereotypes, Lyndon Johnson was ruined
by the suspicion that the Ivy Leaguers were looking down on him, Patricia
Schroeder thinks she's not taken seriously because she's a woman, Richard Nixon
knew that the liberal .Jewish media establishment was after him. Clinton has
actually: been the victim of anti-southern "Bubba" prejudic;:e, espe~cially during
campaign~.
�Page 12
The Atlantic, October, 1992
the New York primary. But if it bothers him, it doesn't show.
Clinton was affable, though understandably tired-looking, when we met him in
the governor's mansion. He is bigger and bulkier than he looks on TV. Before
the Democratic convention Clinton's national TV exposure was mainly through
call-in shows and televised debates, rather than the rallies and speeches of the
general-election campaign. During these early appearances he sometimes seemed to
smile too much and too insincerely, like a game-show host. In person he had the
natural ~harm of the born politician, along with a wryness that does not always
come through on TV. By this stage in a presidential campaign a candidate has
heard almost every question and can rattle off answers automatically. But a
number of times Clinton paused for ten or fifteen seconds before answering a
question, and he usually made a good-faith effort to address exactly the
question we had raised.
Clinton covered a wide variety of topics comfortably and lucidly. In the few
areas in which he hadn't yet worked out a policy--for example, immigration--he
said so, and in most other areas he clearly laid out his position, listed the
supporting arguments, and dealt with the main objections. In most of the
intervie~ we didn't lay a glove on him, and we left with no doubt about his
intelligence or petailed operating knowledge of government. But we tried to
explore the apparent contradictions in two parts of his economic policy: his
plan for dealing with the budget deficit, and his strategy for international
trade.
WHEN TALKING about economics, Clinton seemed to be juggling two styles of
thought, which was not true when the subject was race or abortion. His economic
views, in his policy statements as well as in our discussion, switch between
those of the A student and those of the pol. The A student recommends the
respectable, well-thought-out policies that will be praised in universities and
on editorial pages. The pol is concerned about getting elected and holding
coalitions together. For instance: Every A student knows that America should
have a much higher gasoline tax. The pol knows that people hate the sound of a
gasoline tax, and they'll resist it unless you can tell them that the money will
be used for some purpose they approve of, such as repairing roads.
The contrast between the two personalities is not the contrast between good
and evil--between doing the right thing and merely "being political." It's a
matter of proportion. Someone who is just an A student, like Michael Dukakis or
John Anderson, won't become President--and if he slips through, t~e way Jimmy
Carter did, he'll have a hard time getting politicians to do anything for.him.
Someone who seems to be just a pol, like George Bush, will be concerned only
about holding the coalition together and won't care in what direction it goes.
Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson were fundamentally pols, but they had
enough interest in policy to keep their coalitions heading in a certain
direction. Bill Clinton's answers to us indicated a similar internal balance.
The most pol-like thing Clinton did during the primary campaign was to
attack Paul Tsongas, in Florida, as an enemy of Social Security. Tsongas had
mentioned in his pamphlet-sized "book" that it might be sensible to hold down
the cost-of-living adjustment for entitlement programs. Every A student who has
thought about the federal budget knows that if you don't find some way to limit
Social Security and Medicare, you will never, ever reduce the budget deficit.
Every pol knows that you want your opponent to raise this issue, because no
i
. '
�Page 13
The Atlantic, October, 1992
matter how limited and reasonable his proposal may be, you can make it sound
like an assault on the entire system. The politics of this issue is maddening to
A students, because it has created a welfare mentality in the population at
large. Most retirees are now getting much more back from the Social Security
system than they have "earned," in actuarial terms •. But politicians and the
American Association of Retired Persons have encouraged the view that not a
penny can be touched--not even if it's for the elderly rich, the Ross Perot of a
few years hence who will be fully entitled to his pension and Medicare. As a
result, working families pay a regressive and steadily rising Social Security
tax to transfer benefits to retirees who are on average richer than their
children's generation. One paragraph in Tsongas' s book referred t.o this issue
without the usual hedging comments, and the Clinton campaign used it in ads
portraying Tsongas as a threat to the elderly in general.
We asked Clinton whether he regretted doing this, and what he intended to do
about entitlement costs. Here he was clearly aware of the A-student position,
which is that the Social Security problem represents the conflict of two
American ideals. Universal-benefit programs, from public schools to Social
Security, are better than targeted programs like welfare, because it's not
humiliating to take part in them and because all taxpayers get something for
their money; but universal benefits can be unfair when poor people pay taxes to
support benefits for the rich. One American ideal is to keep everyone in the
same boat; the other is to give help only to those who need it. Today's
entitlement system tries to do both.
"What I explicitly said," the governor told us, "was that I thought the way
to reform the entitlements was to make upper-income recipients pay more of their
load, but that I thought the universality of the entitlement programs was
important. It may be an important symbolic issue of fairness to ask older people
with higher incomes to pay more for Medicare and to subject most or all of their
income from Social Security to taxation. I think you can make that case pretty
plainly, that it's important symbolically. But more than that is getting control
of health-care costs."
With that we were off on an A-student alternative: Clinton's argument that
we shouldn't waste our time on Social Security, since the only entitlement costs
that really matter are the costs of the health-care programs, mainly Medicare.
He said, "The major entitlement reform that swamps everything else--nothing else
is even close --is doing what it takes to get health costs into line with
inflation." The real reason for this approach must be Clinton's calculation, as
a pol, that Social Security is a minefield. But Clinton made an extended
A-student case for emphasizing medical costs.
"You know that the insurance companies, the health-care administrative
costs, and the providers are doing very well in this system, and we have no
system for controlling health-care costs," he said. "Health-care costs are going
up eleven to twelve percent per annum, while revenues are going up five percent,
four and a, half. That's basically where the entitlement choke is. So I say,
let's go after health-insurance costs, where the. big bucks are, reduce poverty
with earne'd-income tax credits and other strategies, and make the wealthy pay
more of their fair share of Medicare."
Is it possible to limit these costs without limiting care--itself as
difficult an issue as limiting Social Security?
�Page 14
The Atlantic, October, 1992
"That depends on whether we have the courage to reform
answer has to be yes, if you analyze where the dollars are
system as compared with any other. We spend thirty percent
country and do less with it in terms of basic coverage. It
are the dollars going here that they're not going in other
the system. But the
going in the American
more than any other
makes you say, Where
places? It's not so
much exotic surgery but prolonged care for people in the last weeks of their
life. We do spend more on that than other people do; the problem is, it's hard
to know when the last week of your life is.
"But the real dollars are in· insurance and administrative costs, where we're
sixty or seventy billion dollars out of line with any other country with a
comprehensive system. Doctor fees are not so much the problem as the repetition
of services is--and the lack of a network of primary and preventive care, which
leads too many people to get care only when it's too late and too expensive and
at the emergency room, on somebody else's nickel. So if you were to reform those
central elements, there's no doubt in my mind that within a matter of just a
very few years you could bring healthcare costs down in line with inflation."
This sounds clean and logical, and it may suffice for the campaign. But
Clinton must know that such reforms will be very hard to enact and at best will
reduce, rather than solve, the medical-financing problem. And the minefield of
Social Security will remain.
THE OTHER unresolved issue in Clinton's economic policy concerns
international competition and trade. His plan, which takes its name from his
slogan "Putting People First," says that America must be robustly committed to
the principle of free trade. But if other nations don't play by these rules,
then "we'll play by theirs." This is like saying "We believe in peace, but if we
have to, we'll use the F-lSs." It leaves out all the details about where and why
you would fight. On this issue the difference between A students and pols is
clear-cut.' "We'll play by their rules" implies protectionism, and forA students
protectionism is always wrong. No respectable nationalnewspaper editorialist,
and almost no academic, will praise a candidate for suggesting protectionist
measures-ask Richard Gephardt after his campaign in 1988. The term
"protectio~ist" is less damning than "racist," but it is similar in suggesting a
benighted view. In fact every nation practices protectionism of some sort. (The
only obvious exception is Hong Kong, and it's not really a country.) Nations
vary in how deliberately they plan the policies and which industries they
protect, but they all do something. Pols instinctively realize this and know
that protectionism can be popular in us-versusthem terms: Who's going to have
those jobs in steel mills, the Koreans or us?
I
Two conflicting world views shape current discussions of trade policy. One
might be called the Field of Dreams concept: If we improve it, they will come.
The "it" is America's productive infrastructure--schools, research facilities,
roads, fiber-optic networks, and the other things that make factories
comfortable~ "They" are the global corporations that, according to this theory,
are no longer attached to any nation but flow rapidly from site to site in the
now borderless world. If we prepare properly, the investment will arrive--and it
won't matte~ if it's from Daimler-Benz, Ford, or Toyota, because they're all
stateless capitalists now. The other concept, which might be called The World As
I
we Know It, assumes that the borderless future is not quite at hand. Other
countries take active steps to promote their own industries--whi~~ they continue
�Page 15
Th~
Atlantic, October, 1992
to think of as their own. In this view the welfare of American workers is tied
to the strength of American companies, so in addition to building the schools
and fiber-optic systems, the·government should care how Ford, Boeing, and
Motorola fare. In practice, the difference between these outlooks boils down to
the question of whether the government should discriminate in favor of
u.s.-based companies, preferring them over foreign competitors when granting
contracts, supporting technology, or imposing tariffs.
Probably the strongest case against the Field of Dreams outlook is
exemplifi'ed by the U.s. semiconductor industry. Every Field of Dreams reform you
can think of for, say, Chrysler had already been applied in Silicon Valley in
1980. Employees were happy and well trained. Companies were run by engineers,
not evil financiers. They invested for the long haul, and they had a good
infrastructure. Labor relations was not really an issue, because most companies
didn't classify the employees as "labor." And over the next five years the
industry caved in more rapidly than the steel and auto industries had.
Its successful rivals--first in Japan, then in Korea--were coordinated by
their respective governments. Without exception, countries that now have
semiconductor industries got their start with government guidance and help. When
the American semiconductor industry began, in the 1950s, the u.s.
government--specifically the Defense Department and the space program--was for
several crucial years the major and sometimes the only customer for its
products. When the industry revived in the late 1980s, it did so, yes, because
of its own efforts--plus government intervention, in the form of new trade
treaties and research consortia.
The conflict between the two views is built into Clinton's campaign. Robert
Reich, a prominent exponent of the Field of Dreams concept, is one of his close
advisers. But another is Ira Magaziner, a champion of the real-world view.
(Lester Thurow, another prominent academic in the real-world camp, is not
connected with the Clinton campaign.) The first camp is the A-student position;
the second, is for pols. In most of his campaign statements Clinton has sounded
like an A student, emphasizing the mobility of capital in a borderless age. We
asked Clin~on which side he was on. He said that his policy would depend on
where he was sitting --in the governor's mansion of a small state or in the
White House.
"As a governor, I have to deal with the realities of the global
economy--factories moving to Mexico, the acquisition of foreign investment as
well as domestic investment. Having lived through this, the conclusion I have
drawn is as follows: Money, management, and production are by and large mobile
and will become increasingly so. What they can't take away from you are the
skills of your people, the quality of your infrastructure, the care and feeding
of your natural resources, the work that you do in your own country on research
and development and turning your ideas 'into jobs at home. Those are the core
things.
"Nonetheless, it is still true that it matters who owns significant chunks
of your economy. You need a manufacturing base in your own country. That
requires domestic policies which reward the companies that are here in research
and development and don't subsidize the flight of those jobs overseas.
"I'll give you an .example, a goodnews bad-news thing. Bridgestone Tires in
Japan buys Firestone in America. For Arkansas it's a blessing, because Firestone
�Page 16
The Atlantic. October, 1992
had two plants here; they were in some trouble. Bridgestone had plenty of money.
They came in here, spent thirty million dollars modernizing these plants,
retrained the workers, gave them the benefit of modern management, and expanded
the work force. It's a good thing. On the other hand, over the long run there
will be relatively more upscale R&D work done by that company in Japan than
would be the case if it were an American company."
Clinton didn't say how he would resolve the issue, but he showed that he
clearly understands the arguments on both sides. (Imagine discussing this with
George Bush.) The pol side of this issue probably reflects his true instinct.
When Clinton talks about the "middle class," it seems that what he really means
is something fairly close to a post-industrial working class (whose members, he
knows, would hate being labeled in that way). Several times in our interview he
mentioned the working poor, although we didn't ask him about that group; he had
just rearranged his economic plan to direct its tax benefits downward on the
economic scale. If it's fair to say that every President governs with the
welfare of one group particularly in mind, for Clinton that group would be
middle-class suburbanites--but from suburbs like Mount Vernon and Torrance, not
Greenwich and Beverly Hills, with jobs like secretary and deliveryman, not
doctor and stockbroker. Because these people don't consider themselves to be
part of a permanent "class" in the Marxian sense, what they would look for from
government would be opportunity more than equality: jobs for themselves, and
education--especially college--for their kids, much more than tax relief.
Presumably that would fit with an expanded and aggressive domestic role for
government, rather than the (mostly theoretical) grand scaling-back of the
federal government which we've had since 1981.
WHEN H~ discussed subjects other than economics, Clinton displayed much less
of the Astudent-pol division. He spoke at length about race, and his positions
seemed for 1 the most part to coincide with what he had learned firsthand.
We
that
beg~n
black~'
by asking him what, in his view, were the most dishonest things
and whites say and think about each other.
"I think whites tend to be, on the subconscious level, too willing to
believe that there are inherent racial differences, which does not take account
of some of lthe terrible conditions in which blacks and other minorities live in
this country. I think that too many whites have underestimated the crushing
impact of e,conomic decline and family decline that a lot of black families have
been subject to, that would have produced similar results had they occurred
among people of any race. And on the other hand, others, including white
liberals, tend to have expectations that are too low for people, based on their
race, so they feel uncomfortable challenging people to do better and disagreeing
with them on the basis of ideas.
"It is difficult to generalize about bl~cks and how they feel, but I think
there are too many blacks who blame other people for problems that people can
only solve themselves--on occasion. But that is difficult to generalize, because
the black church and black community leaders are more and more adopting a kind
of dual strategy,
which I think is very good. They say, 'You know, we've got to
I
make this system work for us. But we've also got to do our part. We've got to
change ourselves."'
And what about whites' understanding of their own racial views? How honest
�Page 17
The Atlantic, October, 1992
and accurate is it?
"I think at one level most whites think they are free of prejudice. But 1
don't think that most people have thought through the enormity of the dimensions
of the problem, and what kind of action ought to be taken by us as a nation to
deal with it. And so I think that a lot of whites have sort of let themselves
off the hook--you know, 'I don't wake up every morning consumed with racial
hatred. I am, therefore, not prejudiced. Therefore there's nothing for me to
do or feel or say."'
When Clinton was a boy, the race problem was defined as a southern issue,
one that centered on an apartheidlike system of separation and denial of legal
rights. Now race is clearly a national, not a regional, problem--and we asked
Clinton toI define exactly what the problem is. "What's wrong," he said, "is that
objectively blacks, and to a lesser degree Hispanics, are--profoundly are--worse
off than the rest of the country, more likely to suffer from economic and social
difficulties that are profound and that make the good life much more difficult."
What, if anything, can a President do about this? Clinton specifically
rejected using quotas to enforce "equality as a result," as Lyndon Johnson
proposed in his famous Howard University speech in 1965, or expanding
civil-rights law, so that disadvantaged groups can more easily use the courts to
defend their economic interests.
"I don't think the government in this society is capable of mandating
equality of result ••• that the American people should try to mandate a quota
system on our society. As for civil rights laws, I don't think they are
irrelevant. As long as there is a disproportionate impact by race or gender on
the difficulties we face, they're not irrelevant. But I think a lot of what we
do doesn't have to be race-based. -I mean, Social Security wasn't a
constitutional right. It was a political decision. We ought to have an election
and a political debate in which we say there are several ways in which we are
diminishing the capacities of our people and weakening our country."
As solutions Clinton emphasized economic growth--with reminders that this is
connected to education and trade and infrastructure projects and everything
else--and an attempt to change personal values. In the past generation, he said,
the government has clearly helped shift attitudes about smoking. Something
similar is ,possible with attitudes toward work and family. Does this mean the
kind of "values" speeches that Vice President Dan Quayle was giving in the
spring?
"It's okay to talk about values. It is critically important to try to imbue
within people a value structure that will change their behavior. But if all you
do is talk about values while you pursue policies"--such as, we assumed, tax
changes that hurt the working poor--"that you know will aggravate the very
conditions you are railing against, then you're being hypocritical. That's my
problem with Quayle and Bush. It would suit me fine·if they had a minister I
admired to the White House once a month, and let him or her talk about values.
But the problem is that their behavior is inconsistent with the real world,
which requires us to do more than preach about values. It's •values plus'--it's
not only values, it's values plus action that supports those values. And from my
point of view, they're •values minus.' I think the Democrats, or anybody else,
would make a great mistake to minimize the impact of this values ~ppeal, but it
�Page 18
The Atlantic, October, 1992
rings hollow if your policies are inconsistent with the values you espouse."
The racial matter of which Clinton seemed to lack an instinctive grasp was
the question of what to do about the problems of the big inner-city ghettos
--problems that exist in Arkansas but that are an overwhelming issue in Los
Angeles and New York and Chicago. He repeatedly cited William Julius Wilson's
1987 book The Truly Disadvantaged, which says that today's ghetto social
problems, such as crime, welfare dependency, and family disintegration, are
primarily the result of the loss of good manufacturing jobs. Clinton seemed to
be using Wilson's book as a kind of talisman, in a way he wouldn't have done
with a book about an issue with which he was personally more familiar. For
example, he told us that according to Wilson, at the end of the Second World
War, when the economies of New York and Detroit and Chicago were strong, the
black and white rates for out-ofwedlock birth were about the same. "This is all
a phenomenon of my lifetime," Clinton said. In fact Wilson doesn't use this
particular statistic; he couldn't, because at the end of the Second World War
the percentage of births out of wedlock was eight times as high for blacks as
for whites. But Clinton seems to have filed away in his mind a sound-bite-like
statement along the lines of "the ghetto underclass was created by
deindustrialization."
If Clinton truly took on the underclass as President, he'd surely find, as
the past few Democratic Presidents have found, that the ghettos are surprisingly
resistant to the good old Democratic medicine of economic growth and low
unemployment. A different approach would be to assume· that the ghettos' problems
are primarily cultural, and focus mostly on social acculturation programs
targeted on high-poverty areas. Pols always want to do some of each--especially
Clinton, who seemingly hates having to endorse either side of any complicated
issue.
Still, that you can even worry about how Clinton would deepen his
understanding of such subjects makes him unusual. He obviously views racial
healing as one of the most important jobs for the next President. He also seems
to have a sure, centrist sense of the political perils of the issue. In the
1960s, lib~rals helped destroy the tenuous public support for Great Society
anti-poverty programs by making grants to the likes of the Blackstone Rangers, a
Chicago gang. Clinton emphasized the need to sustain broad political support:
I
'
"I think that upper-middle-class people are ready to be challenged to help
people in the cities help themselves. That's why welfare reform has such a
powerful r~sonance in the suburbs. It is not because people want to punish poor
people. It's because the experience of people living in the suburbs is that they
helped themselves into the suburbs. You speak to the suburbs and recommend not
I
maintaining dependence but creating independence. I think that has a powerful
resonance, because it makes what you want to do with poor folks consistent with
the life experience of middle- and upper-middle-class America."
THE MOST personally revealing answer Clinton gave during our visit concerned
Vietnam. First he presented a dull but worthy discourse on the lessons the
United States should and shouldn't draw. (We can't fight someone else's war, but
we have to be ready to fight some wars.) Then he was asked, "Do you now wish
you'd gone?:' He paused for quite a while before answering.
"I can't say that. You know, I was raised in the post-World War Two
�Page 19
The Atlantic, October, 1992
generation. I always kind of wanted to be in the military. I always liked and
admired it. And it's something that I missed in a way--that I missed. But to say
that I wished
I'd gone would require me to rewrite history to an extraordinary
I
extent.
"I had an opportunity that few people of my generation had, because I worked
on the Foreign Relations Committee. I had a security clearance. I read six
newspapers a day. I sat there through all those hearings. I knew more than most
people did--that we weren't being told the truth about how we were doing and
what we were doing and what our objectives were. I've often wondered whether I
should wish that at that age I didn't know what I knew. But I believe now, just
as strongly as I believed then, that our policy was wrong and misguided and that
we would have been better off if we had changed it before we did.
"Because I was a kid from Arkansas, a state with a great patriotic
tradition, and because I loved my country, I never wanted to feel that I was not
patriotic or that my feelings and actions were dictated by just a desire to stay
out of harm's way. But I felt--1 mean, the passion of my feelings about it was
so deep that I think it would be just rewriting history for me to say I wish I'd
gone . I wish that I'd had the military experience, because I feel that it's an
important part of a country to have a strong defense and an honorable thing to
do. But the circumstances of that moment were so difficult and unusual that I
can't go back and say that I'd rewrite history."
I
At the end of the interview we gave Clinton another chance to surmount the
Jimmy carter-like problem of having many positions but no identifiable point of
view. "If you had to sum up your message for the fall campaign in three,
preferably immortal, sentences, what would they be?"
1
This time Clinton really sat and thought, and then gave us five, with a
distinct pause at the end of each sentence: "Our country is in trouble, losing
its way ecbnomically and coming apart socially. Our government has failed to
work for most Americans, favoring special interests and the wealthiest of us
only. We n~ed to rebuild America, and to reunite America with policies that put
our people at the center of national life, investing in more jobs, basic health
care, and world-class education, and with a commitment to pull people together
again. we don't have a person to waste, but the problems today are not nearly as
great as our lack of faith that we can overcome them. That's the real obstacle."
--The Editors
I
lAC-NUMBER: IAC 12660893
lAC-CLASS: Magazine
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
I
LOAD-DATE: August 25, 1995
--------
�Page 10
U.S. News & World Report, September 9, 1991
The old enemy is gone, and Americans can join in celebrating a victory they
helped achieve. The world holds other systems for the United States to measure
itself against -- especially in Europe and East Asia, with their own versions
of capitalism and democracy. Like the enemy of old, they find fault with America
for being so generous to its winners and so harsh on its losers. Maybe America
can make useful enemies of them.
GRAPHIC: Picture, Duck and cover. Children in postwar America were taught that
the Soviet ''red menace" would cause their doom. (Bettmann Newsphotos)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
�POLITICAL PULSE
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER
THE-: REINVENTION OF ROBERT DOLE
~:-I n mid-May, Robert Dole admitted it wasn't working and said
he was quitting. He's right. The Battle of Pennsylvania
Avenue is over. President Clinton won.
After capturing the Republican nomination in March, Dole
said he'd stay on as Senate Majority Leader. It would prove, he
said, that he was "a doer, not a talker."
Only one problem. Dole couldn't get anything done. The Senate is the last place on earth to try to demonstrate your ability to
lead. The Senate minority has the power to sandbag you at every
tum. Which the Democrats did.
Now Dole says he's going to stand before the American people "without office or authority, a
private citizen, a Kansan, an
American, just a·man." Can he just
shake off 35 years in Congress? He
has to try. Because Congress is
what's dragging Dole down.
Since the end of the first 100
days of the Republican Congress,
President Clinton's job approval
rating has soared. He's been above
50 per cent since late January. At
the 100-day mark, most Americans
said the Republican Congress was
a success. No more. Right now,
nearly two-thirds of the voters say
they disapprove of the way
Congress is handling its job.
As Congress goes, so goes Dole.
The President established a double-digit polling lead over Dole
in late January-after the government shutdown, Clinton's
widely acclaimed State of the Union speech and Dole's widely
criticized response. That lead has been growing steadily for the
past three months.
The GOP's base is in the suburbs. where a majority of voters
now live. But Clinton has made big gains among those voters.
His job approva( rating among all Americans is up II percentage points over the past year. but it's up 17 points in the suburbs.
That's also the constituency where Congress has collapsed. The
percentage of all Americans who say that the Republican
Congress has been a failure is up 14 points since last year. In the
suburbs, it's up 21 points.
What happened? First, Clinton co-opted the Republicans'
best issues, the ones that suburban voters care most abouttaxes and the budget deficit. Among suburbanites, the GOP's
advantage over Clinton on handling both issues has become
negligible. The tax issue has always been at the top of the agenda for suburban voters. If Democrats neutralize the Republican
advantage on taxes, the suburbs are up for grabs.
How did Clinton co-opt the center? Simple. Congress ceded it
to him. The Contract With America included a lot of popular
causes-welfare reform, tax cuts, balancing the budget. But on
issue after issue, congressional Republicans took extreme positions that alienated moderate voters.
The President saw an opening. Congress passed radical plans
for welfare reform, tax cuts and a balanced budget. Clinton's
response was, "I'm for that-but not that much." When he
vetoed the bills, the voters applauded.
As a result, he co-opted the GOP's best issues and stood up to
them at the same time. He transformed his image from that of a
big-government liberal to that of a sensible moderate. At the
same time, by drawing the line and vetoing the GOP's extreme
measures, he looked tough and resolute.
A second factor: Clinton became the protector of government
programs that the middle class wants. Suburban voters are affluent, well-educated and moderate, particularly on such social
issues as abortion and gun control. They don't hate government.
They hate taxes. Republicans in Congress went way too far to
the right on social issues. They threatened government programs precious to the middle class.
In 1988, George Bush beat MichaelS. Dukakis 60-40 per cent
among suburban voters. In 1992,
Clinton and Bush tied in the suburbs at 40 per cent. Ross Perot
held the balance. And now? Clinton leads Dole, 57-39 per cent, in
the suburbs. The GOP's suburban
fortress may be falling.
Such drastic news calls for drastic steps. Such as Dole leaving the
Senate, where he's seen every day
as the leader of an institution in
disrepute. Now, he needs to reinvent his campaign. What can he
do? Four things, none easy.
He has to get such social issues
as abortion off the agenda-although any backsliding risks a
damaging floor fight at the convention in August. He has to put some distance between himself
and Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia. He must neutralize the
Republican Congress's radical image. And he has to make it
clear that he doesn't hate government.
Leaving Congress may help Dole separate his agenda from
Gingrich's. Making a deal with Clinton to get such issues as
medicare, ·medicaid, education and the environment off the
agenda would help even more. But he has just a few weeks as
Majority Leader to do it.
Dole must run hard against Clinton on character and values.
It worked for Bush against Dukakis, but this time, the voters
may not be so tolerant of such a harsh, negative campaign.
Finally, Dole has to find his own message. How did the
Republicans hold the suburban vote for so many years? Answer:
taxes, taxes, taxes. Conservatives are urging Dole to run on a 15
per cent across-the-board income tax cut. But that would
destroy the credibility of his commitment to deficit reduction.
Maybe Dole can reinvent his campaign. But can he reinvent
himself? He's the ultimate Washington insider, the candidate of
the status quo. With Dole as the Republican candidate, the outsider factor has been neutralized.
Next to Dole, everybody else is an outsider. Even the President. For Dole to change that perception would be one of the
great feats of political metamorphosis. Comparable, say, to Clinton's becoming a tough-minded moderate.
Dole is determined to reinvent himself. He's got to erase his
Washington image and resurrect the image of Russell, Kan. But
right now, voters see only a choice between two insiders, our two
most accomplished professional politicians. It's an unsatisfying
choice between two incumbents. Dole's objective now is to position himself where he ought to be-as a challenger.
•
Right now, voters see
only a choice between
two insiders. Dole's
goal is to position
himself where he ought
to be-as a challenger.
1182 NATIONAL JOURNAL 5/25/96
�
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Don Baer
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1994-1997
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Donald Baer was Assistant to the President and Director of Communications in the White House Communications Office. The records in this collection contain copies of speeches, speech drafts, talking points, letters, notes, memoranda, background material, correspondence, reports, excerpts from manuscripts and books, news articles, presidential schedules, telephone message forms, and telephone call lists.
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Atlantic Monthly Int.
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<a href="http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/assets/Documents/Finding-Aids/2006/2006-0458-F.pdf" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431981" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
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