No Left Turn
A regular feature of the
Clinton years has been the unfulfilled prophecy that the president is--any
second now--about to make a sharp turn to the left. Through most of 1993 and
'94, the refrain of disenchanted New Democrats was that although Clinton had
been elected on a centrist platform of welfare reform and deficit reduction,
his administration was being captured by old-school libs. In the '96 campaign,
Bob Dole warned voters that a re-elected Clinton would drop his guise of
moderation, "his liberalism unrestrained by the need to face the American
people in a second election," as Dole put it.
These
predictions' failure appears to be no deterrent to their regular renewal. Only
the rationale for Clinton's rebirth as LBJ changes. The latest version is that
Clinton is finally showing his true color (pale pink) because of Monica
Lewinsky. "The politics of scandal is doing what mere policy hasn't done since
Republicans took Congress in 1994--forcing the Great Triangulator back into the
protective custody of his party's liberals," Paul Gigot wrote last week in the
Wall Street Journal .
There are actually several versions of this theory.
Conservatives such as Gigot believe Clinton is a liberal at heart. They see him
lying in wait for an opportunity to expand government and raise taxes. A
variation on this casts the first lady as the closet liberal. Conservatives
point to Dick Morris' recent assertion that the scandal has given Hillary the
whip hand at the White House. There are also nonconservatives who think Clinton
may turn left for practical if not ideological reasons. "He's going to have to
keep an eye on his base--the very people who elected him," Richard Cohen wrote
in the Washington Post a few days ago. "Significantly, that means women,
especially feminists, and organized labor." The theory here is that if
threatened with impeachment, Clinton will need his Democratic die-hards for
protection.
The
problem with these forecasts is that they are, once again, wrong. It is very
probable the sex scandal will have some effect on Clinton's politics. Though
it's hard to make out the precise effect at this point, the fear of a meltdown
in his popularity and the distant threat of impeachment are likely to make the
president more risk-averse. He's less liable to do anything dicey or bold. At a
moment in his presidency when Clinton might otherwise be thinking about how to
spend some of his accumulated political capital, that's a damned shame. Instead
of leading the way on entitlement reform, Clinton may return to the sort of
middle-class populism he expressed during his last campaign--with perhaps an
extra dollop of pandering. An embattled Clinton is prone not just to play the
demagogue on Medicare but also to promote dubious IRS reforms and climb aboard
a new Communications Decency Act.
Much of the new suspicion about Clinton
lurching left stems from the surprising entente between Clinton and
congressional Democrats who are more liberal than he is. After quarreling for
the better part of five years, they now seem to be getting along. But there's
an explanation for this, which has nothing to do with the scandal. After the
House voted not to renew the administration's fast-track trade negotiating
authority last fall, the White House became preoccupied with fostering a more
productive relationship with Hill Democrats, according to White House
officials. Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles authorized three senior
officials--John Podesta, Rahm Emanuel, and Doug Sosnik--to try to draw up a
common agenda with the House and Senate minority leaders, Dick Gephardt and Tom
Daschle.
Clinton
first revealed the fruits of these negotiations in remarks at a "Democratic
Unity" rally Jan. 14. The main items he focused on in that speech were making
people as young as 55 eligible to buy Medicare coverage and regulating managed
care with a "Patients Bill of Rights." Clinton revealed two other proposals
jointly supported by the congressional Dems in his State of the Union address,
which was delivered after the scandal broke: reserving future budget surpluses
until some fix has been found for Social Security, and raising the minimum
wage. These are hardly radical proposals--old-style liberals would prefer to
spend a budget surplus on social programs, and they want to increase the
minimum wage by more than the $1 Clinton has offered. But in any case, the
common platform was negotiated long before anyone had heard of Monica
Lewinsky.
In embracing Clinton's agenda, congressional Democrats have
moved toward the center more than Clinton has moved left. Liberals who used to
spend most of their time being annoyed at Clinton have rallied around him in
the face of a common enemy, realizing that a crumbling presidency would leave
them in the worst possible shape to face the 1998 election. Is it possible that
the threat of impeachment will force Clinton deeper into the embrace of liberal
interest groups? This is largely uncharted terrain, but there's little reason
to think so. Looking to the only comparisons available, Watergate and
Iran-Contra didn't make Nixon or Reagan more ideological. They just took the
wind out of their sails and undermined the possibility of any second term
agenda.
Conservatives continue to
fall prey to the fallacy of an impending left turn because they misunderstand
Clinton. They think that because his political consciousness was formed during
the '60s, he must be a secret liberal. But Clinton is above all a pragmatist.
One lesson he has learned is that being too far to the left is a political
hazard. Clinton lost his job as governor of Arkansas in 1980 as a result of
liberal crusading during his first term. He regained it in 1982 by
repositioning himself as a moderate. The same thing happened again after he
became president. Clinton thought he was safe supporting universal health care
if he rejected the single-payer system supported by old liberals. But even his
hybrid scheme was too much for a public mistrustful of expanding government.
Clinton regained his footing and won re-election in 1996 through a calculated
centrism that is likely to remain his approach to politics for what remains of
his elective career.
Of course, it doesn't take
much to make someone a lefty these days. Liberals used to call for cutbacks in
defense spending, higher welfare benefits, and a federal full employment
program. Now they want a tiny bit more social spending within the context of a
balanced budget. To conservatives, a liberal these days is someone who doesn't
support cutting taxes. They should give Clinton a few more months. If things
get hot enough, he may come out for a tax cut too.
