TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/041392/0413100.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 8.1 KB | 169 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 22

DEMOCRATS

Watch Yer Back


Lurching through the streets of New York, Brown and Clinton
discover it is better to mug than be mugged

By SAM ALLIS


    On a day last week when Bill Clinton took his campaign
uptown to deliver a sober foreign-policy address, Jerry Brown
and Jesse Jackson were downtown in Greenwich Village behaving
like a couple of overactive children. They planned to march
together to the city's board of elections and deliver 100,000
new voter applications. The mayhem potential in this maneuver
was high, even by the chaotic standards of New York City.

    Sure enough, Brown lurched along carrying the American
flag in an eddy of reporters and supporters. Then he and
Jackson, flanked by his own entourage, linked up in the middle
of a street like the two construction gangs completing the Union
Pacific Railroad. The significance of this union was unclear,
but all hell broke loose anyway. Both men were delighted with
the media frenzy they had ignited. "Everything is perfect,"
intoned Jacques Barzaghi, Brown's spooky alter ego, clad in his
trademark black beret.

    The New York primary has always been surreal. Front
runners get squashed there. Jimmy Carter was up 27 points four
days before the 1980 voting but got flattened by Ted Kennedy.
That is why Clinton arrived with a huge delegate lead (1,021 to
164) and much dread. He wanted to put Brown away in convincing
fashion. This was not to be. In the last days of the campaign,
a quarter of New York voters remained undecided, and Clinton's
healthy lead in the polls had the feel of crepe.

    In some other life Jerry Brown must have been born in New
York City. Unlike Clinton, he immediately navigated the city's
politics with the Zen of a cabdriver weaving his way around
potholes. "California is the hurly-burly closest to New York,"
he explained. He defined his constituency and mauled his
opponent. He grafted disaffected strains of labor, minority and
environmental blocs with those voters who are simply furious at
everything. "Someone like Jerry Brown is the future of politics
in this country," says Michael Manza, 31, a New York Stock
Exchange clerk.

    For Clinton, New York was a must-win state. A loss to
Brown would reignite efforts among Democratic insiders to find
another candidate. But Brown's slashing street attacks have
eroded Clinton's claim to be the agent of change against Bush's
ancien regime. "Clinton is the personification of a system and
a politics that don't work," Brown barked. "I constitute a
challenge to the failed status quo." Only in the last few days
of the campaign, when Clinton loosened up and displayed more
passion on the stump, did he seem to hit his stride.

    At least initially, Clinton also confronted the ominous
silence of Governor Mario Cuomo, who professed neutrality the
way a cobra claims no interest in a passing mouse. Clinton,
after all, called Cuomo a "mean son of a bitch" in the now
famous taped telephone conversation with Gennifer Flowers. Cuomo
is a man who holds a grudge, and it was no surprise when he and
Brown had their picture taken together nine critical days
before he met with Clinton. After meeting Clinton in Albany at
week's end, however, Cuomo not only said their differences had
been buried but paired glowing praise for the Arkansan with an
extremely tepid mention of Brown. "As a package, Bill Clinton
will make in my opinion a superb President," said Cuomo. "Jerry
Brown, I will support if he is the candidate, given the
alternative."

    Finally there was the ghost of Paul Tsongas, whose name
remains on the New York ballot despite the suspension of his
candidacy last month. In one poll, Tsongas retains a higher
favorability rating (40%) than either Brown or Clinton.

    Both Clinton and Brown got caught in the jaws of the New
York media, which seemed determined to trap them in a game of
trivial pursuit. CLINTON ON THE S-POT, blared the New York Post
about his recent admission that he tried marijuana as a graduate
student. The Daily News chimed in about Brown's lack of support
for New York City during its fiscal crisis in 1975: HE
MOONBEAMED BIG APPLE. Appearing on Donahue, which is taped in
Manhattan, Clinton was subjected to a half-hour interrogation
about his sex life that seemed endless. The next day Brown came
on the program and was asked if he was gay. "If you want to
know, Do I go out with girls? Yes, I do."

    The worst self-inflicted wound was Clinton's marijuana
confession. The damage flowed less from the admission than from
the way Clinton phrased it. In the past, when asked if he had
ever used drugs, Clinton replied that he had never broken any
state or federal laws. Only when a reporter crafted a surgically
worded question asking if he had ever broken the laws of another
country did Clinton finally acknowledge trying pot "a time or
two" while a graduate student in England more than 20 years ago.
He added that he hadn't enjoyed it and "didn't inhale it" --
touching off skeptical guffaws from baby boomers across the
land.

    Brown has credibility problems of his own. A New York
Times poll showed that 59% of voters think he says whatever
voters want to hear. His opportunistic shifts on issues over the
years led one local writer to conclude that he has more
positions than the Kama Sutra. Clinton sought to exploit Brown's
reputation for shiftiness by harping on his rival's plan for a
13% flat tax to replace the current tax code. The flat tax has
been pilloried by most economists as regressive and disastrous
to the poor. It would be especially costly for New Yorkers
because deductions for state and local taxes, which are hefty
in the state, would not be allowed in Brown's scheme. Clinton
says that what he calls "Jerry's tax" is "the most reactionary
proposal in a presidential campaign in my lifetime." Even
Brown's supporters have problems with it. One sign at a Brown
rally read, JERRY, I'M VOTING FOR YOU BUT PLEASE DROP THE FLAT
TAX.

    While Brown hectored voters like Savonarola about the
corrupt political system in Washington, Clinton worked two key
blocs of Democratic primary voters -- blacks and Jews. At the
end of last week he held a 2-to-1 lead over Brown with both
groups. Clinton stands to benefit among Jews, who constitute
about 30% of the Democratic primary vote, from Brown's offer to
Jackson to be his running mate (an offer Jackson has coyly
avoided accepting thus far). Brown felt the heat when he
addressed the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York two
days after Clinton had received a warm reception from the group.
The mere mention of Jackson, who offended Jews by referring to
New York as "Hymietown" in 1984, triggered boos, hisses and
outbursts from the audience. "This is good," observed Brown, who
craves conflict as much as Clinton avoids it. But he had no
comeback when a member of the audience stood up and told him,
"We are certainly not opposed to a black Vice President. We are
opposed to the person. We think you have not chosen wisely."

    Clinton's fears about his campaign unraveling under
Brown's relentless assaults were reflected in a startling
reversal of debate strategy. After avoiding a rich diet of
face-to-face confrontation with Brown, Clinton suddenly
challenged Brown to six debates. Two of the resulting showdowns,
earnest discussions of urban problems, showed how close both men
are on most domestic issues. They agree that Bush has abandoned
the cities. Both nod vigorously to virtually any question about
increased funding for urban needs.

    But the similarity between the two candidates on some
issues is a mirage. There is, in fact, a huge gap between
Clinton's laundry list of proposals on the economy, education
reform, foreign policy and other issues and Brown's mercurial
tendency to invent policy on the fly. In New York those
differences were often overwhelmed by campaign hoopla and media
sideshows -- useful training for the general election in the
fall.