TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/060391/0603108.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 3.5 KB | 76 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 24

THE PRESIDENCY

"The Greatest Eclipse"


By Hugh Sidey


    They came by the hundreds last week, creating limo-lock
on Georgetown's elegant N Street. They gossiped under the
Renoir and the Van Gogh in Pamela Harriman's salon. They sipped
their Chablis in tribute to one of this age's truly great
Democrats, Clark Clifford, and his new book, Counsel to the
President, the story of a half-century of political grandeur.
But one prominent Democrat, looking beyond the evening's
scheduled gaiety, said, "We are witnessing the greatest eclipse
of a political party in this country in our history."

    How did it happen that these old
Truman-Kennedy-Johnson-Carter warriors, who rose out of anger
and even hunger, crossed over into the sated land of
Republicans? Victims of their own remarkable success, maybe.
"Must be $50 billion on the hoof here," muttered a Kennedy
veteran. Mrs. Harriman, one of the wealthiest Americans, is a
kind of housemother to the Democratic Party. Megamillion lawyers
like Lloyd Cutler, once counsel to President Carter, were a dime
or so a dozen. "It's hard to get fire in the belly over health
insurance when it's stuffed with pate," quipped the Kennedy man.

    The Democrats have always had patrons and participants of
great wealth, but they were guided by a lot of folks off the
streets and shop floors. Fifty years ago, the caustic, rumpled
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas would stomp through
such gatherings reminding people that he rode the rods out of
Yakima, Wash., to go to Columbia Law School in 1922. Twenty-five
years ago, Minnesota's Senator Hubert Humphrey palmed his way
around the stately chambers in the righteous sheen of poly
ester. And a labor leader like George Meany still had the hands
of a plumber. If there was anybody at the Harriman reception who
had done physical labor in the past 10 years, or now makes less
than six figures, he was parking the Mercedes for the guests.

    "Where's Bob Strauss?" one attendee inquired. Strauss,
once the Democratic National Committee chairman, was more
recently the middleman who raked off an $8 million fee for
setting up the purchase of an American movie company by a
Japanese high-tech firm -- just the kind of deal Democrats used
to excoriate. "Probably in Japan," came the answer. A couple of
wags took estimates on the cost of Clifford's flawless Glen
plaid suit. High estimate: $2,000. Low: $1,200.

    Although the partygoers described the evening as "upbeat
and happy," it was in reality a melancholy event. Clifford, who
became a latter-day banker, is now emin controversy over his
ties to a foreign bank convicted of money laundering. Nor was
that the only cloud hovering over this Democratic Olympus. Alan
Cranston, criticized by the Senate ethics committee for his
shady dealings in the savings and loan scandal, showed up at the
book party. So did Ted Kennedy, wrapped in the shadow of the
Palm Beach sex scandal.

    Next day, as if to underscore the Democratic Party's
dispiriting prospects, the aging, battle-scarred George McGovern
announced at a National Press Club luncheon that he would not
run again for President. He had, he explained, consulted Richard
Nixon, of all people, who told McGovern he should pose two
questions to himself: Did he have something to say that others
would not say? And would they listen? George McGovern had no
sure answers and admitted it.