TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/111692/1116996.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 8.7 KB | 183 lines

                                                                                COVER STORIES, Page 26

ELECTION `92

A Time for Courage


If Clinton is to fulfill his mandate for change, he will have
to be honest about uncomfortable truths and brave in making
tough choices

By WALTER ISAACSON


    CHANGE, BILL CLINTON SAID AGAIN AND again during his long
trek to the White House, does not come easily. It will take
courage, their own courage, for Americans to choose a new
course. Now that they have made that choice, it is Clinton's
turn to be courageous.

    With his computer-like mind and his joyous addiction to
pressing the flesh, Clinton was a brilliant campaigner. Almost
too brilliant: toward the end his biggest vulnerability was his
reputation as a dexterous accommodator, the schoolboy politician
perennially concerned about preserving his political viability.
On one of his last nights on the trail, Clinton told a crowd
that Teddy Roosevelt had shaken thousands of hands at his
Inauguration. "Maybe this is a record I will break," Clinton
exulted. Maybe, but once he takes office the born pleaser will
have to master a different art: that of displeasing people. He
will need the courage to do more than husband his success if he
is to fulfill the mandate for change that he sought.

    According to the old theory propounded by historians
Arthur Schlesinger Sr. and Jr., every 30 years or so the nation
turns, after a respite of conservative retrenchment, to a new
era of active government, public purpose and liberal idealism.
"Government is not the solution to our problems," Ronald Reagan
proclaimed at his first Inaugural 12 years ago. "Government is
the problem." Bill Clinton, on the other hand, has displayed an
almost evangelical faith in the ability of government to improve
people's lives. If he can turn his "new covenant" rhetoric into
reality, he has the chance to personify the type of mood swing
ushered in by the rough-riding progressivism of Teddy Roosevelt
in 1900, the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and the New
Frontier of John Kennedy in 1960.

    Once again, the mainspring that turns the cycle is
generational. "It is only once in a generation that a people can
be lifted above material things," President Woodrow Wilson
explained to his youthful Assistant Secretary of the Navy. That
young man was Franklin Roosevelt, and his activist presidency
was the formative experience for the generation that came to
fruition with Kennedy. Now the torch is being passed to the
generation that was touched and inspired by Kennedy. Indeed, the
most memorable moment in the convention video about the man from
Hope was the scene of the eager student being inspired by
Kennedy's anointing touch.

    But historical cycles are not inevitable. They depend on
the strengths and frailties of those who become repositories of
the hope for change. In a democracy, successful reformers must
have, above all, the backbone to convey brutal facts
unflinchingly. Especially now: America's current plight has been
aggravated by a willful refusal to inhale unpleasant truths
about the deficit, about racial divisions, about defense cuts
and conversion of military facilities, about schools and about
the workplace.

    Though hardly saintly in this regard, George Bush was not
off base in charging that Clinton's tendency to waffle on tough
issues was worrisome. The Democratic candidate talked only
vaguely about "challenges," while avoiding any mention of
sacrifice, and his economic program was a no-pain pastiche that
involved taxing only the rich and foreign corporations. The
resulting doubts about his trustworthiness produced enough near
death experiences for his campaign to serve as warning that
being all things to all people will not work.

    There is also ample evidence that Americans are ready,
even eager, to hear some of the hard truths that inform a
yearning for change. It was a year, to borrow a phrase E.B.
White used to describe a contentious New England town meeting,
"when democracy sat up and looked around." Part of Ross Perot's
appeal was his rapid-fire, flip-chart manner of laying out the
bad news that Bush and Clinton did not want to discuss.

    Before he launched his famous first 100 days, Franklin
Roosevelt proclaimed that "the country demands bold, persistent
experimentation." He understood that the best way to protect the
mandate he had won was to expend his political capital, to treat
his popularity as a tool for governing rather than as an asset
to be hoarded until the next election. He was re-elected three
times. George Bush is living proof that the opposite approach
leads to failure.

    Clinton has pledged, in the spirit of Roosevelt, to spend
his first 100 days reigniting the nation's economic confidence.
Instead of accepting a muddle-through series of compromises that
offends few factions, he must be a leader, working with the new
Democratic Congress to produce the kind of jolt that will cause
Americans in their corner coffee shops to talk once again about
the future with hope, not fear. The rare combination of an
administration and both houses of Congress controlled by the
same party means that the President can be held accountable for
a change. But it also means that Clinton must prevent his
seductive rhetoric about "infrastructure investments" from
being translated by Congress into pork-barrel programs.

    Clinton's willingness to move beyond some of the old-time
Democratic religion is auspicious. He has spoken eloquently of
the need to redefine liberalism: the language of entitlements
and rights and special-interest demands, he says, must give way
to talk of responsibilities and duties. "We're going to empower
people to take control of their own lives, then hold them
accountable for doing so," he says.

    Combining conservative values such as responsibility and
self-help with liberal ones like tolerance and generosity --
which is precisely the covenant that Clinton proposes -- could
conquer the corrosive tactic of making wedge issues out of
racial fears and sexual prejudices. In his acceptance speech at
the Democratic Convention, Clinton decried the us-vs.-them
politics of division. "This is America," he said. "There is no
`them'; there is only us." He then maneuvered to ensure that,
unlike in 1988, in fact unlike in any election since 1960, race
was not an issue. Partly he achieved this by shying away from
being cast as the tribune for the poor and blacks. Now he faces
the more exalted challenge of acting affirmatively to heal the
racial and cultural tensions that have frayed America's social
quilt.

    By reviving a sense of common citizenship and civic good,
by exalting the notions of public purpose and mutual
obligation, America could grope toward a cease-fire in its
divisive culture wars. Rather than being rhetorical weapons used
to divide the country, such words as values and family could
become unifying themes in a quest for common ground. Only then
will America begin to cope with poverty, race, welfare,
discrimination, abortion and even the deficit.

    Clinton has the credentials to lead such a unifying
crusade. Unlike George Bush or Ross Perot, he has an intuitive
feel for America's changing patterns. He is comfortable with
women as equal partners in the workplace, in government and in
marriages like his own. As an exemplar of the new South, he has
dealt with blacks and gays, as well as good ole boys and
businessmen, on a daily basis with mutual respect. And unlike
any other prominent Democrat since Jimmy Carter, he is not tone
deaf to the religious chords that can help bind American
society. Not only does he know how to clap on the back-beat of
gospel hymns, he also draws unabashed strength from his Baptist
upbringing.

    With all that is at stake and with all the hope that
America has invested in him, Clinton can scarcely afford to
prove unequal to his task. Another failed one-term presidency
would reinforce not only the notion that government cannot cope,
but also the clawing anxiety that the country and its economy
may be heading toward an inexorable decline. It would deal a
further blow to the two-party system, opening the door to a
stronger Perot or Perot-like candidacy in 1996.

    So Clinton has not just an opportunity but an awesome
obligation: to make Americans believe once again that they are
masters of an ever improving destiny. When John Kennedy, leaving
Boston for Washington just after his election, listed the
questions by which history would judge his Administration, he
began with, "First, were we truly men of courage?" Bill Clinton,
who put the same sort of question to his country, now has the
chance to answer it himself.