Bill Clinton returned from his summer vacation last week in a reflective mood. At a prayer breakfast in the State Dining Room, he sermonized for 30 minutes on America's need for a "common purpose" and its yearning for moral renewal. When several religious leaders complained about increasing "partisanship" in Washington and the "hard edge" of national life, their words hit home. "We've just got to quit screaming at each other," Clinton said.
Maybe next year. Hoping to keep their expected losses in November to a minimum, Democratic strategists are urging Clinton to go on the attack - linking the Republicans and Washington's special interests as obstructionists who almost killed a crime bill that bans assault weapons and puts 100,000 new cops on the streets, and who have blocked comprehensive health care legislation. Republicans, sensing an opportunity to make historic gains in races for Congress and a variety of governorships, will portray the Democrats as the party of big government and failed liberal policies.
Real concerns. But all the political gamesmanship misses the point. Americans' concerns today are far more profound than party one-upmanship. Republican pollster Ed Goeas sees three major anxieties among voters: "fear of the future and their ability to make ends meet, decline of morals at all levels of our society and the 'American Dream' seemingly moving further and further out of reach for the average citizen." Even more ominous for Democrats this fall is that Clinton's popularity has plummeted and voters have come to believe that the "new team" they elected in 1992 to fix government -- Clinton and scores of new members of Congress -- has failed (column, Page 49).
Democratic strategists, including pollster Celinda Lake, see a way to limit their losses in November: Capitalize on public anger at special interests. To that end, congressional Democratic leaders want to revive a "reform agenda" that has been languishing on Capitol Hill for months. Different versions of that legislation would limit donations by political action committees or ban PACs altogether, severely restrict the activities of lobbyists and require that Congress comply with the laws it passes. The problem is that the Democrats are not sure they can pass any of that by November.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are preparing their own reform agenda. On September 27, Rep. Newt Gingrich and 300 Republican challengers and incumbents will unveil a "Contract with America" -- 10 proposals they plan to introduce if the GOP takes control of Congress. Many go well beyond the Democratic approach, such as calling for a three-fifths congressionial majority to pass any tax increase; slashing the congressional bureaucracy; enacting a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, and imposing term limits on members of Congress, which the Clinton administration is challenging before the Supreme Court.
None of the GOP ideas has created more consternation at the White House than Gingrich's proposal for a variety of middle- class tax cuts, including a $ 500-per-child income-tax credit. A debate is raging between Clinton's political strategists, who favor some form of middle-class tax cut (which Clinton promised in his campaign but abandoned in early 1993), and his economic advisers, who say the proposal would set off a tax-cut bidding war that could damage the economic recovery. In any case, White House officials say Clinton has yet to address the issue and won't until the internal administration deliberations over his next budget begin in several months. Another idea being debated within the administration, U.S. News has learned, is cutting entitlements, such as limiting Social Security benefits for the affluent.
None of these last-minute agendas, however, will do much to reverse the underlying negativity in American life. It goes so deep that pollsters say public cynicism is more intense today than when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace two decades ago.
