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A Winning Strategy
| Article
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10421 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1993 |
2,968 Words |
| Author
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Donald Devine
Donald Devine, former director of the U.S. Office of Personnel
Management under Ronald Reagan, is a columnist, an adjunct
scholar at the Heritage Foundation, and a Washington political
and management consultant. |
Everything changes for the Republicans with the inauguration of Bill Clinton. After responding to a Republican president's initiative for 12 years--and 20 of the past 24 years--the GOP must devise a strategy by itself. Now, what do we do? The answer is anything but obvious, and it all depends upon Clinton and the Democrats.
Ideally, a strategy should be formed upon one's own vision, one's own principles and priorities. But the Republicans have still not come to terms with themselves: Is their mission to complete the Reagan revolution, prop up George Bush's more moderate replacement regime, or do something else? Given this disarray and the power of the presidency, Clinton must take the first steps. And his strategy is still unclear.
The choice for Clinton is obvious: Does he accommodate the existing liberal power center in Congress, or does he truly create a new Democratic Party? He has sent both signals. Already he has stepped aside from his pledges to secure a line-item veto and to cut a quarter of the legislative budget, and he has said a national health plan will be delayed pending legislative consultation--all to placate congressional concerns. But he has also annoyed his liberal allies by at least postponing the admittance of homosexuals to the military and women to combat. He has hedged on the size of his infrastructure investment. He has modified his criticism of accommodating China.
Clinton is nothing if not an avid student of politics. A two thirds majority of 1992 voters told the pollsters they wanted a national government that cost less, as opposed to one that should provide more services: 72 percent of George Bush voters, 66 percent of Ross Perot's, and 36 percent of Bill Clinton's--a point that the presidents will not forget.
Moreover, President Clinton won with a Reagan-sounding program--growing the economy, rejecting "tax and spend," offering middle-class tax breaks, reducing spending by $140 billion, cutting 100,000 slots from the bureaucracy, freeing trade, getting tough on crime, supporting responsible defense force levels, and keeping the New Age liberals well hidden.
Yet a campaign based upon ending deadlock will be pressured strongly to compromise with Congress. And a new Senate adding Barbara Boxer, Russ Fein gold, Patty Murray, and Carol Moseley Braun to an already liberal body--and a stable of executive branch appointees of the same stripe--will irresistibly push him to the left and, perhaps, turn him from a
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