Now the Clintonites say their own new silent majority is stirring. The consistency of the quiet public support for the president first enraged and now demoralizes the American right, which fears it may have lost the larger culture war. William Bennett last week called Clinton’s acquittal an ““ignoble moment for a great people.’’ Or maybe it was a common-sense moment for a contented people. Most Americans wouldn’t want a prosecutor asking them questions about consensual sex, so they didn’t want their president asked, even if they know he’s a moral reprobate who disgraced his office. Impeachment is for true criminals and tyrants–and he’s merely a cad and a liar. The verdict of the public–and history–doesn’t get a lot more complicated than that.
Clinton’s challenge is how to get his majority to shed its silence. His best hope is that, like Japanese soldiers living in caves during World War II, the GOP doesn’t know that the war is over. Even as they acknowledge the backlash to their impeachment drive, many Republicans can’t help themselves. The more they yank at Clinton’s closet door, the more that tumbles out on their heads, knocking them silly; the more they embarrass him, the more chance he has to salvage something from his stained presidency.
The president clearly wants revenge against the House Republicans in 2000, but he simultaneously believes he can ““work with’’ the GOP. Despite demonizing the Congress on Medicare in 1996, despite ripping the country apart by taking insane personal risks, he still fancies himself a ““healer of the breach.’’ But the breach can’t be fully healed. After depicting Clinton as a scuzzy felon who should be booted from office, the GOP leadership may have a hard time cozying up to him. Despite sounding bipartisan notes, they aren’t likely to cooperate with Clinton unless pressured by intense, focused public opinion to do so.
So the only way for Clinton to bend Congress to his will is to kick ’em when they’re down–by running against them. ““The Permanent Campaign,’’ it was called in a book 20 years ago by a young political journalist named Sidney Blumenthal. Americans like Clinton in that mode anyway. The problem for the president is that keeping the White House and getting back the Congress in 2000–while a form of personal vindication–wouldn’t actually add to his accomplishments as president. To do that, he needs to think creatively about how to politicize and dramatize his agenda. For some pointers, the president can gaze back across the last year.
Remember, Monica Madness stained Clinton’s reputation forever, but it actually helped him politically. He went up in the polls; Congress went down. He got a huge budget deal last October on his terms. After coasting through late 1997 with few plans beyond golf, he went into overdrive after the scandal broke. Obsessed with salvaging his place in history, Clinton worked harder and accomplished more than he might have without the whole sordid mess. The ironic climax to an ironic age: without Lewinsky, the president would have felt no urgency to overhaul Social Security or impose his will on education. Now he does. Thanks, girl!
The best way for Clinton to use his peculiar Monica Mandate would be to throw down the gauntlet by setting deadlines for legislative action, then propose campaign-style debates on specific issues. At first glance, this would just lead to more partisan paralysis. Phil Gramm would say, How dare that felonious weasel tell us what to do! The nerve! But the press, spoiled by the built-in political conflict of the ebbing scandal, might then get interested again and force the congressional leadership to explain why no floor votes were scheduled on matters that a strong majority of the country thought were important.
After framing the conversation around his deadlines, Clinton could then send Al Gore out to formally debate Rep. Steve Largent or Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson or whomever the leadership chose. The Republicans would complain that the election was two years away, but they would have to show up. The media would get what they’re itching for anyway–an early start to Campaign 2000. If the whole thing escalated, we might even see exhibition-season debates between Gore and Gov. George W. Bush (or other candidates) on specific issues like education or Social Security. This worked well for the administration when Gore trounced Ross Perot in 1993 on ““Larry King Live’’ in a debate over NAFTA. It beats the same old staged White House ““events.’’ So why not try it again?
The good news for 1999 is that both Clinton and the Congress need to rehabilitate themselves. Both have something to prove. The president needs to turn his silent majority into something less passive; the GOP needs to win back the quiet voters weary of their moralizing. Let them meet on the battlefield of ideas.
