Forty years ago, Eisenhower won a sweeping and not terribly interesting re-election over Adlai Stevenson in a time of peace and prosperity. Ike’s domestic agenda seemed modest, and by the end of his second term, Eisenhower was unfairly viewed in many quarters as a do-nothing president. The general could afford that rap (which was later revised) because he knew that his heroic stature already ensured his place in history. Clinton cannot rest so easily. The challenge for him will be to stay modest for his short-term political approval but be bold for his long-term historical reputation.
Even now, others are fitting him with less comfortable second-term precedents. Will Clinton be Franklin Roosevelt, who overreached in his second term with an arrogant scheme to ““pack’’ the Supreme Court? Or Richard Nixon after 1972, a president who was overwhelmingly re-elected only to find himself swamped by scandals that seemed minor before the election? The track record of second-term presidents is so weak that Clinton must hope he is a historical anomaly, destined to reverse the normal lame-duck pattern because he got his unpopularity out of the way in the first half of his first term.
Yet Clinton himself seems to favor another analogy: to Theodore Roosevelt, one of the few peacetime presidents who managed to leave a strong imprint. The president likes to argue that just as TR used ““progressive’’ activism at the turn of the century to bridge the transition from an agrarian to an industrial world, he can cement his place in history by managing the change from an industrial to an information-based economy.
Voters have now endorsed Clinton’s emphasis on education and job training as the keys to making that transition. And they’ve backed–perhaps unconsciously–interference in the marketplace (shades of TR’s Progressive Era policies) designed to improve everyday life. Look for Clinton to use the Family and Medical Leave Act mandates on business as a model. The president’s proposal to allow employees to choose time off instead of extra pay for overtime work is an example of the kind of inexpensive but potentially intrusive social policy he is likely to push. But emulating TR is a lot easier said than done. Here’s why:
This Isn’t 1904. In his day, TR could bust trusts and help end child labor. But today the political climate appears forbidding for major legislation. As governor and presidential candidate, a chunky Clinton had eyes that were bigger than his stomach. He proposed big-time legislative change but delivered what turned out to be incremental improvement. Now that ““the era of big government is over,’’ a leaner Clinton is proposing minor Washington tinkering, while hoping to use his persuasive powers to leverage major social transformation. In 1992, for instance, he irresponsibly promised a national service program for anyone who wanted to go to college; he delivered a modest program involving a few thousand people. This year, Clinton is proposing small grants for tutoring; he is hoping these ideas will kick off an education renaissance that has all children reading by the third grade.
The Bully Pulpit Doesn’t Always Work. Of course, Roosevelt was famous for this bully-pulpit approach. But it has a couple of problems. The first is that ideas designed for political proselytizing are often not well thought out. Take Clinton’s tax breaks for college costs, the centerpiece of his education agenda and a potentially good idea. Because the tax plan is not limited to those who can’t afford college, it will in many cases amount to what Princeton historian Fred Greenstein calls ““a tax break for vacations.’’ The president’s college tax credits for those maintaining a B average are even worse public policy. If the credit depends on a certain grade, we’ll quickly have government-subsidized grade inflation.
TR Wielded a Big Stick. Clinton is hardly Roosevelt’s match in that department. Consider education and welfare. Clinton has called for new school standards and new welfare-to-work programs. But under pressure from Republicans, he passed off these two responsibilities–both of which the president defines as absolutely critical to his second term–to the states. Clinton will no doubt identify those states that are doing the job properly in education and welfare, and try to use his persuasive powers to get other states to copy them. But how about those governors who do nothing on school performance standards or let former welfare recipients starve in the streets? Will Clinton travel there and blast them? If he doesn’t, progress in these areas will be spotty at best.
On the other hand, Clinton will be feeling the hot breath of the historians. He knows that the tweedy crowd will hammer him if educational performance doesn’t strongly improve and if welfare reform ends up throwing millions of children into poverty. That is a powerful motivation for Clinton to make jawboning the states a big priority, as well as fulfilling his pledge to amend the portions of the welfare bill that slash food stamps and toss legal immigrants off the rolls.
TR or Nixon to China? Maybe what Clinton really needs to do to go down in history is not mimic TR but try to do what Nixon did in foreign policy–use his victory and his ideological bona fides to take on tough issues others might not. If only Nixon, who made his career by bashing communists, could open relations with Red China, perhaps only Clinton, who won re-election in part by scaring the elderly about Medicare, can tackle entitlements. The president has agreed to appoint a bipartisan commission to recommend some of the difficult choices that must be made to save Medicare. His high-profile defense of the program may give him the credibility to push through the commission’s recommendations.
The same might be true for campaign-finance reform. Having gorged himself on money in his last campaign, he can afford to be for reform now. The problem is that Al Gore still needs to raise money for 2000, and the GOP has shown few signs of favoring a serious overhaul. To achieve change here, Clinton will have to focus intensely and consistently on something he doesn’t really have strong feelings about.
What Clinton cares more about is the plight of the 40 million Americans without health insurance, and the national shame of the inner cities. He will start by trying to insure poor children, then work up to revisiting the larger lack of insurance he tried to address in 1993. If that works, he may try other targeted anti-poverty programs. Leery of the liberal tag, Clinton will move cautiously–perhaps too cautiously–in this area. But left to fester, such poverty amid plenty will blot more than real lives; it will soil the reputation of his presidency. While Bill Clinton may have run for re-election as an Eisenhower Republican, somewhere inside he still dreams an activist, progressive dream. And he knows that the activist presidents are the ones whose legacies are most remembered.
