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Where's Bill?
by Chris Black
Former president Bill Clinton was enjoying a holiday break in Mexico with his wife and daughter when an SUV killed his chocolate lab, Buddy, near his home in Chappaqua, New York. If the dog had not died, few would have known that Clinton was on vacation. A year earlier, he could not travel a city block without a motorcade and the White House press pool following him.
Bill Clinton and Al Gore, the duo who dominated Democratic politics from theWhite House for eight years, have virtually disappeared from public view. At thememorial services held after September 11, they played their silent roles asextras, part of an appropriate bipartisan tableau of national mourning. But asthe Bush administration systematically reverses many policy positions of theClinton-Gore years through executive order, legislation, and regulation, the menwho prided themselves on remaking the Democratic Party are AWOL, focusing on thepersonal rather than the political.
Those close to Clinton say he appreciates that this is not the time for him tobe out front. He has debts to retire, a book to write, a library to build, and areputation to salvage. In January alone, he traveled through the Middle East on alecture tour that included the dedication of the Clinton Program for AmericanStudies at Tel Aviv University, spoke to the National Baptist Convention inLittle Rock, Arkansas, and hosted a daylong conference on Islam at New YorkUniversity. "He is so busy," observes a former aide, "his Secret Service detailis busier than Bush's. He is everywhere."
Among various civic good deeds, Clinton has helped City Year--the Boston-basedvolunteer program for young people and the inspiration for AmeriCorps--tointroduce a pilot program in South Africa. He and Nelson Mandela (who also wasinvolved in the City Year project) are raising money for a community-basedanti-AIDS program in South Africa, where Mandela's successors have resistedtaking action on a national level. He joined former Senate majority leader BobDole in setting up a college-scholarship fund to raise a projected $100 millionfor children of the September 11 victims. Scores of pregnant women lost theirhusbands in the terrorist attacks--at least 50 at the bond-trading firm of CantorFitzgerald alone. Political consultant Paul Begala says that Clinton stronglyidentifies with the pregnant widows and their unborn babies because his ownfather died in a car crash months before his birth.
As for Gore, his defeat left him depleted. Effectively withdrawn from thepolitical realm for now, he is writing a book with his wife Tipper and focusingon his new job as vice chairman at Metropolitan West Financial, an investmentservices firm in Los Angeles. Close associates say that he does not know yet whathe intends to do in politics.
Clinton and Gore patched up their tattered relationship after September 11.Gore's decision to distance himself from his sponsor during the 2000 campaignbecause of the Monica Lewinsky mess had created a rift. The tragedy brought aboutreconciliation. Both men were overseas when the terrorists struck, Clinton inAustralia and Gore in Austria. After checking on their families and closestfriends, associates say, each had the same compulsion to talk to the other. Ittook three days for them to hook up. Gore finally flew to Canada from Europe andcaught a commuter flight to Buffalo, where he rented a car and drove through thenight to Clinton's house in Chappaqua. He arrived at 3:30 a.m., and the two menstayed up the rest of the night talking.
The rehabilitation of Clinton's battered public image will takemore than public good deeds and travels on the international lecture circuit. Hisseedy personal failings, capped by his midnight pardon of financier-felon MarcRich, left behind a sour taste that his successor George W. Bush continues toexploit. But Clinton, who is the most politically astute Democrat on the nationalscene in decades and would have run for a third term if allowed by theConstitution, is wielding political influence quietly from behind the scenes,hoping to preserve and further his policy legacy.
Begala remembers that Clinton recruited him and James Carville to work asstrategists on his 1992 presidential campaign with an odd pitch. "He never talkedabout the strategy," says Begala. "He talked about the ideas. He believed ideascan carry you."
Clinton still believes that ideas carry a politician. In his public speechesand in private conversations with potential presidential candidates and partyleaders, he promotes the same third-way philosophy that drove the Republicanright and Democratic left mad with frustration during his presidency. Six daysbefore Christmas, he dominated a two-hour powwow with former policy aides andcabinet secretaries. A front-page story in The New York Times described it as a strategy session to restore his political image. But the meeting, promoted by Democratic Leadership Council founder and chief Al From, was less about the battle-scarred Clinton image than about perpetuating his third-way approach to Democratic politics.
Clintonism holds that the left-right dichotomy is a "false choice"; thatpublic policies can be mutually beneficial to business and labor, to theenvironment and economic growth, to work and family. Critics call itsplit-the-difference incrementalism. Split-the-difference, they say, putsDemocrats at a tactical disadvantage in horse-trading with a Republican WhiteHouse when they begin negotiations by compromising. Centrist lawmakers who followClinton's example in seeking out a third position, so-called triangulation, areconfounding Democratic leaders' attempts to maintain party discipline on tax andregulatory issues on Capitol Hill. And many think that the excessive emphasis onthe balanced budget has hamstrung Democrats. Congressman Barney Frank, aMassachusetts liberal, says that Clinton made his biggest mistake with the 1997Balanced Budget Act by damaging Medicare in the name of fiscal responsibility.
"The most fiscally responsible thing Clinton did was raise taxes on richpeople; it was also the most liberal thing he did," says Frank. "The mostfiscally irresponsible thing Bush did was lower taxes on rich people." Frankbelieves that "Clinton could speak out very effectively on how the tax increasesdid not hurt the economy."
But Clinton has held his tongue, and other liberals are not sorry. "It isvaluable for Democrats that Clinton and Gore have disappeared from the scene,"says Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America's Future. "It isallowing new leaders to find their voices. The best role for Clinton is to recedefor a while and then be remembered fondly for the years of Clinton prosperity incontrast to the Bush recession."
Clinton may not be visible, but he is definitely present. Attimes he assumes the role of armchair general, urging others to carry out hispolicy legacy. He consulted with Senate majority leader Tom Daschle beforeDaschle delivered his major address in January--a speech that blamed the Bush taxcut for making the recession worse but stopped short of calling for repeal.Clinton touts his own experience as the model for others. He is distressed andfrustrated by the policy reversals made by the Bush White House and regrets themissed opportunities from his own time in public office. Clinton speaksfrequently to many of the potential Democratic presidential candidates bytelephone. The communication goes both ways: He calls them and they call him.
"He's scratching an itch that just won't quit," says a top Democraticpolitical operative. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina is among those hetalks to often. Clinton viewed Edwards's Senate campaign as a model for third-waypolitics and sees the handsome former trial attorney as an up-and-comer. Edwardshas created a political action committee called New American Optimists to financehis national travels, which include three days in New Hampshire at the beginningof February. His tour guide will be Nick Baldick, state director of Al Gore's2000 campaign in New Hampshire.
Clinton has no immediate plans to raise money for any potential presidentialpolitical action committee, according to spokeswoman Julia Payne. However, heraised millions of dollars for the Democratic Party last year, and this year he'shelping many Democrats retire debt and build campaign accounts. He will be thefeatured draw at upcoming fundraisers for Senators Maria Cantwell of Washingtonand Barbara Boxer of California and for California Governor Gray Davis. Onepolitical adviser says that Clinton is reluctant to take sides in Democraticprimaries; however, he is helping to raise campaign money for Rahm Emanuel, hisformer White House aide and a veteran of the 1992 Clinton campaign, who isrunning for Congress in Chicago.
Few had any stomach for partisanship right after 9-11. But with electionseason beginning again, Clinton and Gore are expected to step up their politicalactivity. For now, the clarity of a single Democratic voice has been replaced bythe cacophony of a congressional party. "We don't have the White House, where youhave a single spokesperson," says Ranit Schmelzer, communications director forTom Daschle, who is trying to speak for his party. "It is always more challengingto get your point of view across when you don't have the White House."
Republicans say that they miss their favorite whipping boy. "The more Clintonis out there and visible, the better off we would be," says Republican politicalconsultant Ed Gillespie.
Those still close to Clinton say that he had essentially completed theemotional transition from president to former president by last summer. Clintonis unusually young for an ex-president: only 55 years old, six weeks younger thanGeorge W. Bush. And prominent Democratic strategists predict that he will beback. "Bill Clinton will be a powerful, visible, influential presence in theDemocratic Party and an effective campaigner for Democrats far into the future,"says Democratic political consultant Robert Shrum. "Anybody who dismisses BillClinton's presence or power in the American political scene is making a bigmistake."
Issue: Recuse the System