Clinton's new political geography

...Copyright © 1993 by Chatham House Publishers...

...And less confident about international politics, they include many unashamed patriots who sympathize with protection...

...I love Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Kansas, and I really love In 1992, the current of activism ran even stronger...

...It demands a scale Camel Callahan of justice and the conviction that our dignities and destinies are bound up with the common good...

...When news-"weird media," Bush said-the talk shows and tabloids, he returned, he retained the image of "can do" Don Imus and Arsenio Hall, Larry King and the "informercial...

...Clinton found no shortage of virtuosity and command of the issues...

...dramas...

...16: 23 April 1993 Commonweal it s a campaigner, Clinton kept his coalition pretty much together, but the presidency is a harder test...

...and defined by its candidate...

...Among New York...

...New York...

...Yet ultimately, both in relation to his party and the country Single copies: $1 as a whole, Clinton's success will depend on his ability to ar- (Please include a 9 x 12 self-addressed ticulate measures of public purpose and policy...

...It does not help that some items high on the liberal agenda, including many aspects of abortion and gay rights, can be achieved fairly easily by executive order, while the hopes of Middle Americans call for structural solutions, a long process of legislation, and considerable pain...

...The common thread of Perot's two followed...

...Catholicism that "seeks to project its identity and specificity in The charismatic element, he adds, often leads to religion as a a marginalism raised to a proper characteristic...

...On their battlefield, Perot proved a master strategist...

...As the nomination of two border states, it was not unprepart of America's inheritance...

...Commonweal, April 25, 1986): for a Catholic, Paris (and inReviewing the Touvier matter and the recent spiritual renewal deed France in general) is an exciting spiritual place to be...

...Only on the upper Missouri much solidity...

...On Valadier's reading, pluralist society a large extent remains the apologetic one of us-against-them stands "more than ever in need of minorities of conviction" that is so reminiscent of pre-1945 French Catholicism...

...Judged by the campaign, Clinton can be expected to attend to such feelings and to the demand that burdens be shared fairly...

...I 4123193 Clinton's excellent campaign slogan, "Putting People First," L J Commonweal 23 April 1993: 17...

...Clinton avoided that ideological trap...

...From an egal- I itarian point of view, cultures are not "separate realities," but I Name more or less adequate answers to the human problem, to which I Address equality and the rights that go with it are qualitatively superi- I City...

...In 1992, confidence did not point driven by worries and without much confidence, con- Americans to the future, it drew them to the past, and the elecvinced that they had more things to fear than fear it- tion, a vote for change, was also a hope for renewal...

...If he is wise, he will promote the use of pub- are available from lic policy to rebuild the links between citizens and their gov- COMMONWEAL, ernment, not simply media gimmicks, but local governments, 15 Dutch Street, parties, and associations with the "power of meeting," where New York, New York 10038 citizens can learn the habits of democracy and the arts of pol- Telephone: 212.732-0800 itics...

...In May, the great majority of Bush after a frustrating, much-trivialized primary in New York, and Clinton supporters, while critical of Congress generally, Clinton sought to use his victory speech to direct public at- approved the job being done by their own House members, but tention to the substance of his campaign...

...The Populists of 1892 grew out of Gore came from states that were members of the Confederacy: and were composed of a dense forest of membership groups the 1992 nominations were a strong symbolic gesture to the and face-to-face communities, so that the People's Party was South, part of a successful effort to dent that now-Republican a federation of localities and associations, held close to the grass bastion...

...Perot showed that media reach us in private settings and address largely private with grand salesmanship and enough money it is possible to concerns and feelings, relying on images more than words...

...But after four min- 55 percent of those supporting Perot disapproved...

...In addition, the nationalization of his antiforeign themes pointed to the special sectional character of the Democratic amounted to a pledge to restore the American imperium as a ticket...

...To the sidestep the old modes, and Perot the candidate repeatedly unextent that they are treated by the media at all, political speech dermined Perot the strategist, revealing too much of his testy, and deliberation are presented as a kind of theater of decep- autocratic, and paranoid streak...

...self...

...The "elecately want to believe in government," they were deeply disil- tronic town hall," Gerald Marzorati wrote, is what passes for lusioned, so that there was a "dangerously broad gulf between civic community when people live among strangers and the the governors and the governed...

...the world" or to envelop society and government, as in Notwithstanding this caveat, I would repeat in closing the Carolingian times...

...I CLINTON'S NEW WILSON CAREY McWILLIAMS POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY RENEWING THE LANGUAGE OF EQUALITY n last fall's election, most Americans allowed them- ity, looking for old landmarks and fixed stars in the strange new selves to be drawn by hope, but they went wistfully, world they confronted...

...In the last anal- many are legitimate "sites of spiritual invigoration [ressourceysis, the cardinal cleaves to a pessimistic and rather old-fashioned ment]," but that others not only show signs of gnosticism and notion of church-against-the-world, while the Jesuit evinces antisocial illuminism, they also fall politically close to Lefebvregreat confidence in the gospel's continuing pertinence and style integrism, and to that extent risk recreating the old dualstrength as leaven in secular society...

...economists, there was something of a generational shift, rem- The talk shows, by contrast, allowed Clinton to display his iniscent of the advent of Keynes...

...margin of victory...

...But sacrifice calls for more than a gift aio-r+r-eralrxa.: x"r SOCIAL bf"IEDISIONS for conciliation and the brokering of interests...

...But as Harvard's Ellen Hume observes, ment, so that government is needed to link investment, pro- "the media are our new political bosses-the direct filter that ductivity, and work...

...The nagging problem of guiding principles was exemplified in the debate over "family values...

...voters were restless...

...Today's ed campaign than any previous candidate...

...parties used to be...

...free trade, almost all secular and inclined to relativism, people "I'm doing this for the American people," Perot often de- who defend policies in the idiom of rights...

...roots...

...10038 minion or are otherwise at odds with democratic life...

...It offered few policies...

...On election night, Al Gore ate new forms, and hence to reject established institutions, and asserted that the election demonstrated the "end of sectionPerot had the special attraction of an "outsider" who was alism," and in a sense, it did confirm sectionalism's long knowledgeable about the system, one who did not offer to dis- decline...

...Even conservatives, of course, now accept a ed from The Election of 1992: Reports and Interpretations, which also considerable degree of economic intervention: Ronald Reagan includes essays by Gerald M. Pomper, F. Christopher A rterton, Ross promised a "safety net," the Reagan and Bush administrations K. Baker, WalterDean Burnham, Kathleen A. Frankovic, andMarjorie committed billions to protect depositors in failing banks and Randon Hersey...

...When they responded to Vice-President Dan Quayle's attacks, Russell Baker observed, liberals too often sounded "as though they're against love, marriage, and family...

...We must have both...

...Yet Clinton's shrewd claiming of the sensible middle ground left his family policy vague, and even three months into the Clinton administration much is yet to be defined...

...a year earlier, Peter make up the "community" of questioners speak to one another Hart and Douglas Bailey found that, although voters "desper- without the assistance of the media themselves...

...Even Perot's version of the "elec- Our stereotypes associate the two areas with the Democratic tronic town hall," George Will pointed out, involved citizens party's fundamental agon...

...Hostility to institutions, in fact, was a or at-length, at any rate...

...As such, it is unbiblical...

...It appears he argues, is neither self-sufficient nor, still less, a perfect so- modern, it imitates modernity in certain regards, but at bottom ciety...

...Network government and his disdain for conflicts of interest and party, news reduced the speech to soundbites, and the next morning, the messy charms of democratic politics...

...Both projects, on Valadier's reading, lead words with which I closed an earlier profile of Cardinal Lustiger to "questionable, to say the least," developments...

...By itself, moreover, investment may not be enough: ers, what mattered in the "new news" was face-to-face intercounter to much conventional wisdom, there is good evidence action with hosts and with audiences, or hearing candidates that American productivity is not low...

...In contemporary America the dominant forms of the press The candidacy of Ross Perot epitomized many of the themes are media by which information is communicated to us, but of 1992, but it would have been impossible without the media...

...Where become a major force without passing through the primaries radio, as Russell Baker remembers, "intoxicated us with voic- or the parties, and-dodging the press where he could not domes," the contemporary media discount speech, continuing the inate it-he avoided almost all of the scrutiny that goes with a grand modern impulse, initiated by Machiavelli, to exalt the traditional campaign...

...Middle America, clared, "because they can't do it for themselves...

...the republic's, lies in the need to strengthen the dignity of cit- The new media, in sum, did not renew American citizenship, izenship and the quality of democratic consent...

...by no means all) of the evangelizing and spirit-raising initiaWhere Lustiger and Valadier differ profoundly is in their ori- tives going on in France today...

...Clinton's first months as president show every sign of a con- Additional copies cern to strengthen the government's title to rule and its claims of this special report on our allegiance...

...Clinton, damaged by the more orthodox media, soon and tied to Perot's person...

...forcefulness, now combined with a "message" Ross Perot was the first to see the advantages of the new ve- that vague in so many details-was presented as complete hicles...

...And in his soft way, he was just as clear about the defects of liberalism: "Family values alone won't feed a hungry child, and material security can't provide a moral compass...

...The media audience cannot hold its stuAlthough Americans turned to government in 1992, they still dio "representatives" accountable, nor can the individuals who distrusted it and were apt to despise politics...

...The clearest message of 1992 was the majority's demand Change was in the air: for the first time in more than half a for active government, engaged to relieve America's disconcentury, a presidential election was not framed by war, present tents and reclaim the future...

...It was a hard year Americans wanted assurance of comparability if not continu- for laissez-faire...

...That unutes, all the networks except for CNN and C-Span stopped their happiness fit neatly with Perot's discounting of representative coverage, and CNN dropped out after nine minutes...

...Clinton turned to them in some relief: major part of his appeal...

...For viewplaced...

...Clinton's great challenge, and "friendliest colleagues are the computer, database, and the fax...

...Rhetorically, the high point of the Democratic campaign was Mario Cuomo's attack on Bush for relying on WILSON CAREY MCWILLIAMS, a frequent Commonweal contribu- "the invisible hand of some cyclical economic god" to save tor, teaches political science at Rutgers University...

...without any serious element of reciprocity or accountability...

...His February State of the Union address gave ample attention to both concerns...

...Valadier writes of the latter that entation to the world and the church's role in it...

...It should not therefore see itself as a countersociety, mea- it sets itself up as a rival to the modernity that it hates and missuring its success according to how well it manages to "disqualify trusts...

...American region that Meredith Nicholson once called the By contrast, Perot' s movement was constructed from the top "Valley of Democracy...

...But unlike those predecessors, Clinton and temporary democratic life...

...Clinton seems to be pursuing something approximating a per- as political columnist David Broder noted earlier in the cammanent campaign, but the media, a part of his intended solu- paign, they offered only the "catharsis" of "highly contrived tion, may be an even bigger part of the political problem...

...Zip or because, unlike stories and legends, they rest on the stark I truth of human nature...

...This article is adapt- the ship of state...

...Above all, Perot's movement was centered on did Clinton's pluralities disappear...

...Even in 1988, opinion had tendor rumored...

...Civic equality is no prescription for uniformity, not 500 copies: $150 even in the form of enforced diversity: as Barbara Jordan told 100 copies: $ 50 the Democratic Convention, equality and equal rights are the plus handling and UPS charges conditions of civil variety...

...For Americans, their differing faiths and cultures are sources of strength, but no one needs to be told, r i these days, that cultures are not always easily compatible with I each other or with democratic politics, that cultures often in- I COMMONWEAL clude racism and sexism, or that some nurture a hunger for do- I 15 Dutch Street...

...Even during the campaign, many of Clinton's Middle-American supporters were bothered by the exclusion of Robert Casey, Pennsylvania's anti-abortion governor, from a convention rostrum which had been opened to prochoice Republican women...

...For all their variety, these Middle Americans Clinton's victory, I think, hinted at broader possibilities for are often tied to place and apt to be religious, not often moralists (at least, not those who voted for Clinton), but concerned with decency and justice-with families and safe communities and fair taxes-at least as much as they care about rights...

...State...

...The instinct of the Commonweal 23 April 1993: 15 entrepreneur, Michael Schrage observed, is the desire to cre- redefining the Democratic coalition...

...Knowing this, although they may have made citizenship seem interesting...

...The church, show, as football, with its own stars and stadiums...

...the problem may be that field call-in questions, an approximation, even if weak, of townrelative efficiency is being purchased at the price of employ- meeting democracy...

...only the deficit-re- state on the Ohio except Indiana, equaling Lyndon Johnson (who duction program, the centerpiece of the second campaign, had took Indiana but lost Louisiana...

...The party abounded in policies, many spelled out in de- The geography of the election was suggestive in another way...

...Just so: what- by contrast, symbolizes the middle sectors who "do the work, ever the legacy of Perot's candidacy, it pointed to our distance raise the kids, and pay the bills," the people to whom Clinton from Populism's promise and to the endangered status of demo- offered himself as champion and who probably gave him his cratic citizenship...

...Except for Mississippi, Clinton cardown, its organization at least inspired and certainly sustained ried every state bordering on the Mississippi River, and every by Perot's money...

...More or less united against Bush and the Reagan legacy, Democrats are more apt to squabble when the question is what they are for...

...This time, the tide was unmistakable: proclaimed themselves a "new" party...

...campaigns was his demand for quick solutions and his unwillThe "new" media have undeniable benefits: they are apt to ingness to do the prolonged work of persuasion and comprobe free and they allow candidates to develop positions in-depth, mise within institutions...

...It is a (Maritain called them, "minorites de choc prophetiques") to stance and a temperament one also finds alive and well in some criticize its idolatries and mythologies...

...Week by We depend on the media and recognize their power, but our week, he spent more money purchasing time for his interruptdependence is a mark of voicelessness and indignity...

...The new media, moreeconomists willing to agree, for example, that government is over, worked to diminish the advantage the party in power needed to promote saving and investment, especially since draws from its ability to dominate TV news, and Republicans Reagan's version of supply-side economics had proved mis- can be expected to cultivate them in force in 1996...

...cedented: rather, it turned away from Michael Dukakis's efRepeatedly, Perot's campaign was linked to the "tradition fort to recreate the successful Kennedy-Johnson, Boston-Austin of prairie populism," but the stark differences between his move- axis of 1960 toward an earlier success, the Truman-Barkley ment and the old populism illustrate the difficulties of con- ticket of 1948...

...I Please send me America's version of multiculturalism accepts diversity, but I copies of the EUTHANASIA report only on the understanding that all cultures yield any claim to i:1 Payment enclosed L Bill me I rule that runs counter to equality and equal rights...

...We think of the coasts-somewhat giving information to the leader, not discussing or making de- unjustly, of course-as the homeland of liberals and neolibercisions among themselves-an image, Will thought, shaped by als, a diverse grouping uniting partisans of high-tech industry the mystique of leadership with which Woodrow Wilson had and the cultural elite, mostly internationalists disposed toward invested the presidency...

...For a Democrat, envelope with 520 stamp) equality is the enduring grail, and in his best moments, Clinton's Bulk Orders: rhetoric of citizenship points to equality's vital contemporary 1000 copies: $200 meanings...

...savings and loans, and the administration took it for granted 14: 23 April 1993 Commonweal that the Federal Reserve should manage interest rates to pro- on the "Today" show, Clinton's remarks had been reduced to mote growth...

...Yet no election has so 61 percent voted for the differing, but undeniably activistic often or so pervasively been compared to the American past: persuasions of Bill Clinton and Ross Perot...

...tion, in which content matters only as clue to covert forces and schemes...

...It was an example of the abiding fear of Middle-American Democrats that liberals will be more at ease in the corridors of power and that, in the Clinton administration, the "new" Democratic party will be swallowed by the "old...

...But Clinton's Southerness still made him seem alien mantle government but promised to make it stronger and more to many Northern audiences, and even Gore's argument effective...

...one agrees to look closely and with goodwill at the values and in French Catholicism in light of the above, one may say that principles that structure our contemporary world, he will see whether or not the Remond volume succeeds in distancing the that they furnish the bases for a Christian renewal," even as church from the ghost of Vichy-and I would say on the whole that very renewal will prove critical and transformative of those it does-the mentality that permeates the book nevertheless to values and principles...

...tailed plans: the Sub-Treasury system, free silver, the graduat- Sweeping the Northeast and the West Coast, Clinton and Gore ed income tax, the government ownership of railroads, telegraph also were almost universally successful in the broad, Middle and telephone were only the most prominent...

...He defused a good deal of the Republican appeal to "family values" by observing that-apart from restrictions on abortion and on gays-it was largely talk...

...new concerns and con- ed to side with the candidate who, on any given issue, supported stituencies made themselves felt and the victorious Democrats the use of public power...

...Recognition that ending the deficit would call In 1992, American resentment of the media turned explo- for taxes and for sacrifice of a high order sive, so that suddenly the campaign was dominated by "new" helped persuade Perot to quit the race...

...Valadier mistrusts a ism and antimodernism which have served the church so badly...

...Of course, even Perot couldn't entirely visible and nonverbal, the deed as opposed to the word...