Bill's other problem The Paula Jones affair is the least of Clinton's problems It's the Democrats, stupid
Jr, E. J. Dionne
BILL'S OTHER PROBLEM E.J. Dionne, Jr. Not Paula but the party On the same day that the front pages were reporting the Supreme Court's ruling that Paula Jones can pursue her sexual harassment suit...
...And finding unity is harder for the party in the White House than out...
...Speaking in Detroit, Gephardt came out hard against the administration's decision to continue China's trading privileges...
...The Democratic split on these questions has given Gep-hardt his opening...
...But the larger threat to Clinton's hopes for history comes not from Ms...
...Even on these matters, Clinton succeeded for a while...
...Jones, but from his fellow Democrats...
...He charged that the Clinton policy has been "far too weak when it comes to China" and its human-rights violations...
...The Paula Jones case is a serious embarrassment to Clinton, and the Court deprived him of an easy way out...
...But Gephardt's and Gore's personal ambi-tions are less important than what their fight says about Clinton's largest political achievement: his success in recasting the Democratic party and uniting it on new ground...
...But neither Gephardt nor Gore nor any other Democrat will find it easy to win unless some version of the Clinton consensus is reestablished...
...Initially, he pledged to be far tougher on China's human-rights violations than President George Bush was...
...He promised that free-trade accords would be accompanied by international agreements on the environment and labor rights...
...The president who would be the "the healer of the breach" needs to heal the widening breach in his own party...
...The fighting between Gore and Gephardt on China and also on the Clinton-Lott budget deal-Gephardt opposed it, Gore loyally defended it-was rightly interpreted as the preliminary jousting for the Democratic presidential nomi-nation in 2000...
...He united most of his party around his successful 1993 budget and in his fight against the Republicans' 1995 budget...
...This angered human-rights advocates...
...When Clinton ran for president in 1992, he set out to bury some of the issues that had divided Democrats in the past and to forge agreement on questions that threatened to di-vide it in the future...
...He may now have to settle the case to prevent further damage...
...Democrats are seen as tough enough...
...In deciding to deal with the Republicans on the budget, Clinton bought into both a set of tax cuts that many Democrats despise and a lid on domestic spending that many of them say can't or shouldn't hold...
...But to do this, he needs Clinton's blessing...
...On trade, open markets have taken priori-ty over negotiating social protections...
...Democrats aren't fighting much about these issues, and Republicans are at a loss...
...On the problems faced by families, Clinton has redefined the debate...
...One test of whether he shares Clinton's gift for ma-neuvering, says an influential Democrat neutral in the pres-idential race, is whether he can broker agreement between the party's free traders and advocates of international rules on labor, the environment, and human rights...
...But the Clinton consensus has not worked on what are the new wedge issues inside the Democratic party: trade, human rights, and public spending...
...Gore's immediate response from New Hampshire may have made Gephardt smile...
...That project is in big trouble...
...It is now less a vague argument about "permis-siveness" and much more about education and the time pres-sures faced by working families...
...On China, he embraced Bush's policy of (depending on your point of view) accommodation or engagement...
...Trade could blow the party apart, and so could a Clinton decision to sign tax cuts unacceptable to a majority of Democrats...
...Not Paula but the party On the same day that the front pages were reporting the Supreme Court's ruling that Paula Jones can pursue her sexual harassment suit against Presi-dent Bill Clinton, the inside pages noted a story far more important to Clinton's legacy and to voters...
...But on each of these issues, Clinton altered his course...
...That may be true, but it didn't sound strong...
...Clinton has been quite successful in plow-ing under old issues...
...On two big sets of questions-crime and (perhaps ironically in light of the Court's Paula Jones decision) family values-Clinton helped Democrats overcome a quarter-century of squabbling and setbacks...
...Gore insisted that the adminis-tration wasn't satisfied with China's progress on human rights either, but that "what they choose to do is not entirely in our control...
...Call it the big news: The Collapse of the Clinton Consensus...
...The fraying inside the party is a particular challenge to Gore...
...The story took the form of a cross-country barrage of words between Vice-President Al Gore and House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt over trade with China and the re-cent budget deal...
...Clinton's ini-tiatives on guns and more cops have been accompanied by falling crime rates...
Vol. 124 • June 1997 • No. 12
