The Clinton-Bush Parallel
BARNES, FRED
The Clinton-Bush Parallel by Fred Barnes Nobody has enjoyed the raucous Republican presidential race more than the folks at the Clinton White House. "It's hard for me to accept that something this...
...Most economic indicators are lagging, and a few economists are predicting a recession later this year...
...It's governing that Clinton has trouble with...
...They began strategizing earlier and raised the maximum amount of money faster than any incumbent president, and everything has worked out just as they predicted...
...Now, smugness isn't always a precursor of defeat, but it often is...
...This is a wild exaggeration that Clinton may soon regret having uttered...
...Now, Clinton thinks foreign policy is his ace in the hole...
...Marlin Fitzwater couldn't have said it better...
...In short, Clinton is Bush-like in his blind optimism about the economy...
...True, the circumstances Clinton finds himself in this year are different from Bush's situation in 1992 in important ways...
...Our economy is the healthiest it has been in three decades," Clinton declared in his State of the Union address in January...
...What's great about the Republican primaries is all the exposure it gives to GOP candidates, the Clinton adviser insists...
...A new Clinton is emerging, a foreign policy president," the Economist wrote last October...
...White House press secretary Mike McCurry argued recently that problems overseas "require patience, discipline, firmness and require very steady leadership . . . which is what the president has offered...
...Now, Clinton and his lieutenants can't agree on a campaign manager...
...None of his advisers seems to have figured this out yet...
...Clinton may think this is extraordinary job creation, but it's less than average for economic expansions...
...It's hard for me to accept that something this entertaining is coming to a halt," says a senior White House aide, chuckling as he speaks...
...If the economy let him down, Bush believed his reputation as a foreign policy president would pull him through the election...
...Just think where we were four years ago," he said...
...Bush believed increased growth would arrive automatically, just as Clinton acts as if he has magically banished the business cycle...
...I've had a ball...
...Despite the Bush precedent, Clinton aides boast of the planning they've done and the money they've saved by delaying the formal start of Clinton's reelection drive...
...Some of his aides discerned this well before election day, but too late to make changes...
...Dole, of course, has struggled in search of talking points as he's wrapped up the GOP nomination...
...It isn't now either...
...There's a final similarity...
...Not only have Clintonites bought the spin, so have some journalists...
...The same thing was true in 1992: The incumbent, Bush, amassed a war chest, but Clinton spent every penny to win the Democratic nomination...
...The more exposure they get, the more President Clinton's chances of reelection improve...
...I don't think there's anything wrong with the situation that two points of growth wouldn't cure," he told an aide...
...Other Bush advisers sneered at Clinton's inability to drive former California governor Jerry Brown out of the race...
...Everything's better, Clinton went on, including auto sales, which in truth have begun declining...
...Another presidential adviser derides Senate majority leader Bob Dole as "message man...
...They point to Haiti, Bosnia, Russia, and Northern Ireland as Clinton successes...
...Clinton has escaped a recession so far...
...The rhythm of the cycle is what we thought," says Doug Sosnik, the White House political director...
...Richard Darman, then budget director, led the Clinton-can't-win guffaws...
...Perot is a major threat to the President," he said...
...The parallel: The guys at the Bush White House ridiculed the Democratic presidential candidates, especially Clinton, in exactly the same way in 1992...
...Then, in a memo dated April 28, 1992, Bush pollster Fred Steeper wrote the ultimate put-down of Clinton...
...Nonetheless, Clinton sounded even more bullish March 8 when he spoke in Northridge, California...
...Then, there are all the resources that the White House has husbanded, while Dole has exhausted his...
...And there are other, telling similarities between the attitude of the Clinton camp and that of Bush's team in 1992...
...Start with the economy, the issue Clinton thinks will assure him a second term...
...Our economy was drifting...
...Still, in its approach to the election, the Clinton White House is more like the Bush White House than not...
...Clinton is in denial now...
...In the end, the advantage this supposedly gave Bush vanished...
...It's not a perfect one, but it's close enough that Clinton and his strategists should be chilled by it...
...There's a parallel here...
...Bush's approval rating, for example, was tumbling rapidly four years ago, while Clinton's has been crawling upward in recent months...
...And while Bush was a klutz at campaigning, Clinton is a dazzling campaigner...
...White House minions relentlessly push the line that after a rocky start Clinton has mastered foreign relations...
...Now we've had 8.4 million jobs created in three years and one month...
...In fact, that's what he did say repeatedly as Bush meandered to defeat...
...Also, a recession had struck during Bush's term, and he was bound to get some blame for it on election day...
...It goes beyond smugness...
...We haven't deviated from the plan we set out a year ago...
...The generals in Bush's campaign army fought bitterly among themselves for status, so much so that the announcement of Bush's reelection drive had to be postponed for two weeks until the title of each official could be negotiated...
...When the Bushies squabbled in 1992, it wasn't a good sign...
...The point of this comparison is simple: Just like Bush, Clinton has wound up with a White House that is dangerously smug about reelection...
...Bush was in a state of denial...
...Despite a recession followed by slow growth, Bush rebuffed advisers who wanted him to propose a program for stimulating the economy...
...The economy grew at a snail's pace (1.5 percent) in 1995 and has slowed further in 1996...
...To his detriment, Bush assumed his strengths would last forever...
...So does Clinton...
...More is better," he adds...
...Clinton is not...
Vol. 1 • March 1996 • No. 27
