No Silver Lining in the Kerry Cloud
BARNES, FRED
No Silver Lining in the Kerry Cloud If he wins, there will be no consolation prizes for conservatives. BY FRED BARNES THE PRESIDENCY of Bill Clinton had a silver lining for Republicans and...
...At the moment, there are 51 Republican senators, but only 45 or so are reliably conservative votes...
...But, as David Brooks wrote in the New York Times, "he will momentarily embrace daring ideas, but if they threaten core constituencies, he often abandons them, returning meekly to the Democratic choir...
...Kerry's stated goal is to cut the budget deficit in half in four years and achieve a balanced budget later...
...Clinton thinks his policies alone produced a balanced budget...
...Kerry won't...
...BY FRED BARNES THE PRESIDENCY of Bill Clinton had a silver lining for Republicans and conservatives...
...Hardly...
...He once called for ending teacher tenure and questioned the effects of affirmative action...
...Kerry is a conventional liberal who buys almost none of it except the goal of a balanced budget...
...He's refused to back the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), saying it should include worker and environmental standards theat Latin American countries would never accept...
...Thanks to Clinton, they made significant political gains in the 1990s...
...That sounds nice, but there's a glaring omission from the Kerry-Edwards plan: a cap on non-economic damages...
...There's good reason to be skeptical he'll find any...
...So he stuck with the trade agreement and lobbied hard for its ratification...
...On reforming the welfare system, long a target of conservative criticism, a "Nixon goes to China" phenomenon was required, a president going against the partisan and ideological grain...
...More important, they achieved three policy breakthroughs that in all likelihood would have eluded a Republican president: serious welfare reform, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and a balanced budget...
...What made the Clinton era so unusual, however, were the Republican victories on substantive issues...
...But that would have meant reneging on a campaign promise and would have resulted in a rift with Canada and Mexico...
...Kerry has elaborate spending plans, particularly on health care...
...And it's the only thing that matters in limiting damages, holding down the price of malpractice insurance, and keeping doctors in business...
...They'd need to pick up more than 10 to stand a chance of overriding vetoes by president Kerry...
...Kerry has occasionally veered from liberal orthodoxy...
...Probably not...
...He says he'll recruit more allies to take some of the burden in Iraq off the United States...
...sure, they could take a few more governorships and Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...To produce such gains, there would have to be a powerful backlash against president Kerry...
...But that was a once-in-a-lifetime event...
...That measure included a tax cut on capital gains and a child credit for families...
...Republicans need anywhere from 5 to 10 new Senate seats to cut off Democratic filibusters, depending on the issue...
...On Iraq, what Kerry would do is anybody's guess...
...Since it was a Democratic president proposing the reform, many Democrats in Congress were inclined to go along...
...in reaction to Clinton's first two years as president, Republicans made extraordinary political gains in 1994, not only capturing both houses of Congress but also winning a majority of governorships and a plurality of state legislatures...
...He said he'd back tort reform to aid doctors facing exorbitant malpractice insurance premiums...
...is this possible...
...The question is whether Republicans would have insisted on sharp spending reductions with a Republican in the White House...
...So we're left with this conclusion: The best arrangement for holding down spending is a Republican Congress and a Democratic president...
...And there's no silver lining...
...The chances are exceedingly slim Republicans will be able to pull off victories on conservative issues in a Kerry era...
...And since 1994, Republicans have largely held onto these gains...
...The fact that Clinton promised to "end welfare as we know it" in the 1992 campaign made it difficult for him to oppose a reform bill as president...
...Clinton was a "new" Democrat who endorsed some of the conservative agenda...
...Without a cap, the Kerry-Edwards plan is one trial lawyers can live with quite comfortably...
...in truth, he was even better for Republicans...
...He claims to have a plan for Iraq but hasn't said what it is...
...But the "Nixon goes to China" analogy has not been lost on Kerry...
...Maybe, but don't hold your breath...
...The maximum number of seats they could win in an America evenly divided between the two parties is around 240, and Republicans already have 227...
...But gaining a sizable number of House seats would be all but impossible...
...add to their slim majority of state legislators...
...He's no Clinton either...
...in short, only a Democratic president could have delivered conservative welfare reform— and Clinton did, with some Democratic and overwhelming Republican support...
...Congressional Republicans were indispensable, forcing deep spending cuts in 1995 and spending restraint later...
...Clinton prompted a Republican landslide...
...They certainly haven't with George Bush as president...
...The key vote was in the House, where Clinton again prevailed with Republican votes...
...But on health care, an issue on which Republicans are desperate not to be viewed negatively, they might go along with Kerry...
...The delirious reception Clinton got at last month's Democratic convention makes clear that Democrats believe he was good for their party...
...In campaign appearances recently in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Cape Canaveral, Florida, he invoked it and insinuated he will part company with trial lawyers, a key Democratic constituency...
...On trade, he's joined the Democratic—and increasingly Republican—chorus of protectionists...
...A roaring stock market increased tax revenues dramatically in the late 1990s and wiped out the deficit...
...Because of strong opposition by a majority of House Democrats and organized labor, he considered abandoning NAFTA...
...The out party—the one that doesn't control the presidency— often gains House and Senate seats and does better in state contests...
...Had it been a Republican president, they wouldn't have...
...Unlike Clinton, Kerry doesn't have any pet projects Republicans and conservatives favor...
...The same was true for NAFTA...
...Don't expect similar successes if John Kerry is elected to the White House...
...Even a failed Kerry presidency would be unlikely to produce sweeping electoral wins for Republicans...
...The senate offers slightly better prospects...
...One more factor...
...No doubt Republicans would balk at some of the spending...
...If Kerry is elected president, this arrangement is likely to prevail, though there's an outside chance the Senate will go Democratic...
...Indeed, he and his trial lawyer running mate, John Edwards, insist in their campaign booklet, Our Plan for America, that they would "take steps to curb the rising cost of medical malpractice insurance...
...Kerry is no Nixon...
...They also pressured Clinton into signing a balanced budget agree-ment—an act, not a constitutional amendment—in 1997...
Vol. 9 • August 2004 • No. 46
