The talk about dumping Bill Clinton has become a media-age parlor game: watch the story grow. Departing Sen. David Boren says the president should give ““serious consideration’’ to not seeking re-election. Democratic members of Congress complain privately to reporters that their own political survival in 1996 might be jeopardized by Clinton on the ticket. Armchair shrinks figure the president looks depressed on TV. Johnny Apple turns the buzz into a front-page story in The New York Times. Jack Newfield formally launches the Dump Bill campaign in the New York Post. Suddenly it’s fit for everyone to chat about over the cranberry sauce. The subject arises some time after carving up Jesse Helms and before squeezing more out of O.J.
Of course, history argues against it. Only one elected president who actively sought renomination has been denied it – Franklin Pierce in 1856. Even unpopular William Howard Taft – with a popular ex-president (Teddy Roosevelt) in hot pursuit – still won renomination in 1912. At first glance, forcing Clinton to withdraw is more plausible. In 1952, the Republicans said Harry Truman stood for ““Korea, Communism and Corruption’’; Truman said the hell with it and decided not to seek re-election. Lyndon Johnson pulled out after Eugene McCarthy’s 42 percent humiliated him in the New Hampshire primary. Among those working early to dump LBJ that year was a young New Yorker named Harold Ickes. Now Ickes is the senior White House aide most responsible for making sure it doesn’t happen to Clinton.
It probably won’t. There’s no searing issue like Vietnam on the immediate horizon. As Clinton moves to the center (perhaps abolishing a cabinet agency or two), a challenge from conservative Democrats seems unlikely. They don’t vote heavily in Democratic primaries, anyway. Jesse Jackson, edging toward a bid, will likely form a black political party to try to humiliate Clinton in selected primaries. But the logistical hurdles are high, and Jackson is no longer a media novelty. He’s not even the overwhelming favorite among black voters anymore.
Who else? Some intraparty challenge will emerge – it usually does. But today’s liberals are the whipped puppies of American politics. They’re realistic enough to know that primary challenges hurt their cause: Kennedy maimed Carter in 1980 and paved the way for Reagan. But they’re not realistic enough to abandon their faith that government is still the solution of first resort. Although liberals understand the immediate politics of their predicament, they haven’t yet internalized the obvious message of the election: shrink government. Even now, they are parting neither with their illusions nor with their superstructure – the hulking, obsolete model of big bureaucratic problem-solving.
The result is a state of ideological exhaustion, with Clin-ton an irritating bedsore rather than the disease itself. Revival on the left’s old populist terms requires a severe reces-sion, which – given Alan Greenspan – is altogether possible. This helps explain Clinton’s feverish effort to pass GATT. World trade isn’t just one of his major (if unsexy) accomplishments. It’s his best bet to keep the economy good in ‘96.
It’s a sign of how much the ground has shifted that 1988’s conservative Democrat, Al Gore, is the new liberal fantasy. His political advantages over Clinton were reinforced last week after he was sandbagged by – of all people – his own parents, who inexplicably gave The New Yorker old letters from their college-age son calling the U.S. Army an example of a ““fascist, totalitarian regime.’’ Confronted, Gore murmured a ““Good Lord!’’ or two, then denounced his own youthful language and noted that he soon enlisted in the army. Zero damage done – the man is ’60s-proof. Even so, only a huge Whitewater wave could sweep him to the top of the ticket. Clinton likes Gore, but not enough to fall on his sword. When asked early this year what he most learned from his beloved late mother, the president replied: ““Never give up.’'
As his odds worsen, the biggest factors for Clinton in ‘96 are the identity of the GOP nominee and the role of independents. A fractured field is Clinton’s best hope. His aides go to bed every night praying that Ross Perot runs again. (He probably won’t.) They pray Colin Powell does not. (He could win.) And they pray for a national Right-to-Life party.
Of course prayer doesn’t belong in politics any more than it does in schools. Hail Marys don’t win elections. But with a moment of silence (a fine, constitutional compromise, by the way), the Clintonites might be able to contemplate the larger forces now unleashed. All over the world, the state is under assault from individuals exercising their right to have more control over their own lives. A century ago there was a word for this. The word was liberalism. It might be too early to save the word itself; conservative sloganeering has turned ““liberal’’ into an epithet. But the idea still has power. In explaining why he switched from Democrat to Independent, Angus King, the newly elected governor of Maine, declared that the Democrats were still ““a mainframe [party] in an age of PCs.’’ This idea is bigger than challenging Clinton in 1996. It’s about challenging all of our existing political assumptions, in ways we cannot yet imagine.
