ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 30, 1996 TAG: 9612020001
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOSHUA RUBONGOYA
A REBUTTAL is in order regarding Michael Farris' Nov. 10 commentary, ``Why Bob Dole couldn't beat Bill Clinton.''
I credit him for recognizing that ``the Republican Party has lost two consecutive races to Bill Clinton with nearly identically resumed candidates who ran nearly identical races with identically disastrous results.'' I also agree that America's ``vital center'' - the group that determines who becomes president - does so based on what Farris calls niceness, vision and problem-solving.
In analyzing what went wrong with the Dole campaign, Farris begins by looking at the quality of niceness, likening Dole to Walter Matthau in ``Grumpy Old Men'' and Clinton to the affectionate uncle playing peek-a-boo with his nephew on Election Night. But Clinton's niceness didn't begin or end on Election Night. He resisted all manner of nasty attacks from his opponents. His wife and daughter were attacked, and so was his character, his ethics, his manners and even his cat! Clinton chose for the most part not to respond in kind.
During the debates, Clinton saluted Dole for his courage and valor on the battlefield and his 35 years in Congress. On his part, Dole found it hard to give credit to Clinton's accomplishments - the strategy was to force Clinton to take responsibility for all ills without taking credit for achievements. Moreover, while Clinton was preaching reconciliation between classes and races in America, Dole campaigned hard for California's anti-affirmative-action measure, Proposition 209. Also, it wasn't nice to send an emissary to ask for support from the very candidate that one prevented from participating in the presidential debates. The cumulative result is both a real and perceived sense that Dole isn't a nice guy.
On vision, Farris claims Clinton won based on ``a silly allusion about a bridge.'' But this analysis is too shallow. In actual fact, the Clinton administration could rightfully counter the traditional Republican claims to ``limited and efficient government'' with the fact that the federal government had been heavily downsized under its watch, and certainly more so than in the Reagan or Bush administrations. Furthermore, when the Republican Congress forced the federal government to close down, assuming the people would happily draft its eulogy, this became the defining issue of each party's vision for the country.
Clinton's vision on foreign policy should be measured against his position on Bosnia, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Mexican bailout. To his credit, Dole was on Clinton's side on NAFTA. But when very few would support the president on the other two issues, Clinton made two politically risky decisions. Relatively speaking, Bosnia is stable and the United States hasn't lost a dime on the bailout. If we agree that vision is partly about taking prudent risks, then clearly Clinton's record not only transcends metaphors - as in ``bridge'' - but gives the metaphor a concrete basis.
Perhaps it's on the subject of problem-solving that Farris' analysis was least engaging. True, Dole's 15 percent tax cut was too good to be true, and indeed a gimmick that surprised most of us who respected him as a deficit hawk. But to suggest that Clinton's campaign was nothing but a pitch for solutions to everything including dandruff is misguided. It's a matter of record that the Clinton administration reduced unemployment by creating more than 10 million jobs.
On the recession, economic growth has been vibrant to the extent that the Federal Reserve has been trying to slow down the economy and control inflation. Inflation was at 7.5 percent when Clinton took over and is now at about 5.5 percent.
A week before the election, figures on the budget deficit showed it down by 63 percent, or $107.3 billion, down from a $290 billion high when Clinton took over. All other indicators, including real gross domestic product, personal income, average hourly pay, are up. The Brady Bill was signed into law as a measure against gun-related crimes, and with the exception of youth, drug use in our society is down. Farris' analysis is silent on these issues.
Farris argues that people have interpreted the Republicans' plans to abolish the Department of Education as an indirect way of cutting education. He says the GOP should blame federal bureaucrats. It's the bureaucrats who are responsible for the backwardness and dangers that characterize our schools. But this issue should be examined in the context of other factors.
First, as an educator, I view the Department of Education as a symbol - a sign that education is a national priority along with defense and the economy. It ought to continue to set national standards. To abolish the department does nothing to dispel the perception that Republicans want to ``cut education.'' Second, to rely on federal bureaucrats as the substitute for the bankruptcy of ideas on how to improve schools is like forcing the closure of government as a scapegoat for the lack of constructive discourse on how to trim the budget deficit.
What kind of platform could have given Dole's campaign some political traction? A platform prepared with issues of a conservative social agenda. One could have focused on school prayer, the atrocities of partial-birth abortion, teen-age pregnancy, drug use and traditional family values. These issues could have been discussed without necessarily attacking the other guy.
The issue of the Clinton administration's ethics has been examined and exposed for so long that the administration has been immunized and sanitized against any further attacks. Until a direct hit on Clinton is scored, the public will continue to vote their pocketbooks rather than the abstract notion of ethical integrity. Any analyst who dismisses this fact would fall far short of the mark.
Joshua Rubongoya is assistant professor of political science at Roanoke College.
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