ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 31, 1996 TAG: 9609030023
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
IN THEIR conventions just ended, both parties papered over their internal differences and submerged policy debates in a stew of schmaltzy personal drama.
The focus by television analysts was on craft and skill, image and positioning, never mind what anyone believes. And never mind any coherent description, in broad or vivid terms, of where either presidential candidate might hope to lead the nation.
President Clinton's acceptance speech Thursday night, long and inoffensive, may have met his political needs. But as a pollster-driven laundry list of concerns and proposals, it offered nothing uplifting. It was a pedestrian "bridge to the 21st century" that he talked on and on about.
Before Clinton's speech, both conventions seemed at times like telethons or those gauzy up-close-and-personal sports vignettes - people in wheelchairs, babies on display, AIDS sufferers, overcomers of this or that injury or tragedy, role models of every persuasion. The programs were more about empathy than inspiration.
In their respective infomercials, the GOP tried to be like Democrats and the Democrats like the GOP. Republicans insisted on their inclusiveness, diversity, compassion and friendliness to women, never mind the actual composition of their convention and party platform. Democrats conceded the limits of government and exalted family values at every turn.
Judged as displays of decorum and moderation, both conventions were successful. Republicans sought to put behind images of their 1992 get-together in Houston, during which a visibly vitriolic religious right scared independent and moderate viewers. In San Diego this year, anti-abortion delegates repudiated Bob Dole's request for a little "tolerance" language in the platform. But the humiliation was forgotten amid the excitement over his choice of Jack Kemp for a running mate.
Democrats sought to bury images of their last Chicago convention, in 1968, when their party was linked with dissenters and demanders, the disorderly and the disrespectful. This week, some early dissent was heard regarding Bill Clinton's signing of a Republican-leaning welfare-reform bill. His triumphal arrival from a whistle-stop train ride through the heartland, as well as the convention's message about traditional values, was marred a bit by the sex scandal that jettisoned the political guru, Dick Morris, who is credited with family-valuing Clinton to his current lead in the polls. Even so, eschewal of excess remained the dominant theme, both of the convention and of Clinton's acceptance speech.
The Morris influence shouldn't be overemphasized. Clinton in fact has long sought to find a course between liberal demands for more government entitlements and conservative repudiation of all governmental activism. In the past couple of years, after an initial lurch to the left, the president has proved so adept at positioning that the former war protester and alleged philanderer has succeeded, as Mario Cuomo put it, in "easing the stigmas that had been branded upon our reputation'' and ``lifting the albatrosses from around the neck" of the Democratic Party.
Which is fine for Clinton's electoral chances. But what about the country and the big choices it faces?
In his acceptance speech, Clinton issued a long list of little things to do. They underscored his beliefs - that we retain legitimate public business, that struggling families can use help, that the nation must favor the future over the past, and that these days confer a high political premium on flexibility.
But, except for the personal business of getting re-elected, Clinton left the other side of the "bridge to the 21st century" mostly obscured in mist.
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENTby CNB