The Political Interest

By Michael Kramer

WHAT IS LEFT FOR GEORGE BUSH NOW IS TO BOW OUT gracefully, an act of self- preservation to which he is well suited by temperament and breeding.

What is left for Ross Perot is the rehabilitation of his reputation. Without the oxygen of feedback -- the laughs and snickers that accompany his homilies when his fabulists people the room -- Perot's act quickly tires. As he moves beyond diagnosis to prescription, Perot must ensure his presentation is persuasive enough so that if the nation's stagnation continues, he can reappear in 1996 to ask credibly, "Now are you ready to act instead of talk?"

That Bush knows the jig is up seemed evident in the second presidential debate last week -- a forum that resembled a teach-in rather than a brawl. Scripted to strike again at Clinton's character, Bush clearly didn't relish the role. Swatted down by Clinton, who wouldn't play, and then by the moderator and the audience, Bush avoided pressing his charge that Clinton's demonstrating against the Vietnam War while studying abroad should be received as a disqualifying act. Experience shows that whenever Bush says something like, "That's what I feel passionately about" (as he added in his dig at Clinton), you can bet it is the last thing he believes really matters. If he truly thought Clinton's behavior morally repugnant, Bush would have soldiered on. The President is worn and beaten. The light touch is gone. Were he on top of his game, Bush would have deflected the question of how the recession personally affected him by saying, "Well, if the polls are correct, it's about to cost me my job."

The Republicans, including the President, are already back in the gutter, but Bush should salvage his dignity by stepping away. It is still within the President's power to write his own epitaph as a decent man who tried his best, a legacy he could squander if he continues the mudslinging when all is lost.

Bill Clinton's task is the trickiest of all. The nation's 12-year vacation is over. It is time to pay the bills and get back to work. The electorate's hopes could not be higher. Clinton is being chosen to fix the economy, which no President can control unilaterally. To have any reasonable chance of affecting matters at all, Clinton, as President-in-waiting, should use the remainder of the campaign to shape a mandate. He must sharply define and carefully limit both the number and the reach of his plans so they become both instantly recognizable and easily digestible. As Ronald Reagan did, Clinton should stress a few core principles, priorities the people and Congress can identify without prompting as the essence of what he has been elected to do.

Unfortunately, programmatic discipline is not Clinton's strong suit, as his plan for national service illustrates. Clinton has been charmed for years by the idea that the government would pay college tuition for students in exchange for community service, and he routinely offers it as a defining expression of his governmental philosophy. But like many of his ambitious proposals, national service should be approached with the wariness one brings to purchasing toys: look for the small-print message ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. Ever mindful that his candidacy could crumble if Bush's "tax and spend" label sticks, Clinton's fully developed national-service proposal reflects a sober appreciation of fiscal reality, a caution invariably missing from his grandiose stump presentations. At the second debate, Clinton again implied that government-paid tuition would be available to any student who agreed to perform two years of community work.

What Clinton didn't say is that the plan would be phased in gradually, that the maximum tuition assistance available would be $5,000 a year (less than the annual cost of an education at even most state universities) and that, when fully implemented, the program could serve only a fraction of those who might be attracted to the idea; others could apply for loans repayable after graduation. "From a budgetary standpoint," Clinton's issues director, Bruce Reed, says, "we're not going to create another entitlement so that anyone who wants to go into national service can do it. We'll spend up to $7.5 billion a year on it and try to provide as many slots as that money can pay for." By that calculus, only about 250,000 students could become national servants, or roughly one-eighth of those currently eligible if the plan had no monetary ceiling. Consider also that the scheme might entice others to seek a postsecondary education, and, however wondrous in theory, national service becomes a prescription for disappointment.

As Clinton's articulation of national service raises impossible expectations, it illuminates a far graver potential problem. If he hopes to govern as he has so far campaigned, as a leader with a program for every problem, Clinton, like Jimmy Carter, will dissipate his political capital and end up presiding over an ad-hocracy in which disparate policies never quite mesh.