The Political Interest the First 100 Days

By Michael Kramer

There is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful of success, than to step up as a leader in the introduction of changes. For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new.

-- Niccolo Machiavelli

Bill Clinton, apostle of the new and different, a President who has already proved Machiavelli's assertion, asks to be judged by the toughest standard imaginable. Throughout the campaign, Clinton routinely promised a first 100 days reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt's action-filled three-month push to lift America from the Great Depression. No matter that the F.D.R. yardstick is arbitrary -- and even foolish given the blessed lack of a galvanizing crisis like the one America faced in 1933. "I think it's been a very productive 100 days . . . we've made terrific progress," White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers said last Wednesday, eight days shy of the mark and a few hours before the President himself said, "There's a lot I have to learn about this town." Myers' optimism aside ("What else could she say," asks a sympathetic White House colleague, "that time flies when you're screwing up?"), the Administration is clearly reeling. The impressive litany of proposals Clinton recited last week (including new education, environmental, ethics and welfare policies) are all works in progress. The few concrete results to date are minor, and the public knows the difference. With the exception of Gerald Ford (whose pardon of Richard Nixon rocked the nation), Clinton has a disapproval rating higher than that of any other President at a comparable point. New polls show voters prefer lower taxes and fewer services over higher taxes for more services, a rebuke to the essence of Clinton's program. Perhaps most distressing for the President, for the first time since the euphoria that greeted his election, a large plurality of Americans think the nation is on "the wrong track." Political recovery is possible, even likely; all Presidents have their ups and downs. There are, however, trends worth noting and early warnings worth observing.

Great salesman that he is, Clinton can be viewed as a victim of his own success. His insistence on deficit reduction -- and his cajoling of Congress to support a multiyear plan to accomplish it -- is the very definition of courage in modern American politics. "He has stirred into life a debate from which the republic could have greatly benefited had it taken place a decade earlier," says the historian Arthur Schlesinger. "He has broken the taboo that has long banned the tax question from public discussion." Should he then be blamed when Republicans follow his lead and scuttle a pork-laden, deficit- increasing stimulus package whose impact on the economy would have been marginal at best? "Maybe, maybe not," says a Clinton adviser, "but the real story is about the President losing his touch. He can't get the modulation right. He's not quite sure how to use his power to press for what he wants and how to preserve it when bending is the wiser course."

Clinton came to office with a deserved reputation as a consensus builder. "He tried that right off with the Joint Chiefs over the issue of gays in the military, and got swatted down by Colin Powell and Sam Nunn," says an Administration official. Competing lessons were drawn from that early dustup. Defense Secretary Les Aspin said, "Obviously, a lot more consultation with key players like Nunn" would have helped. Clinton's rhetoric agreed, but his actions since often haven't. "A quote in an article back then still bothers him," says a Clinton aide. "The one where a Senator said that while everyone respects Bill and wants to work with him, the problem is that no one fears him. People were talking about his being easy to roll, and people who'd never read The Prince were quoting Machiavelli's line that it's better to be feared than loved. He didn't say it in so many words, but that's the view he bought. He'd gotten here, for chrisakes, and the polls said the people were with him, so he decided he'd stick it to the obstructionists." The President's innate arrogance took over. "Bill Clinton firmly believes he can exit any jam and gain any success simply because he's so smart and works so hard," says a longtime Clinton friend. "The badge of honor in his White House is the fact that no one dawdles and everyone brags about not sleeping." (Such an affection for process over substance dominated the early months of the New Frontier too. "Yeah," said Robert Kennedy in a sober, after-the-fact recollection, "those were the days when we thought we were succeeding because of all the stories on how hard everybody was working.")

All Presidents are arrogant of course -- even the determinedly friendly George Bush, who delighted in telling subordinates, "If you're so smart, how come I'm the one who's President?" The problem is undisciplined arrogance. As Clinton has threatened to withhold patronage from Democratic defectors and to campaign against Republican opponents, so did his model, Roosevelt. But F.D.R. wooed the G.O.P. assiduously -- "and so did Ronald Reagan," says a Clinton aide. "He made heroes of the Boll Weevils," conservative Democrats who delivered the margins of victory for Reagan's program. "All we've really done is wield the stick. That's why it was so easy for Bob Dole to roll us. Everyone likes to be stroked, and Congress, as an institution, demands respect. The irony is that schmoozing and paying homage are second nature to this President."

Which is why Clinton's prospects from here cannot be rated all bad. It's true that the lost stimulus package will have a multiplier effect. Democrats like Senator Patrick Leahy predict doom for Clinton's new Russian-aid package because helping unemployed Russians is "self-evidently a tough sell" when "the jobs program for Americans is dead." And the men who control fiscal legislation, Senator Pat Moynihan and Representative Dan Rostenkowski, have signaled their displeasure with the investment tax credit and other Clinton revenue changes. "We invested a lot of time and spent a lot of political capital closing the tax code's loopholes in 1986," says Moynihan. "We're not about to open it up now." But there's more on Clinton's plate by far, including the real measures by which he will ultimately be judged, like deficit reduction and health-care reform -- two goals that will require the greatest skill now that the latest private White House assessment has concluded that the money needed to fix the health-care mess could reach $175 billion, a sum more than twice the initial forecast. "The stimulus fight will look like a picnic compared with health care," says a Clinton aide. "But everything's possible if we include everyone in. On the other hand, nothing's possible if we continue to turn every disagreement into some kind of Quien es mas macho? thing. The President can do it if he wants to, and I'm sure he will." Why? "Because at this point he has no choice."

Many of the problems Clinton perceives today are the same ones that John Kennedy confronted 30 years ago. Clinton doesn't have an expansionist Soviet Union to face, although more than enough tough foreign crises require his careful attention. The real parallel, though, is the economy, which was everything then and is everything now. "What is at stake," Kennedy said, putting matters in their proper perspective at Yale in 1962, "is not some grand warfare of rival ideologies which will sweep the country with passion but the practical management of a modern economy. What we need is not ((party)) labels and cliches but more basic discussion of the sophisticated and technical issues involved in keeping a great economic machinery moving ahead . . ." No, Bob Dole argues today, it's "a fundamental difference in philosophy" that has caused Republicans to defy the President. Dole is wrong, Kennedy was right, and Clinton needs to appreciate his predecessor's insight.

The way from here to a successful term is clear. The President needs to recall and display the skills that won him the prize. He needs to open up, reach out and calm down. "He needs some 40-hour weeks so everybody can catch his breath," says Dole. "He's wanted to make history with his first 100 days. Well, maybe after the 100 days he can relax and we can get some steady leadership" from the White House. Something else Clinton must learn is to confess the truth when even a child can see it: against the evidence, the President recently denied that his stimulus plan was ever a centerpiece of his economic program, much as he once erroneously denied that his pledge of tax relief for the middle class was the linchpin of the scheme he propounded so successfully during the Democratic primaries. Backtracking on campaign promises is par for the course (and often prudent), but cavalier dissembling strains a President's credibility and complicates his task immeasurably.

* Among his fabulists, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton is incapable of sustained error. He'd better be, or the status quo will triumph. And for the man who set forth his standard in his Inaugural Address -- "The urgent question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy" -- that will mean failure.