This could have been an important election, until theRepublicans lost their nerve. They once thought they had a mandatefor the assault on the welfare state they had promised in theirsmashing electoral victory of November 1994. Then came 1995 andthree things happened.
First, the Republicans misplayed their hand, with tacticalblunders culminating in Gingrich's gripe that he'd shut down thegovernment in part because Clinton had made him use the back doorof Air Force One. Second, Clinton/Morris moved rhetorically to thecenter. Third, and most important, the people, sovereign andinfallible, let on that they'd been bluffing all along aboutcutting government.
That was the key. The people, it turns out, really don't wantsmaller government. They want talk about smaller government.Indeed, they want their politicians to inveigh against it withpassion. Best of all is a Democrat doing the inveighing, as didClinton when he declared in his 1996 State of the Union Addressthat 'the era of big government is over.' The claim was hollow (hethen went on to list about two dozen programs that he would imposeregardless); the applause, thunderous.Why? Because times are good. Post-Cold War America is dominant,prosperous and at peace. A people in such conditions is in no moodto be challenged.For all of the pop sociology about some vast 'anxious class,'this is the least anxious era since at least 1930. For all thehypochondriacal griping to pollsters, by any real measure --strikes, marches, protests, political radicalism (the country's No.1 political radical, by all accounts, is speaker of the House!) --today's electorate is if not profoundly satisfied, then profoundlypacified.Such an electorate is wary of social experiments. Bill Clintonwas punished severely for his hubristic attempt to remake theentire U.S. health care system. And a conservative Congress was inturn slapped down for seriously trying to act out its pledge todismantle the welfare state.The Republicans read the polls, saw what a debacle theysuffered in the great Medicare-reforming, budget-balancinggovernment shutdown, and promptly gave up. Gave up ideologically,that is. They have ever since resolutely avoided ideological combat-- witness the festival of mush that was the San Diego convention,followed by Dole's effective abandonment of California'santi-racial preferences referendum -- and by so doing, they haveturned this election into one of the most unimportant in postwarhistory.The differences between Clinton and Dole require a microscope.Dole will cut your Medicare by $26 billion per year, Clinton by $19billion. Dole wants smut and violence out of music lyrics; Clintonwants to V-chip it off TV. Dole rails against marijuana; Clintonagainst tobacco.How low have the stakes gotten? Several days were taken uprecently with the great question of the president's medicalrecords. That Clinton is obviously -- and by medical testimony --as fit as any man who has ever held office did not stop Dole fromdemanding full disclosure. What can one say about a presidentialcampaign one of whose main themes is a hunt for herpes?Once Republicans had given up on trying to reshape a realconservative agenda -- a 15 percent tax cut is an inducement, notan agenda -- they had given up the game.What was left to talk about? Character? The American peopleknow everything about the characters of Clinton and Dole and havedecided that it does not matter. In fact, they've seen this moviebefore. In 1992, when the character issue loomed much largerbecause Clinton was the unknown challenger, they decided it didn'tmatter. And they were right. The last four years have shown thatpresidential character and national well-being can be quiteindependent variables.The Republicans, perplexed by the country's ideologicallethargy, have acquiesced to it, running a cloying 'We care too'convention followed by a feeble 'Cut Medicare? Who me?' campaign.Clinton, for his part, has offered 'a bridge to the 21st century,'a campaign vision of consummate banality. It is constructed of anendless array of the tiniest of welfare state tinkerings, up to andincluding flex-time to take Fido to the vet. And it is workingsplendidly.Clinton is nothing if not a master at reading his times. Heunderstands that quiescent times call for minimalist politics. Thatis his calling and his campaign (an easy twinning, Clinton havingnever distinguished between the two).In the post-Cold War world the presidency was destined to be amuch smaller office than it had been through Depression, World Warand Cold War. Clinton, champion downsizer, has already fulfilledthat destiny, turning this presidential race -- with Dole'sacquiescence, mind you -- into one of uncommon inconsequence.
