The Democratic Party has often been accused of clinging to an ideology that spelled electoral doom, of choosing nominees who would rather be Left than president. This year, no one will say that. In Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown, the party has two candidates who are not about to let anything get in the way of victory.
Give Brown credit. He`s the only guy who could make Clinton look like a loyal husband-as Clinton did in defending his wife against Brown`s unfounded charge that as governor of Arkansas, he diverted state business to her law firm. He`s also the only guy who could make Clinton look like a man of candor and conviction. Clinton`s record is studded with evasions and reversals, but there are limits to what he will dare. Brown`s brazenness knows no bounds.
In fact, one of Brown`s most flagrant about-faces led to Clinton`s only known moment of political courage in this campaign. In Michigan, the former California governor, who once championed a North American common market, donned a United Auto Workers jacket and fulminated non-stop against free trade with Mexico. Clinton, who has sounded vaguely protectionist when talking about Japan, stuck to his support of a U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement.
For this race, Brown has revised his views on any number of subjects, from large campaign contributions (he once defended and solicited them, now spurns them) to national health insurance (was against, now for) to gun control (ditto) to the federal tax code (suddenly he`s the nation`s leading advocate of the flat tax, an idea that has been around longer than Brown has been in politics).
Are these inconsistencies a flaw? Heavens, no-they`re a virtue, proof that Brown is becoming ever wiser. ”You grow,” he informed The New York Times. ”You learn from mistakes. Positions evolve.” And who knows better the evils of campaign financing, he says, than one who raised millions for the California Democratic Party?
A California pollster who defended him said, ”You have to remember Jerry Brown is a work in progress.” You bet he is. But progress toward what?
People are beginning to look beyond Brown`s ostentatiously anti-Establishment pose, which is good except for the fact that it distracts them from similar scrutiny of Bill Clinton. For months, Clinton handled the drug question by saying he had never broken American laws. Only when a reporter asked if he had broken international laws did he reveal that he smoked marijuana as a student in England.
Like his marital infidelity and his efforts to escape the draft, this youthful taste of marijuana tells little about the kind of president Clinton would be. But his handling of the three issues tells much about his penchant for avoiding the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
In his ”60 Minutes” interview, Clinton never said he had been unfaithful to his wife-he merely acknowledged ”wrongdoing” and ”causing pain in my marriage,” while assuring his interrogator that ”most Americans who are watching this tonight, they`ll know what we`re saying.” In fact, most viewers probably didn`t know quite what he was saying, and he wasn`t about to enlighten them.
When it was reported that he had finagled his way out of the draft, getting a deferment for a brief but crucial period by promising to enroll in an ROTC program, he insisted, implausibly, that he had actually chosen to expose himself to the draft. And rather than simply admit having used pot when the question first arose, he led voters to think he hadn`t.
It isn`t merely on personal issues that Clinton can be slippery. He says he supported going to war against Iraq, but U.S. News & World Report found that before the fighting began, ”Clinton never said publicly that force would be needed to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait.”
During his 1990 gubernatorial campaign, he pledged to serve for four years, before deciding in 1991 he`d rather be in the White House. Gov. Clinton opposed the use of Medicaid funds for abortion; presidential candidate Clinton says he wouldn`t veto a bill providing such funding. ”I don`t think necessarily he can carry every attitude of one particular state when he goes to the national stage,” an aide explained. ”At the national level, he has to recalibrate.”
Recalibrate? Evolve? Whatever term they choose, Brown and Clinton have shown a talent for changing their colors to fit current fashions.
Clinton has addressed his personal history by saying, ”Most voters intuitively sense whether they`re dealing with a person who has a center or core. That`s far more important to them than whether a person has made any mistakes in his life.” He and his rival had better hope he`s wrong. Voters who look for a core in Clinton or Brown may be looking for a long time.
