For four years Republicans have tried to prove that Bill Clinton lacks the character to be president. Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole has begun to assert, instead, that Clinton lacks the convictions.
According to Dole, the president is a liberal. Though many in the media have cried foul, the record is clear. Clinton is a liberal. He has revealed this in the company he keeps, the appointments he makes and the policy he initiates when unencumbered by public opinion.
Yet Clinton is not only a liberal, he is also an opportunist who has refashioned himself as centrist to regain electoral credibility. Thus, Dole must do more than call Clinton a liberal. He must demonstrate it. Or better yet, he must get Clinton to demonstrate it in full view of the electorate.
To make his charge stick, Dole must, first, begin to dramatize the contrast between Clinton’s politician commitments and the common sense of the electorate. This may seem difficult given Clinton’s recent dash toward the center. Nevertheless, Clinton remains vulnerable on a number of issues.
For example, at the Democratic convention Clinton defended his wife’s book, “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child.” Despite Clinton’s attempts, nearly all focus groups responded negatively to this part of his speech. Even so, Clinton did effectively blunt the Dole criticism by denying that he and his wife believe collective authority should supersede parental authority over children.
Dole should revisit the issue. He should insist that, whatever the Clintons say, their educational policies do in fact have the effect of denying parental authority.
To dramatize this point, Dole should go to East Stroudsburg, Penn., where 59 6th-grade girls were recently forced to have external genital examination over their own objections and without their parents’ consent. Or Dole could go to almost any school in the country where grants from Clinton’s Goals 2000 now encourage school officials to offer free, health-related services, including condom distribution and abortion counseling, without parental notification. Such visits would give Dole a stage for explaining what he will do to the Clinton educational establishment.
Or consider another issue that lends itself to such a demonstration. Dole has criticized Clinton for delaying the development of an effective missile defense system. He should certainly give several policy speeches emphasizing our total vulnerability to attack from even crude ship-borne missiles. But to get the attention of the electorate, he should give these speeches along the arc of heartland cities that will lie within reach of North Korean missiles by 2000. A promise to deploy a missile defense before, not after, that date will establish a meaningful contrast with Clinton on the issue.
Second, Dole should induce Clinton to use his glibness to incriminate himself as a liberal. Dole should force Clinton to attack conservative proposals that voters overwhelmingly favor and to defend liberal beliefs that voters overwhelmingly reject.
For example, nearly 80 percent of Californians support the California Civil Rights Initiative ending racial and gender preference in hiring. Dole must go to California and support that initiative. He should then demand that Clinton come to California and explain his opposition to a truly color blind society.
Dole can use the abortion issue in a similar way. While the news media routinely classify a majority of Americans as “pro-choice,” they rarely explain that many such voters favor significant legal restrictions on many types of abortion. Nearly 85 percent of the electorate oppose abortion after the beginning of the third trimester. Seventy-five percent oppose it after the first trimester, roughly the point at which neurologists believe the fetus can experience pain. Dole should demand that Clinton explain again why he opposes limiting late-term abortions. Dole should also demand that Clinton explain to the public what the partial birth abortion procedure entails and why he vetoed a measure to outlaw it.
Challenging Clinton to defend unpopular liberal policy commitments will have several advantages. It will put Dole on the offense and neutralize Clinton’s advantage as a debater. One need not debate positions that most of the electorate finds compelling.
This strategy will also play directly to Clinton’s own perceived strength and to his greatest potential weakness: his belief that he can defend the indefensible and get away with it.
Third, Dole must turn Clinton’s own responses against him. To redefine Clintonomics as liberal statism rather than just “Republican Lite,” Dole must expose the assumptions that underlie Clinton’s public hand-wringing about “paying for” tax cuts. He must say: “we pay for government programs with taxes, we do not `pay for’ tax money by cutting programs. I believe that government must live on what we are willing to provide it. Clinton believes that we must live on what government lets up keep.”In other words, Dole must show how Clinton’s responses reveal a typically liberal commitment to a federally controlled economy.
Fourth, the Dole campaign must create a context for skepticism about Clinton’s centrist persona. Campaign ads should explain the cynical role that Clinton’s now-departed adviser Dick Morris played in persuading him to adopt conservative-sounding “family values” themes. The Dole campaign must continue to confront voters with the question: “Do you know where Mr. Clinton will take the country once he no longer faces re-election?”
Clinton’s political recovery follows a deliberate strategy to co-opt Republican themes and to redefine himself as a political centrist. Thus, attacking Clinton’s liberal beliefs, rather than his personal character, addresses the source of his current strength and targets his corresponding vulnerability. Clinton may have cheated and told lies. But he is politically vulnerable because he is running on a lie–a lie about his identity that he would not need if he could win with the truth. Yet convincing the electorate of Clinton’s liberal inclinations will require more than making the accusation. Dole must also produce–and dramatize–the proof. If he does, the big leads of August will continue to shrink.
