NEWS ANALYSIS : Clinton Caught in Cross-Fire of Infighting by Democrats : Politics: Few in party seem willing to abandon their own agendas. Some say the President should take charge.
WASHINGTON — Like Jimmy Carter and even Lyndon B. Johnson before him, President Clinton is discovering to his discomfort that many in the Democratic Party view him less as their leader than as their servant--a servant they do not hesitate to chastise in public.
From Capitol Hill to the downtown offices of the party’s powerful liberal constituency groups, Democrats almost universally agree that they cannot reverse the Ronald Reagan-George Bush policy agenda or run well in next year’s midterm elections unless Clinton is strong.
But on issue after issue in the opening months of Clinton’s presidency, few in the party have shown much willingness to sublimate their own agendas to the larger goal of bolstering the President’s sagging popularity. If anything, some Democratic analysts say, the signs of weakness in the White House may be emboldening the party’s disparate parts to press their claims more aggressively.
This powerful centrifugal impulse may now pose as great a threat to Clinton as the unstinting criticism from Ross Perot and the GOP leadership in Congress.
By some reckonings, Clinton is already drifting into the withering cross-fire that tormented Carter and Johnson by the end of their presidencies: Each decision provokes howls either from his party’s left or right, and thus inexorably erodes his political base.
“The Democrats--especially some of those holding elected positions--have been extremely shortsighted in understanding how important presidential success and popularity is to the party and to them,†Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart said.
The phenomenon was clearly visible in last week’s infighting over the President’s budget package. Democratic moderates and oil state legislators on Capitol Hill battered his plan as too heavily weighted toward taxes just as liberals warned that too many spending cuts might threaten their support.
Similarly, environmentalists and the National Organization for Women publicly lobbied last week against the choice of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to fill the upcoming vacancy on the Supreme Court--the former because they think he is too good to lose in his current job, the latter because they do not think the court vacancy should be filled by a man.
All this comes on the heels of intramural warfare over C. Lani Guinier’s nomination to head the civil rights division of the Justice Department.
Liberal groups publicly demanded that the White House stick with the nomination while moderate senators were privately insisting that the White House pull the plug. When Clinton did withdraw the nomination, civil rights and women’s groups and the Congressional Black Caucus attacked him bitterly.
And Democratic divisions also loom over Clinton’s proposals for health care reform.
Clinton’s own missteps have damaged his standing with the great mass of centrist voters, further encouraging some Democrats to pursue immediate interests at his expense.
While Republican presidents cannot count on complete loyalty from their supporters, they do preside over a more homogenous coalition and rarely face the open rebellion from both ends of the ideological spectrum that is now besieging Clinton.
“The Democratic Party needs to figure out that it is a governing party,†said Stanley B. Greenberg, Clinton’s pollster. “It needs to see that we are all in it together and we will all be held accountable. It is a new experience for Democrats.â€
Many in Washington--including some in his own camp--blame the President for allowing his party to fracture so quickly. In the campaign, Clinton promised a “new Democrat†agenda that would build a coalition around ideas such as blending opportunity and personal responsibility and linking an expansion of government activity with fundamental reforms in its operation.
During the transition last fall, this appeal to overarching ideas quickly vanished beneath a fierce scramble by party interest groups for appointments.
Since his inauguration, many party centrists maintain, the President has failed to press his “new Democrat†ideas and instead tilted his agenda toward the traditional priorities of the interest groups and liberal leadership on Capitol Hill.
Tactical mistakes have exacerbated these tensions, and his willingness to reverse course on issues from the middle-class tax cut to the line-item veto have left all Democratic factions uncertain of his true allegiance.
But deeper forces within the party are compounding Clinton’s problems, many Democratic analysts agree.
Like Carter, Clinton is finding that his position as titular head of the Democrats gives him only limited sway over the array of liberal constituency groups--such as civil rights and women’s organizations, environmentalists, organized labor and advocates for gay rights.
As Clinton sought the political center in the presidential campaign, these groups generally muted their demands. But since the election, they have recharted an independent course--with most quickly criticizing Clinton when he disappoints them on appointments or threatens to depart from liberal priorities on issues such as including abortion in a national health care plan.
“Our interest groups are so passionate in their advocacy . . . that it is very difficult for them to take the long view that by weakening the President, they are weakening themselves . . . because their success is inextricably tied to his,†said Stuart E. Eizenstat, who watched the bullets fly from both sides as Carter’s domestic policy adviser.
Vic Kamber, a Democratic consultant close to organized labor, says he accepts much of Eizenstat’s argument. But he insists that it is Clinton’s responsibility, not that of the interest groups, to establish party discipline.
“I don’t think the obligation is on the interest groups to back off. It’s up to him to come up with a solution,†he said.
Those differing perspectives shape assessments of the confrontation over Guinier. Guinier’s Democratic critics say her supporters were disloyal to the President in demanding that he mount a fight with slim prospects of success. Guinier’s supporters say the White House was disloyal in abandoning a nominee so important to its allies without even stepping onto the battlefield.
“The disagreement didn’t center around us disregarding the political capital of the President, but over an honest disagreement about whether her writings could ultimately be vindicated,†said Judith Lichtman, president of the Women’s Legal Defense Fund.
White House aides and leaders of civil rights and women’s groups are trying to heal the wounds. But in the weeks ahead, Clinton is likely to face more challenges from Democratic constituency groups as he seeks compromises on such issues as gays in the military and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
So far, members of Congress have proved more willing than the interest groups to tie their fate to Clinton--but not much.
The margin of victory for Clinton’s economic plan in the House may have come from Democrats who swallowed their objections in the name of party loyalty, but the vote came only after Democratic moderates spent weeks reinforcing the GOP critique that the package was too heavily weighted toward tax increases.
“A lot of people aren’t used to taking orders and having somebody set the agenda,†said one senior Democratic aide in the House. “We are going through governing pains here.â€
Legislators may believe that they are protecting themselves with this independent posture, but to the extent that their public criticism weakens the President, it may be self-defeating, argued Hart.
“What often happens with the members of Congress . . . is when they see storm clouds gathering on the presidential front, they feel that if they get into their own dinghy, they can row away from the storm,†he said. “But I can tell you, none of them can row fast enough or far enough.â€
Exhibit A in Hart’s case might be the landslide defeat this month of interim Sen. Robert Krueger (D-Tex.), who was swept away in an anti-Clinton tide despite voting against the President’s economic plan himself.
Yet the trend on Capitol Hill is toward ever more fractionation.
After the Guinier controversy, Rep. Kweisi Mfumi (D-Md.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the group was re-evaluating its relationship with the White House and hinted that it might withhold support for Clinton initiatives in retaliation.
All this has tattered Clinton’s reputation for political dexterity. But some say his real mistake was in believing that he would not have to choose among the party’s contending forces.
“Clinton’s promise in the campaign was that in his person, he would resolve the longstanding contradictions in the party,†said Fred Siegel, a historian at the Manhattan Institute who has written extensively about the Democratic coalition. “In the end, they’re not resolvable.â€
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