Under the Dole

Sure, Clinton has his problems. But imagine life six months
after the inauguration of Bob Dole.

by Michael Crowley

Bill Clinton is finding it's no easy ride into the history books. Not only are scandals from Whitewater to the Paula Jones suit slithering ever nearer to his feet, but he can't catch a break from the left for anything he does. He was accused of giving a hollow address on race, hounded for failing to fix welfare reform, and labeled a heretic for caving into Republicans on tax breaks for the rich.

Some horrified liberals are wondering if we have a Democratic president at all. "Clinton," says Robert McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal Washington think tank, "is a moderate Republican."

Republican! More and more, Clinton's critics are slinging that nasty word around. It's enough to take you back to the 1996 presidential campaign, when disgruntled voters complained there was no discernible difference between Clinton and his GOP opponent, Bob Dole. That idea formed the rationale for Ralph Nader's entire candidacy.

In fact, the ghastly voter turnout on November 5 -- just 49 percent -- suggested a general agreement across America that it simply didn't matter who was elected president. That The Choice, as Bob Woodward called it in the title of his book, was no choice at all. Coke or Pepsi. Tuesday or Wednesday.

But six months into Bill Clinton's second term, as he embarks on new battles, from race in America to fighting tobacco to a budget deal, just take a minute to imagine life under President Bob Dole instead. It could have happened -- 37 million voters wanted it to -- and it's a scary concept. Considering the implications of a Dole Administration might just convince you that poor Bill deserves a break.

IT'S JUST wrong to say it wouldn't have made any difference," says William Schneider, a political analyst for CNN. "Don't discount the sheer excitement of a Republican Congress and a Republican president for the first time in the past 40 years. . . . the excitement of controlling everything."

It's not that Dole is evil -- he isn't. The fundamental horror of a Dole presidency would be the unleashing of the snarling beast that is the Republican Congress, now locked in the dungeon by Bill Clinton's veto power. Every bad conservative idea in Washington would burst forth in a frightening flurry of legislation.

An ecstatic Christian Coalition and National Rifle Association would cheerlead the passage of a nightmarish agenda that would be sent to the White House for Dole's signature. Abortion rights would make a good first target. Environmental law, like anti-pollution regulations and the Endangered Species Act, would be hacked to bits. Defense spending would soar. The assault-weapons ban would go. School prayer might be written into the Constitution. New limitations on gay rights, for sure. And if you thought last year's welfare-reform bill was cruel, imagine the Republican attempt to "fix" it.

"They'd have a wonderful time," says Michael Dukakis. Not that Dole would simply sit back, mutter his one-liners, and sign noxious bills. He'd be changing administration policy by decree through executive orders. He'd have four years to appoint conservative judges to the federal and Supreme courts. And on a basic psychological level, there's something deeply depressing about the thought of seeing Dole on the news every night, plaguing the national psyche with his stunted sentences, his nostalgia for the Midwest of the '50s, his "whatever"s.

Worst of all, Dole would presume himself to have a mandate for passing his indefensible economic plan. Remember the yellow "15%" button Dole wore around at the end of the campaign, cutely signifying the devastating $1.1 trillion he hoped to drain from the Treasury over 10 years? Even though the plan -- which tilted heavily toward the richest Americans -- made a mockery of the idea of a balanced federal budget, congressional leaders enthusiastically supported it during the campaign, and would probably have gaveled much of it through.

AS THE main barrier to all this, Bill Clinton starts to look pretty good. But he can also claim credit for being more than a roadblock. Take last week's multibillion-dollar tobacco settlement between 40 states and the giant cigarette companies. Though some critics worry that the deal let big tobacco off too easily, the fact remains that without stiff pressure from the Clinton White House -- such as its decision last year to allow the regulation of nicotine as a drug -- the companies would never have been pressured into admitting that their products are addictive and carcinogenic. Dole, by contrast, stammered something last year about nicotine being no more addictive than milk.

It's equally hard to imagine Dole taking on a big-picture project like Clinton's call for racial healing in America. To some, the initiative represents nothing more than hollow Clintonian rhetoric. And it's true that the president prefers cuddly talk to hard decisions. But as columnist Jacob Weisberg neatly put it in the online magazine Slate this week: "[W]hen it comes to race, the power of words should not be so lightly dismissed. If President Clinton can use his rhetorical gifts to change attitudes on both sides of the divide, he will be accomplishing something of great significance. It's also all he can really hope to do right now. The public's current skepticism about activist government stymies new initiatives."

Dole and Congress, on the other hand, would have quickly ended federal affirmative-action policies. And more broadly, how could Bob Dole possibly engage America in a debate about anything that didn't involve World War II? Clinton may be empathetic to a fault, but that doesn't look so bad next to Dole's what-the-hell manner.

The issue over which Clinton stands to be pounded the hardest is a giant tax cut now being crafted in Congress. Never ones to defy stereotypes, Republicans are loading their cuts toward the richest sliver of Americans and shutting out the poorest. According to a new study by a Washington group called Citizens for Tax Justice, the House and Senate versions of the tax cut would see 60 percent and 48 percent, respectively, of the benefits go to the richest 5 percent of all taxpayers. To many liberals, Clinton isn't showing enough fight.

But it's still a far cry from the disaster Dole's plan would have wrought. Dole's plan "probably would have been worse," Robert McIntyre concedes grudgingly. Adds Dukakis: "If the Republicans had their druthers, they'd give 80 percent to the wealthiest -- not just 60 percent."

And Clinton is starting to show a little more toughness against the GOP tax cut. He's called it inequitable, and pointed out that it's a "deficit time bomb" that will wreck a balanced budget. And when Clinton stands up to the Republicans he usually wins, as he did this month over a Republican disaster-relief bill larded with controversial riders. GOP leaders beat a humiliating retreat.

IDEALLY, OF course, Democrats shouldn't have to compare their leaders to Republicans to find reasons to like them. But given the prevailing mood of conservatism in America, it's a wonder that Bill Clinton is still in office at all. His last real bid at bold, liberal leadership -- the 1993 attempt to reform health care -- was a crushing disaster that probably cost the Democrats control of Congress and almost ruined his presidency.

Clinton has few strong allies in Washington. Republicans detest him for ruining their revolution in 1995, but most Democrats suspect he's secretly sleeping with the GOP. A Republican Congress makes substantive action almost impossible for him, and yet he's often attacked, as he was on the race initiative, for inaction.

It's tough to actively root for someone who is essentially a political roadblock, and mired in scandal at that. Certainly, Bill Clinton is far from perfect. But a woman can still get an abortion in most places. The social safety net isn't as wide as it once was, but it's still catching millions. In the coming months Americans will be talking about hard questions, like race -- not dodging them in favor of World War II sentimentality. How remarkable that, even in an election that supposedly offered the narrowest choice in memory, a different outcome would have meant such a drastic change in the face of government. Yes, there really was a Choice.

I WAS saddened to discover this week that Bob Dole had finally unplugged his presidential campaign telephone. Just a few weeks ago I came across my old Dole for President phone number, and, curious, gave a dial. The phone was answered by a recording, the pleasant voice of a young woman who explained how to reach various officials in the campaign's finance and legal offices. The message was obviously designed for the only people -- apart from necrophiliacs like myself -- who would still have any reason to call Dole-Kemp '96 in the spring of '97: those whom the campaign still owed money.

Now, even that eerie echo of the Dole campaign is gone, and all that remains is -- as Dole promised when he left the Senate -- "a private citizen, a Kansan, an American, just a man."

Now he has begun the life of pitiless irrelevance that all modern presidential losers lapse into so quickly. For instance, Dole embarked last weekend on a two-day pro-democracy mission to Romania. It received zero attention.

It's enough to make you feel bad for ol' Bob. But then you think of what might have been, and the feeling passes.

Michael Crowley can be reached at mcrowley[a]phx.com