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Mr. and Mrs.President

See How They Ran

In fact, Bill Clinton has been the phantom of the 2000 campaign. His wife is running as Hillary!, having replaced their shared last name with an exclamation point in much of her campaign literature. And Vice President "I’m-My-Own-Man" Gore strained himself during the three debates to take credit for "the last eight years," and the record of "this administration" without actually uttering the C-word once. Newspapers report that the President is miffed by such treatment.

At the same time, Gore’s opponent George W. Bush remains too terrified of Bill Clinton’s formidable political skills and continuing popularity to attack the incumbent president by name. Polls show Clinton still outpolling both Bush and Gore. Bush, too, only attacked the "Clinton-Gore administration" once per debate.

Yet, while avoiding Bill Clinton, the man, both major party candidates are offering the country the same, third-way, triangulated, watered down, centrist politics that Clinton pioneered. Thus, both Al Gore and George Bush are embracing Clintonism even as they recoil from Bill Clinton.

Now, in fairness, American politicians often play to the center, especially in the final weeks of a presidential campaign.

Over half-a-century ago, before Harry Truman upset Thomas E. Dewey in 1948, many politicos accepted Farley’s Law. Jim Farley, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s crusty campaign manager and postmaster general, insisted that most voters made up their minds by Labor Day. Now, as then, most voters did decide that early. The committed partisans, the passionate pro-lifers and pro-choicers, the gun-controllers and the NRA types, the office-seeking Democrats and the office-seeking Republicans did not dither.

But many swing voters are genuinely torn. Many realize that neither the fate of the world nor the fate of the United States will change that dramatically under either nominee, especially with slim margins for the leading parties in both houses of Congress. Some undecideds view the choice as the lesser of two evils, but others recognize that neither choice is half bad. Al Gore demonstrates passion, experience, expertise and intelligence; George W. Bush demonstrates sang-froid, friendliness, exuberance and charisma. Gore could be a doer; Bush, a healer. In truth, either could serve the U.S. adequately.

Moreover, the two candidates agree on many of today’s most critical issues. Both have learned from Bill Clinton to blur distinctions, to cross wires, so that the candidates often appear to be Gush and Bore offering echoes not choices. Their Clintonism without Bill Clinton charts a Third Way between the Reaganite hostility to government and the McGovernite big-government-is better-approach.

This campaign demonstrates that the reigning American ideology today combines 1960s-style middle-class-welfarism with 1980s-style moralistic posturing. If the candidates are to be believed, Bush the Republican supports affirmative action, a patient’s bill of rights, and the distribution of all kinds of government goodies. In turn, Gore the Democrat supports the death penalty, morality crusades to curb Hollywood, and tax cuts. Both often sounded in the debates as if they were running for the local school board not commander in chief, promising to fix the schools, encourage good parenting, and improve the American moral climate.

Here, too, they learned from the master. Clintonism is not only about trying to find the median between two extremes, it entails offering symbolically powerful Band-Aids to cover up far more serious wounds. Thus, the decline of America’s public schools is "cured" by championing school uniforms; the crisis in health care prompts a patients’ bill of rights, and America’s moral degeneration inspires the V-chip. This approach abhors "big government" solutions – gargantuan, ponderous bureaucracies clumsily trying to tackle a social problem; but the cascade of micro-responses keeps government big and active and more intrusive than ever.

It is, alas, a feel-good politics, a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too politics, one that applies cheap and sentimental cosmetics to cover up serious and complex problems. Statesmanship entails hard choices. Unfortunately, our politics, like our Oprahfied culture, values the quick emotional fix over the enduring but difficult solution.

In essence, then, it is possible to predict a winner on November 7th. Whether Al Gore or George Bush reaches that magical majority in the Electoral College, Bill Clinton will continue to shape American politics. A new day of Big Government Lite might be dawning. And whether the former president is in Little Rock or Manhattan or Malibu, it will still be his philosophy, his era, for better and for worse.

Gil Troy is a history professor at McGill University. His latest book is Mr. and Mrs. President: From the Trumans to the Clintons.