CLINTON AWAY, NEWT HOME

Michael Vestey surveys post-election

US politics, and sees a domestically powerless President going abroad

New York THE TELEVISION ads no longer show snarling faces, jabbing fingers and menda- cious quotes from Clinton/Gore, Dole/Kemp. Yes, the presidential election is well and truly over and the ads during the television news have reverted to what really concerns Americans — their health: nappies for the incontinent and lotions for vaginal itch. It is good to see the cowboy back again, leaping onto his horse and yelling in pain — haemorrhoids? No prob- lem. The campaign ads have been put away for Madison Avenue analysis; the blizzard is over. At least, until the mid- term Congressional elections. Although President Clinton occupies the White House, we can see more clearly how satisfactory the results of the most expensive elections in US history are. The two most important men in the United States are Republicans — Newt Gingrich, the House Speaker, and Trent Lott, the majority leader in the Senate. With both chambers firmly under the control of Republicans, the United States can look forward to a period of competent gover- nance.

Now, for Clinton, comes the hardest part — the second term. His brilliance as a campaigner is not matched by his occu- pancy of the Oval office. If he can survive the looming nemesis of the various scan- dals attached to his first term, and it is by no means impossible, he could emerge as a successful president, though not a great one, as the challenges don't seem to be there on the horizon to test him.

Two experiences have shaped Clinton's sureness of touch — his defeat as governor of Arkansas after a first term, and the idio- cies of his first year as President when he began by allowing homosexuals into the armed forces and Hillary started throwing her weight around. It was pure Haight Ash- bury comes to Washington. This baptism of fire and the election in 1992 of a Republi- can Congress moved him to the centre, where I expect him to stay. When he finish- es choosing his Cabinet it will be more con- servative, and he isn't repeating the mistake of appointing inexperienced, chronically left-wing White House staff. Hillary is no longer his personnel officer. Paradoxically, Clinton will need Congres- sional opposition to achieve something as President, just as much as the Republicans on Capitol Hill will need Clinton to keep them there mid-term and in the year 2000. There will not be any more closing down of the government over budget deadlock. The losers of that particular struggle were the Republicans and Bob Dole — they were blamed.

With Dole no longer in the Senate, Republican leadership falls to Trent Lott, less controversial but just as ideologically committed as Gingrich. While Clinton might be tormented by the numerous investigations into White House sleaze, the Republicans are facing enough potential splits and internal rancour to keep them fully occupied for months if not years ahead. They will have to reposition them- selves and decide, if only in the short term, between pragmatism and ideology. The right-wing fundamentalism of Pat Buchanan — against welfare, anti-abor- tion, anti-immigration, international isola- tionism and so on — does not strike a sufficient chord to be universally popular. Nor do the policies of the religious Right. The 1960s have put paid to that: the baby- boomers aren't keen, neither are their off- spring, as in Britain. America has changed.

It is not homogeneous enough to be united. It should be called the DSA, the Divided States of America. The Republi- cans are just as split as the British Conser- vative Party, but over a wider range of issues. Although there are subdivisions and degrees of dissent among Tories over Europe and the relationship between taxa- tion and public spending, with the Repub- licans it is a host of differences: big government, public spending, taxation, federal interference, welfare and abortion, gun control, etc.

Gingrich was personally targeted in an astonishing 75,000 Democrat campaign advertisements across the country. He was presented as the Mother of all Demons, the Great Satan of the Republican Party, the man who would take away Medicare and all the other goodies of welfarism. While he has not exactly lost his bounce, he is, like Fagin, reviewing the situation. He has told the New York Times that it was time to 'slow down and assess' precise- ly what is acceptable to the voters in the way of fresh initiatives in Congress. He regretted that House Republicans had not responded quickly with their own pro- Medicare advertising campaign to counter what he called the 'demagogic scare cam- paign by the Democrats'. His priority now, he said, was to start by saving Medicare, which could face bankruptcy. So Gingrich, like most Republicans, is capable of catch- ing the mood that re-elected Clinton and will now ditch hardline ideology in favour of a period of quiet pragmatism.

This week Republican 'wets' have tried to oust Gingrich as Speaker, though he is expected to be re-elected to that post on Wednesday, after this article has gone to press. Some Republicans fear that the Democrats' vituperation of Gingrich, so successful during the campaign, will con- tinue, undermining their power in Congress. It is true that Gingrich faces accusations of ethics violations, but most of these are clearly bogus and it remains to be seen if anything sticks. His support- ers, angry at the defeatism of their col- leagues in wanting him to step down, are rallying to him and so he should survive.

While I prefer politicians with firm prin- ciples and policies — pragmatists are always so slippery, buying up votes wherev- er they can — there's no doubt that Ameri- cans at the moment don't want ideology. Why is there a need for it? they ask com- placently. Times are good, jobs are increas- ing, crime is down, there are more police on the street, thanks to Bill, and we're not fighting any wars. Talking of crime, before the election Clinton devoted an entire weekly radio address to the subject, sound- ing about as conservative as you can get. During his first term, he ensured that 100,000 new police were recruited, and his support of capital punishment allayed the fears of many Americans. The Democrat Michael Dukakis was partly sunk in the 1988 campaign by Republican television ads about the black rapist-murderer Willie Horton, and accusations that he was soft on crime.

Clinton's aims during his second term will be more modest. He wants to balance the budget, preserve the social safety-net, adding to it if he can by extending health insurance to children and the unemployed, easing the cost of college education, improving juvenile literacy and continuing the process of moving people from welfare to work. It will be up to the Republicans in Congress to make sure it can be paid for without increasing the deficit. These are, of course, domestic issues which mainly con- cern Americans. Foreign policy, which on the whole does not, was left to others to deal with during his first term. Now that he is no longer facing re-election, Clinton will, I expect, devote more time to international affairs. To compensate for his relative pow- erlessness at home, he can strut the world stage appearing statesmanlike, while Republicans get on with the important business of implementing their domestic policies and, one hopes, taking the credit for them.

In the past, Clinton has tended to leave foreign affairs to others: Bosnia to Richard Holbrooke; Russia to Strobe Talbot, parts of Eastern Europe to Madeleine Albright; the Middle East to Warren Christopher. But since the ending of the Cold War, there's been no international yardstick by which lesser problems can be assessed and dealt with. Crises around the world are often unrelated and entirely regional, like Somalia and Rwanda, and there is no com- mon pattern. Iranian-inspired terrorism can be linked to the rise of Islamic funda- mentalism, but is just as difficult to deal with as the Provisional IRA — one of Clin- ton's • foreign policy failures. Just as Gerry Adams was unwilling or unable to restrain the hardliners in the IRA, so is Yasser Arafat unable to stop Palestinian terrorism. Not much will change in the next four years unless Russia reverts to communism and its old ways. As for the various scandals involving the Clintons, it is difficult to predict how the investigations will turn out. Republicans on the Hill will press forward now, but the New York Times, Washington Post and tele- vision networks will not pursue them with the zeal they showed during Watergate. Four independent counsels — a record number — are investigating the Clintons' role in the Whitewater affair involving the failed Arkansas savings and loan institu- tion, and whether or not Clinton as gover- nor traded influence for financial gain; allegations of impropriety against three former members of the Cabinet; why low- level White House aides improperly obtained FBI background files on more than 900 people, including many Republi- cans; and whether the 1993 sacking of the White House travel staff was intended to move travel business to friends of the Clin- tons. The First Lady is alleged to have been behind the dismissals.

There are other matters under investiga- tion too, and while the Clintons conceiv- ably may be exonerated, with lesser fry taking the rap, it is doubtful they will emerge with completely clean hands. On top of all this, the attorney-general, Janet Reno, has upset the White House by hint- ing she might look into claims of illegal funding of the Democrats' election cam- paign, though it would be broadened to take in the Republicans, and both parties might find themselves in trouble. At the moment, however, it all looks like a quag- mire of unsubstantiated accusations and details, and is far too complicated for most Americans to follow.

In the meantime, the Republicans have some hard thinking to do about the kind of candidate they will need in four years' time to pit against Al Gore, who, inevitably, will be the Democrats' man. General Colin Powell is enormously popular, but he strikes me as something of a political ditherer. He is no Ike. The candidate must be younger, not a Washington insider, and, if the climate has not changed, nor should he be inextricably bound to one wing or other of the party. That probably rules out Gingrich, though the Speaker has four Years in which to make up ground. As wrote in my first article from the States, my own preference is Dan Quayle. I saw him making a speech to a luncheon tele- vised on C-Span, the political network, and he looked good. As long as it is not anoth- er Bush or Dole, who were very much men of this century and were made to look has- beens by Clinton and Gore.

The new millennium is only a date in the calendar, but it certainly helped propel Clinton back to power.

`Cocaine! Cocaine!'