patrick.net

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19931230&slug=1739383

"The group I am talking about is different: ideological conservatives who would have forgiven Ronald Reagan anything, and Ollie North almost anything. They are willing to go to great lengths to bring Clinton down because they see in him a threat they never saw in Jimmy Carter or Walter Mondale or Michael Dukakis. In their bones, ideological conservatives know Clinton is the toughest adversary they have faced in a long time. He is trying to alter the country's political landscape and its assumptions about government. And he's actually doing it.

Take just three issues. Conservatives spent years arguing that the key to prosperity was cutting "high marginal tax rates," i.e. lowering taxes on the rich. Yet when Clinton proposed raising taxes on the rich, few conservatives were willing to defend outright the interests of the wealthy. They had to pretend that Clinton's tax increase was going to hit everyone hard, which it didn't. The new taxes on the wealthy passed. So far, the economy is improving anyway.

Conservatives have successfully beaten back proposals for universal health coverage since the days of Harry Truman. All they had to do was yell "socialized medicine," and the American Medical Association took care of the rest. But suddenly the assumptions on health care have changed. The country really is sympathetic to action. Smart conservative strategists such as William Kristol concede up front that if universal coverage is approved, the middle class will never allow it to be repealed, just as it has never allowed Social Security or Medicare to be wiped off the books.

Finally, Clinton has simply not allowed conservatives to have a monopoly on issues such as crime and welfare. Whenever the chips were down, the right could always attack Democrats for being "soft on criminals" and "against work."

They can't get away with that anymore. No one gives tougher speeches on crime, the value of work or the dangers of family breakup than Clinton. The voters have noticed.

It would be nice, of course, if some of the many honorable conservatives out there (Jack Kemp, Vin Weber, Henry Hyde come to mind) lectured their own side on the value of civility and suggested that beating Clinton on the merits would be far better than spreading sleazy stories about him.

But politics being what it is, a few lectures won't do much good. So Clinton will face a paradox - the more successful he is, the more bitter conservatives will get and the harsher the attacks will become.

Which simply means that Clinton won't be cut any slack. He can't mishandle or finesse the Arkansas bank deal. Until recently, the White House has tried to stonewall the story, which Richard Nixon can tell you is a lousy approach."

#politics