compose it, of what are impersonally described as social and



individual `trends.' "







The lines suggest something about Clinton at his best, or



about the promise of his character. History may eventually



decide that the key to Clinton's accomplishment (assuming he



does well) lay in his temperament -- in his buoyancy, optimism



and readiness to act, in his enthusiasm for people and his



curiosity about their lives. Clinton emerges from the sunnier,



gregarious side of American political character, home of F.D.R.,



Hubert Humphrey, Harry Truman -- as opposed to the sterner, more



punitive traditions distilled and preserved in their purest form



in the mind of Richard Nixon.







As a 16-year-old member of Boy's Nation, Clinton stood in



the Rose Garden of the White House in 1963 and shook hands with



John Kennedy -- an instant of symbolic torch passing that had a



powerful effect upon the ambitious boy from Hope, Arkansas.



Clinton likes to invoke a parallel. Kennedy and Clinton do not



look alike, though they share an air of youth and vigor and good



health (deceptive in J.F.K.'s case). Kennedy had a physical



elegance that Clinton lacks. Clinton's boyishness subliminally



looks to be headed down the road toward W.C. Fields or Tip



O'Neill. Other parallels unravel quickly enough: although



Clinton speaks of the New Frontier as a time when vigor and new



ideas came to Washington after eight years of stagnation and



reactionary Republican policies, in fact Kennedy was most



vigorous in pursuing the cold-war aims of Dwight Eisenhower --



most embarrassingly at the Bay of Pigs. J.F.K. offered few



innovations on the domestic side (the investment-tax credit, a



proposed income-tax cut in 1963) and was excruciatingly cautious



in addressing issues of civil rights.







There are other parallels with Clinton's predecessors.



Nixon in 1968, like Clinton this year, won only 43% of the



popular vote and during his first term had to work to win the



disaffected votes of the George Wallace constituency (Wallace



won 13% as an independent candidate in '68), just as Clinton



will need to win over the Perot voters in order to get



re-elected in 1996. Woodrow Wilson was an innovative policy-wonk



Democratic Governor who won a close three-way race in 1912 after



the Republican Party fractured and produced the insurgent



candidacy of Theodore Roosevelt, who won 27% of the vote. The



voters rejected the Republican incumbent, William Howard Taft.



Wilson ushered in an era of domestic change: tariff reform,



creation of the Federal Reserve System, federal regulation of



working hours. But Wilson was in many ways a conservative



states' rights Southerner and, on issues of race, a reactionary.



Until 1918 he refused to support a women's suffrage amendment



to the Constitution.







The Clinton approach is infinitely more inclusive. He has



a progressive agenda (family leave, worker retraining, for



example) and believes it is the Federal Government's job to



carry it out. But Clinton knows -- or has been warned within an



inch of his life -- that the lavish all-daddy government of



Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal is not a possible model in the



'90s. Nor is Lyndon Johnson's bountiful Great Society. The $290



billion deficit sits at the edge of American government like



antimatter, like a black hole that devours revenues and social



dreams. Clinton will take office under immense fiscal



constraints. The better news is that those limitations will (as



they say) empower Clinton's stronger side, his gift for



improvisation -- in giving poor people incentives to save money



to start a business or buy a home or in establishing a national



service program as a way for students to repay college loans.







Clinton's domestic ambitions may also be overtaken by the



demands of international problems. In six months or a year,



Americans may look back at their preoccupation with the domestic



economy, with the question of whether it would be a good



Christmas shopping season in American stores, and be amazed at



their own insularity. In the republics of the former Soviet



Union, in the Balkans, in China and India and the Middle East



there were dangers that promised to preoccupy the new President



and might keep him from the domestic agenda -- health care,



education, public-works spending and the rest -- that he was



elected to address. A few days before he went to Washington in



1913, and 17 months before World War I broke out, Woodrow Wilson



said, "It would be the irony of fate if my Administration had



to deal chiefly with foreign affairs." Clinton is aware of the



risk. "I might have to spend all my time on foreign policy," he



admitted three weeks ago. "And I don't want that to happen."











It will be quickly seen how the demands of an increasingly



savage world may square with some of the gentler motifs that



Clinton worked in the campaign -- notably the themes of the



recovery movement. Again and again in debates and speeches,



Clinton talked about the need for Americans to find in



themselves "the courage to change." The phrase comes from the



Alcoholics Anonymous Serenity Prayer ("God, grant me the



serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to



change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the



difference"). Clinton, whose stepfather's violent alcoholism



shaped his early life, and Al Gore, who often borrows recovery



language and concepts, turned the Democratic Convention last



summer into a national therapy session and display case for



personal trauma and healing. Gore dramatically retold the story



of his son's near fatal accident and the effect on his family.







The subtext of the recovery-and-healing line is that



America is a self-abusive binger that must go through recovery.



Thus: the nation borrowed and spent recklessly in the 1980s,



drank too deeply of Reagan fantasies about "Morning in America"



and supply-side economics. And now, on the morning after, the



U.S. wakes up like a drunk at the moment of truth and looks in



the mirror. Hence: America needs "the courage to change" in a



national atmosphere of recovery, repentance and confession.







It is therapeutic for alcoholics and other abusers to tell



their stories. Bill Clinton has a side of his character that is



a mellow talk-show host. The nation saw this Donahue-Oprah



style at work during the second presidential debate in the



campaign, when a member of the audience, a young black woman,



asked the candidates how the national debt (she meant the



recession) had "personally affected each of your lives? And if



it hasn't, how can you honestly find a cure for the economic



problems of the common people if you have no experience in



what's ailing them?"







Bush flubbed the question. He answered defensively, "You



ought to be in the White House for a day and hear what I hear



and see what I see and read the mail I read . . ." Clinton,



smarter in the format, saw his opening and stepped forward and,



like Phil Donahue, urged Hall to tell her story. "Tell me how



it's affected you again. You know people who've lost their jobs



and lost their homes."







There are obvious limits to the approach. The President of



the U.S. cannot invite a fanatic, murderousregime to come



forward and speak of "the inner child that's hurting," the Inner



Serb, the Inner Iraqi. The recovery attitude is useful in



certain fragile, protected environments, but the world at large



meets that description less and less. There remains a question



whether Clinton's impulse to act can, when necessary, override



the more passive, tender protocols of therapy.







America periodically reinvents itself. That is the secret,



the way that Americans dig out of their deepest problems. It is



the way they save themselves from decline, stagnation and other



dangers -- including themselves.







The American story is an epic of reinventions: Andrew



Jackson's rough westward tilt of American democracy, the Civil



War that ended slavery and hammered the states into Union, the



vast Ellis Island absorption, the New Deal that saved American



capitalism from suicide, the Civil Rights Movement that (legally



at least) completed the work of the Civil War.







Every time a melodrama of change (often raw and violent



and, by definition, traumatic to the status quo) has brought



the country to a new stage of self-awareness and broadened



democracy. It is miraculous that the American transformations



overall have been changes in the direction of generosity and



inclusion -- democracy tending toward more democracy, freedom



toward more freedom.







The Clinton reinvention -- if it succeeds -- will bring



his baby-boom generation (so insufferable in so many ways, and



so unavoidable) to full harvest, to the power and



responsibility that they clamored to overthrow in the streets



a quarter of a century ago. Clinton's selection of Al Gore to



be his running mate suggested something of the energy that might



be released -- a sort of sibling synergy. The ticket of Clinton



and Gore violated traditional political rules demanding



geographical balance and even a sort of personality contrast



between a party's two nominees. The very similarity of Clinton



and Gore in generation and regional accent produced a powerful



twinning effect -- policy wonks in a buddy movie: Butch and



Sundance.







It is the boomers, born in the afterglow of American



triumph in World War II and reared in the unprecedented and



possibly unrepeatable postwar affluence, and now arrived at



middle age, whose instruments most poignantly play the American



note of mourning. It is a chronic, yearning noise, much like one



that Thoreau made 140 years ago: "I long ago lost a hound, a



bay horse and a turtle dove, and am still on their trail."







For the moment, however, the loss note will not be



audible. Bill Clinton will come down Pennsylvania Avenue



blaring, parading and bringing the American stuff -- youth,



energy, luck, ideals -- like booty to his new house.

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