August 8, 1997
White House Excuses
This week's news from Washington, including President Clinton's press conference yesterday, showed once again that the Democrats have no real credibility on campaign fund-raising. The Republicans can also be maddeningly disingenuous, as demonstrated by Haley Barbour's slippery testimony before the Senate committee investigating the flow of foreign soft money into the 1996 campaign. But when it comes to devising audacious and creative defenses, nobody matches the White House.
We can start with Mr. Clinton's interview on Monday with the Fox News Channel. Asked for his reaction to the recent revelations about the laundering of foreign money into the Democratic National Committee, Mr. Clinton professed shock, even shame. "I was sick at heart," he said, to discover that the committee had dismantled its practice of checking the sources of large donations. He was also "very disappointed" to learn that some of these checks might have been illegal, and "angry" to find that his party had let down its guard.
Could all this have been news to the President? Memos from his aide Harold Ickes have made it fairly clear that the campaign was orchestrated from the White House. Mr. Clinton himself took a keen interest in making sure that John Huang, one of the big Asian-American fund-raisers, got a senior position at the National Committee.
But put that aside. For now, give Mr. Clinton credit for adding the "sick at heart" ploy to the standard spin of they-did-it-too or oops-sorry-about-that.
At his news conference, the President resurrected a more familiar technique, the shopworn unilateral-disarmament gambit. Asked why the Democrats keep raising soft money despite his support for legislation that would end the practice, Mr. Clinton bristled. It would be a "grave mistake," he said, to disarm unilaterally, to "abandon any attempt to compete" for dollars with the Republicans. As long as the Republicans opposed campaign financing reform, he had no intention of presiding over the bankruptcy of the Democratic Party.
The questioner had not asked him about disarmament. But the remarkable thing about Mr. Clinton's response was its negative tone. Hiding behind the disarmament image is a formula for protecting the status quo, not a formula for leadership. True, the President twice reaffirmed his support for the McCain-Feingold bill that would end soft money and make other changes in the campaign finance laws. But to dwell on the disarmament theme leaves a negative impression. To top it off, the President said he was "proud" of all that money he had raised and continues to raise. The President can use any word he wants to describe his fund-raising skills, but "proud" seems hardly the mot juste if he really wants to be seen as an ardent reformer.
Finally, new information leaking from the Senate investigating committee about Vice President Gore's own aggressive fund-raising reminded us of another disheartening characteristic of this Administration, namely its unwillingness to tell the whole truth the first time around. Back in March, Mr. Gore said "there were a few occasions when I made such calls" from his White House office to major contributors. It now appears he made more than 40 such calls from December 1995 to May 1996, hitting up the likes of the philanthropist and oil heiress Ann Getty and the Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos for $50,000 and $100,000 donations.
All in all, it was not a good week for anyone who hopes that the White House will take a leadership role in campaign reform. The President's mantra is that soft money is evil, that McCain-Feingold is good, that the system must be changed to end the "enormous pressure" on both parties to keep raising money. But every time you turn around, the White House is whining, not leading.
Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company
