SCOT LEHIGH
Competing presidential imageryTHEY ARE the dueling presidential archetypes of the last quarter century, suddenly very much back on the American mind.
One has just died, after a long life, leading to countless retrospectives about his presidency. Ronald Reagan's passing has left his biography bathed in the warm glow of a national nostalgia that has highlighted his character and accomplishments and eclipsed his shortcomings. The other has just been published, after a short absence, bringing renewed attention to his own years in the White House. Arguing for his place in history on a book tour marked by his patented blend of remorse and rationalization, Bill Clinton has found his own faults hard to disguise. Indeed, promoting his autobiography has virtually dictated another discussion of those weaknesses. But though still loathed by conservatives, Clinton is just as clearly revered by the party he rescued from a string of lopsided presidential defeats -- and treated to two terms in the Oval Office. In some ways, the two figures were complete opposites. It is as difficult to imagine Reagan having a dalliance with an intern as it is to conceive of him pursuing the nitty-gritty details of a Middle East peace plan in marathon negotiating sessions. And it is as hard to envision Clinton clueless about the machinations of his own foreign-policy team as it is to picture him bucking polite European opinion to denounce the evils of communism in uncompromising terms. The effect each had on his own party is undeniable. Although there are some hardy holdouts, to be a Republican officeholder these days is largely to be a Ronald Reagan Republican. Witness the influence the Gipper had on the men who followed, or tried to follow, him to the presidency. Although he battled Reagan in the 1980 primaries, after eight years as his number two, George H.W. Bush claimed the role of Reagan's rightful heir when he ran in 1988. Bob Dole, the party's 1996 nominee, sensed the Republican yearning for Reagan strongly enough that, early in his campaign, he told a Republican National Committee gathering: "I am willing to be another Ronald Reagan, if that's what you want." George W. Bush, meanwhile, is so eager to claim Reagan's legacy as his own that he not only cites Reagan, rather than his father, as his political role model, he also styles himself a tax-cutting, stetson-wearing, brush-clearing rancher. Although Clinton's place in history currently seems less certain than Reagan's, the same can't be said for the spot he enjoys in the Democratic imagination as the party's first successful president since JFK. His personal peccadilloes forgiven, if not forgotten, by the faithful, Clinton is probably the most popular Democrat alive today. Just as Reagan took the Republican Party smartly to the right, so Clinton nudged Democrats steadily toward the center; his party, which once got the collywobbles at the mere notion of a balanced budget, can now lay credible claim to a legacy of fiscal discipline. While Al Gore downplayed the Clinton record in 2000, opting to lurch to the populist left -- something the former president gently laments in his book -- John Kerry regularly celebrates Clinton's legacy, staying within the basic confines of Clinton's mainstream, middle-class politics as he tries to reclaim the White House for the Democrats. If Reagan is revered by Republicans for the part he played in ending the Cold War and reviving the economy, the nostalgia is also rooted in the personal qualities he projected. What's important is the uplifting avuncular character of the man who made it morning in America again, and not his actual record on the deficit, the environment, and the like, the conservative argument runs. Although Clinton's intellect and empathy are much admired in Democratic circles, his character is not the same sort of calling card. Instead, the Democratic view is that his accomplishments as a president who catalyzed booming economic growth, balanced the budget, and pioneered successful new approaches to old goals, redeem personal failings that were unimportant in the great public scheme of things. It's hard to recall a time of such competing presidential imagery as early summer has presented. Which is why George Bush and John Kerry had best hope the nostalgia fades, even as they try to appropriate the best of the dueling legacies. Otherwise, this year's nominees risk being seen not as originals but as epigones.
Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
|
