PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE : Mr. President: Please Drop the ‘Character’ Issue

There is a great temptation for a campaign to fall into the abyss of “sleaze” politics when their candidate is behind and momentum is lost. Campaigns, of course, can also go negative when they have all the momentum--and feel nothing they do has any limits. These tendencies have begun to surface in the closing weeks of both the Bush and Clinton campaigns.

The Bush campaign’s efforts to unearth Bill Clinton’s “protest” activities 23 years ago, including a trip to Moscow and an alleged meeting with KGB agents while there, have been the most notable. Certain ultraconservative partisans of Bush have sought to smear Clinton as a organizer and leader of anti-Vietnam War demonstrations while he was a student in England. But claims that Clinton was an unshaven, left-wing hippie in his youth are not only nonsense, they also set the President on a course to political disaster.

However, these insinuations about Clinton’s past are not, as has been charged, “dirty tricks” in the classic Watergate sense, because Clinton did, in fact, go to Moscow and demonstrate in England. An argument can be made that when a person is a candidate for high office, his past life is a open book. But there are reasonable limits to examining it. Bush’s campaign seems to be pushing those limits.

As a result, the President’s legitimate attempts to raise questions about Clinton’s leadership abilities and judgment are simply dismissed as dirty tricks a la Watergate. If Thursday night’s debate is any guide, it appears that Bush has realized the error of his ways.

Just as Richard M. Nixon had a dark side, both Bush and Clinton must guard against anyone planting the seeds of sleaze politics. They must be the mature leaders of their campaigns. Maturity, in this context, means the self-restraint to abstain from sleaze politics and innuendo when the pressure is on, and the ability to face up to the country’s serious economic problems and what to do about them.

Bush should drop the “character” issue. If what he means is Clinton’s leadership ability and judgment while governor of Arkansas, that is a different issue. It’s fair game. At the same time, Clinton should stop insinuating that Bush’s foolish meeting with Rep. Robert K. Dornan and other congressmen to scheme about his past political activities was akin to the darkest days of Watergate.

Will sleaze tactics cease in the remaining weeks before Election Day? Hopefully, for Bush and Clinton. Probably not for their surrogates. The temptations and stakes are just too high. The result will be spectacles like the vice-presidential debate. Good, lively entertainment, but not what the country really needs.

The agony of Watergate taught many of us the consequences of loose-cannon surrogates. The tone of the presidential campaign must be clearly set by the standard bearer, and this includes the candidates for vice president.

It is to Ross Perot’s credit that during the second debate he pledged not to indulge in personal attacks against the other two candidates. Sadly, Bush did not understand the question, and Clinton never answered.