When the System Makes It Impossible to Fail

Bill Clinton is lucky that it’s institutionally impossible for a just-elected U.S. President to fail because of the inadequacies in his first 100 days. Although he may be the first postwar chief executive to face a 100-day verdict of needing a personal and political tune-up, institutional forces favor the refurbishing of his presidency. The 3 1/2 years remaining in his term could still make him a 1996 reelection favorite--especially if Republicans continue to be Scrooge-like about the economy.

Meanwhile, the idea of measuring new presidents against Franklin D. Roosevelt’s success-packed early months of 1933 is growing ever more pointless--though Clinton foolishly courted the comparison. Under Roosevelt, Americans were worried about the Depression, but convinced the nation’s best days and strong leaders still lay ahead. Now, by contrast, the public fears--not without cause--that the best days and strong leaders are behind them, and there’s less and less tolerance for a succession of Presidents who seem to epitomize the shortfall.

The recent example, of course, involves George Bush’s plunge from a record 90% job approval following the Gulf War to a fatal 30% in the summer of 1992--when even allies were suggesting he should retire. Clinton, in turn, just finished his first 100 days with the lowest approval rating--in the 49%-to-55% range--of any newly elected President since poll taking began 60 years ago. In such states as Texas, South Dakota and Arizona, his job-performance ratings have sunk into the mid-to-low 30s.

There really are no precedents. Americans have never before turned on a new President so quickly. Clinton is certainly not following in the footsteps of Jimmy Carter, another Southern-outsider President. Carter was a lot more popular at this point.

Nor is it an excuse that Clinton got just 43% of the total vote last November. Back in 1968, Richard Nixon, too, drew just 43% of the total presidential vote in a three-way race. But by early spring, 1969, his Gallup poll approval rating was at 61%--and his disapproval rating was a mere 12%. Compared with Clinton, Nixon was Mr. Popularity.

Connoisseurs of international politics and governance will say, “Wait a minute, what about the horrible ratings of other major national leaders--John Major of Britain, Francois Mitterrand of France, Brian Mulroney of Canada and the rest?” True, but they didn’t get there in 14 weeks. Most of these men, in fact, were strong enough to win a second national election some years after their first. New foreign leaders may also find themselves sinking to painful lows with Clinton-like speed. But for the moment, the United States is the chief laboratory--and for a new U.S. President, it’s the worst start in memory.

There are a number of reasons for Clinton being in so much trouble. The typical President takes office with a character and credibility halo--which Clinton did not have. Voters had major doubts about his credibility following the Gennifer Flowers and draft-board controversies--but they suspended them because of their desire to replace Bush. No such “greater evil” remains today. Since Clinton’s inauguration, reporters and voters alike have discussed how many campaign promises he has broken, and the President himself admits breaking his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class. To many voters, glibness and evasion are becoming a Clinton trademark.

Disbelief has a particular edge among middle-class voters, who gave Clinton unusual support because of his emphatic campaign promises. From Philadelphia to Pasadena, giant companies are still slicing off middle-class jobs like luncheon meat, and suburban mortgage foreclosures are setting records. Clinton, however, no longer refers to middle-class problems.

There is a also growing uncertainty about Clinton’s economic management. Here, too, his ratings have sunk from the 60s and 70s, in February, into the 40s. In November and December, when consumer confidence rose, Clinton was willing to believe that his election, in itself, was an economic elixir, so he could drop all the downbeat campaign rhetoric he had voiced from Boston to Bakersfield. His February assumption must have been a 1993 economy strong enough to support an activist Democratic President’s fiscal dream. That explains his whole raft of proposed and rumored new taxes. But the economy is now too weak for voters to accept Clinton’s taxes. Economic barometers and job ratings have fallen together.

In addition, Clinton, who wisely accentuated the centrist nature of the Democratic convention by touring the Ohio Valley in a bus covered with red-white-and-blue bunting, has since offended a considerable group of voters by swinging leftward on social policy. Besides picking his Cabinet by a kind of quota system, he has gone beyond public opinion in pushing gay rights, and he has embraced a larger role for government with an enthusiasm not seen since the ‘60s. In fact, he has so many new programs in motion that they’re tripping over each other--to the detriment of the new Administration’s coherence.

DR, ANN PICKARD / For The Times