President Clinton’s First Big Shake-Up : Gergen to White House in message massage

No simple magic formula underlies a successful presidency. A powerful and properly prioritized program is obviously essential, but if the White House can’t sell it and the people won’t buy it and Congress won’t pass it, then what good is it?

And a solid agenda by itself won’t carry the day. The medium isn’t always the total message: Even the most brilliant spin-control operation isn’t any solution if the nation’s problems are spinning out of control and the White House is perceived as offering more spin than solution.

The current White House operation, as everybody knows, has evidenced some problems, and it’s not clear that the appointment of any one individual--in this case David Gergen--will solve any of them. This is an Administration with too many messages and a garbled message machine. This is the worst of all political worlds.

HIS STAFF: To date, his White House staff has failed to impress, as a Times editorial last week noted. Too often it seems to have little more composure than a college newspaper staff and the experience level of a collection of summer interns.

Thus the problem of the Clinton Administration is both the messenger and the message. No doubt the weekend’s surprise appointment of Gergen--who has served three different Republican presidents--is designed to deal with the messenger part of the problem.

We hope it works. President Clinton is off to an extremely bumpy start, and he deserves a lot better. If Gergen can help give the President’s message more coherence and attractiveness, momentum may be regained.

THE NEW STAFFER: Gergen is a well-regarded, knowledgeable, thoughtful political operative and sometime journalist. A former top editor at U.S. News & World Report and a frequent contributor to the Opinion section of this newspaper, Gergen has very many connections in the political realm.

Washington eyebrows were raised sky-high by Clinton’s decision to hire on an operative who served in three Republican administrations. But Gergen is more mainstream than ideological, more political realist than GOP true believer. Even so, if he manages to bring a little contrarian wisdom to the staff around Clinton, that could serve the President and the nation well.

This President was not elected with an overwhelming mandate. He got only 43% of the vote. The Senate is not filibuster-proof; on the other side, the House seems often bitterly divided. He simply cannot govern without the political center--and that includes some Republicans.

Recently The Times suggested editorially that the President would be wise to consider a style of government that offers a sense of bipartisanship and national reconciliation.

Hiring Gergen is hardly the same thing as, say, giving a top job to Jack Kemp, but it is certainly a gesture in that direction. The move might just work for the President. Certainly all but the most partisanly cruel must hope so. Another failed presidency is not in the nation’s best interest.