Clinton and the Truman Strategy : This is a non-starter; 1948’s Comeback Kid had something to offer Democratic defectors.

The moth wings of the media are fluttering over the question of “whither Clinton?” Will he come back from Asia ready to compromise with the new Republican congressional leadership? Or will he give ‘em hell? The new bible of the Clinton White House is David McCullough’s “Truman,” the 992-page biography that was a surprise best seller two years ago.

There are some Harry Truman/Bill Clinton similarities. Both are Baptists from the Southern middle of the country and both enjoyed comfortable congressional majorities in their first two years in office but lost them in the midterm elections. Chapter 14 of McCullough’s book, detailing Truman’s whistle-stop campaign of 1948, should provide any underdog Democrat with enough hope to get through the dark Gingrich night. Not only did Truman win his own bid for a second term, but he also carried with him Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress. Some in the White House are telling Clinton that he can do it: Tee off against Bob Dole and prove himself to be the once and future Comeback Kid. But for all the high hopes, the Truman strategy will never fly.

Why not? Two reasons. First, unlike Truman half a century ago, this Democratic President is no longer riding the wave of the future. Second, well let’s just put it this way--Bill Clinton is no Harry Truman.

In the late 1940s, the New Deal was still new. More than a third of American workers were in labor unions. People saw the cradle-to-grave welfare state as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unfinished legacy. Was that Big Government? Sure it was. Most people wanted a government big enough to protect them from fascists and communists abroad and capitalists at home. In the 1946 midterms, the Republicans campaigned on a two-word slogan: “Had Enough?” They won a throw-the-bums-out reflex, not a policy mandate. (Thus their campaign was the opposite of the “1994 contract with America,” with its hundreds of pages of specificity.)

The Republican plan worked well enough to elect everyone from Joe McCarthy to Richard Nixon, but once they got to Washington, the Republicans had no clue about what to do. As they foundered, Truman pounced, warning Americans that the Republicans wanted to take them back to the bad old days of Herbert Hoover. Truman engineered showdown after showdown with the opposition Republicans. Even if he lost on Capitol Hill, he knew that he was winning the war for public opinion. As Truman recalled: “I knew that the people of this country weren’t ready to turn back the clock--not if they were told the truth, they weren’t.”

Clinton would also be better off, Truman-strategy-wise, if he had more personal credibility. Truman was 33 when the United States entered World War I--well past draft age. He had bad eyes and was the sole support of his mother and sister--two more excuses from military service. Yet he volunteered for the 2nd Missouri Field Artillery as an enlisted man. His first electoral victory came when his comrades-in-arms chose him as their lieutenant.

In 1947-48, when he was a punching bag for the congressional Republicans, Truman needed all his accumulated inner strength. He had seen combat against the Germans at Saint-Mihiel in 1918; what was the worst that Republican leader Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio could do?

Military experience is not a requirement for leadership, but it does instill perseverance. Lani Guinier, the Bosnians and middle-class taxpayers would all be better off today if Clinton had been more committed to his commitments.

So if not Truman II, what’s ahead for Clinton? Clinton himself may have provided the answer: He’ll be Eisenhower II. In his book “The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House,” Bob Woodward reports that Clinton was so fearful of another round of Carter-style inflation and high interest rates that he restrained his big-spending appetite. In 1993, he told his Cabinet: “We’re all Eisenhower Republicans,” adding acidly “We stand for lower deficits and free trade and the bond market. Isn’t that great?” The big exceptions to Clinton’s Ike-like restraint, the billion-dollar “stimulus” package and his trillion-dollar health plan, were both defeated when Congress was controlled by Democrats.

So what’s left for Clinton? ABC’s Sam Donaldson says he ought to “enjoy life”--take more foreign trips. There’s the beginning of a realistic Clinton strategy: See the world, fight the NRA when it seeks to legalize bazookas, defend abortion rights and hope like heck that Ross Perot will make it a three-way race again in ’96.