Clinton’s Bid for Common Ground : Offers to work with Congress’ GOP majority

President Clinton laid out a refreshingly nonpartisan, even conciliatory, challenge to the Congress in his annual State of the Union speech Tuesday night. Not that he had much choice. In offering to work with the new GOP majority to bring about results that many Republicans believe were mandated by the 1994 elections, Clinton returned to a comfortable, inoffensive theme--change--that served him well in his 1992 presidential campaign.

While Clinton clearly has embraced the new reality that he must work with a Republican Congress, at times his speech had the ring of the familiar theme of the TV dinosaur Barney: “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family.” Will such a conciliatory stance work with an opposition Congress? Taking a very optimistic viewpoint, maybe: It is possible that a great deal can be accomplished on those broad issues on which there is seeming unanimity, among them cutting taxes, reducing government and returning power to states, communities and families.

Even New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman, in delivering an admirably brisk GOP response to Clinton’s 81-minute speech, noted how remarkably like a Republican the Democratic President sounded. But specific differences on issue were there, although the sheer length of Clinton’s speech undercut the effectiveness of his arguments with the GOP.

Most admirable was Clinton’s tough stance on gun control and his refusal to back down on the Brady bill or the federal ban on assault weapons contained in last year’s crime bill.

The President was also right to insist that Republicans seeking to rush through a balanced-budget amendment specify how it would be paid for--what programs would be cut, or taxes raised, to achieve a goal that looks great on paper but might prove incredibly hard to reach.

And Clinton’s call for an increase in the minimum wage--one of the few mentions in his speech that could energize traditional Democrats--will surely get political attention.

No single statistic he cited was as effective as the calculation that a member of Congress working barely a month in Washington has already earned more than a worker making the minimum wage of $4.25 an hour will take in all year. That deft jab had to hurt members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.

In a time of Washington-politics-as-usual, that part of Clinton’s speech would not be forgotten and could even come back to haunt the President. But politics as usual is not what folks in the White House or on Capitol Hill plan for this year, because that is clearly not what the American people want. Refining common themes but duly battling out the remaining--and healthy--differences is the best way to achieve the common good.