Gore, Legacy of President Are Subtexts

It’s not unprecedented for a president to use his State of the Union address as a campaign-year manifesto. It may be unprecedented for him to use it as a campaign-year manifesto for someone else.

In a sprawling, movie-length speech Thursday night, President Clinton offered an ambitious agenda intended not only to influence this year’s debate in Congress but also to shape the campaign to succeed him--a campaign he desperately hopes will vindicate his scandal-tossed presidency. From his praise of Vice President Al Gore to his embrace of some of Gore’s signature ideas, Clinton more overtly than any president in decades sought to boost the prospects of his chosen successor.

Facing the critical New Hampshire primary next week, Gore may reap at least some immediate benefits from the speech. Polls show that Democrats who approve of Clinton’s job performance are far more likely to vote for the vice president than for former Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey, and Clinton’s approval ratings have frequently bumped up after his State of the Union addresses.

But with surveys showing Gore already pulling away from Bradley in New Hampshire, the speech’s real effect may be measured in the long term.

At the core of Clinton’s message Thursday was an argument Gore has used at times in the primary campaign and is likely to stress in the general election should he become the Democratic nominee. With Republican front-runner George W. Bush urging a “fresh start” for America, Gore and Clinton maintain that the best way to improve the nation’s prospects is to continue along the course they set out seven years ago.

Or, as Clinton put it: “The lesson of our history--and the lesson of the last seven years--is that great goals are reached step by step: building on our progress, always gaining ground.”

Course Corrections, No Major Shifts

Some analysts believe presidential elections always are driven by a restless desire for change. Yet in a period of prosperity, when social indicators such as crime, welfare and even teen pregnancy are all pointing in the right direction, Clinton and Gore are betting that voters are looking more for minor course corrections than a fundamental change in direction.

“A message of continuity and change together--building on the progress that’s already been made--may not be that exciting in normal times, but it can be compelling when the country is doing swimmingly,” says Al From, chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist group closely allied with Clinton.

It was probably not a coincidence that the night before the speech, Gore identified with Clinton as closely as he had in months. During a heated debate with Bradley in New Hampshire, Gore insisted that people were “tired” of discussing “the president’s personal mistake” and “think that, by and large, he has been a great president in turning this economy around.”

There were in Gore’s remarks an element of inevitability. No matter how much he expresses his personal disappointment in Clinton’s behavior--or promises to pursue “revolutionary” changes in education or other policies--Gore is bound to Clinton, most political analysts agree. If Americans want to change direction, they are unlikely to put the vice president behind the wheel. And so, Clinton’s preeminent role in this election year may be to convince Americans that his administration’s basic approach is worthy of another term in the person of Gore.

In that effort, Clinton certainly wasn’t shy Thursday night. Six times in his speech, Clinton directly cited Gore--on issues from health care to guns to the environment.

By contrast, Dwight D. Eisenhower didn’t mention his vice president, Richard Nixon, directly or indirectly in his last State of the Union address, although Nixon was seeking to succeed him. Likewise, Ronald Reagan never alluded to George Bush in 1988.

But in other ways, Clinton’s speech seemed a descendant of Reagan’s final address. Like Reagan, Clinton devoted great effort in his final speech toward building the frame through which he wants Americans to view his tenure--and the choice to succeed him.

Reagan’s 1988 speech kicked off a yearlong Republican effort to build a case for continuity by arguing that the country was better off than it was when Jimmy Carter held the White House. So, too, Clinton on Thursday night not only cited progress on challenges like crime, welfare, the deficit and unemployment, but pointedly charged that eight years ago, “our nation was gripped by economic distress, social decline [and] political gridlock.”

But Clinton went beyond Reagan’s precedent in absorbing ideas from Gore’s campaign into his own agenda. Clinton specifically cited Gore in unveiling a plan to subsidize health insurance for low-income families--an idea the vice president has touted as an alternative to Bradley’s more sweeping proposal for the uninsured.

And without mentioning Gore, Clinton advanced several other ideas the vice president has promoted, including enlarging preschool programs, expanding the earned-income tax credit for married couples and urging states to follow Gore’s call for licensing handgun owners. (Ever absorptive, Clinton also incorporated ideas associated with Bradley--making child-care tax credits more generous--and Bush--increasing incentives for charitable giving.)

A senior aide to Gore said the vice president had not pressured the president to adopt his proposals, but “in those places where both were looking down similar paths, [Gore] urged them to look at ideas they had proposed.”

Some might worry that Gore’s ideas could look shopworn if they already have been proposed by Clinton. But the aide said Gore believes he benefits from a sense that key Democrats are coalescing around his ideas; on health care, for instance, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) also has echoed his plan.

Optimistic Over Agreement

With his speech, Clinton wasn’t only looking at the distant horizon. One senior White House official said Clinton remains optimistic that he can reach agreement with Congress on some of the key ideas he proposed Thursday.

Indeed, Republicans may feel some pressure to reach agreements that improve their prospects of maintaining control in this fall’s election.

But most analysts consider it unlikely the two sides will agree on much. Since 1997, when they joined hands on a sweeping deal to balance the budget, neither Clinton nor Congress has shown the political will to make the difficult compromises any large agreement demands.

That may make this State of the Union more a statement of principle than a blueprint for legislation. By offering such an expansive agenda, Clinton may be hoping to begin building a consensus for ideas that a future Democratic president could bring to fruition, notes presidential historian Michael Beschloss.

“Clinton is positioning himself in a way so that some future progressive president can point back to these ideas and say Clinton was my godfather,” Beschloss said.

And perhaps as much as anything else, Clinton did his best to ensure that the future “progressive” president carrying those ideas would be Gore.