Clinton Cloud Hangs Over Democrats

Through the tempests that tossed his presidency, from Whitewater to impeachment, Bill Clinton reliably found harbor in the arms of the African American community.

So it is fitting Clinton will find sanctuary once more tonight in Los Angeles before an audience of the NAACP, which plans to honor the ex-president for his work on bettering race relations.

It is one of the few places Clinton can find a friendly crowd.

Many of the Democrats who stood fast through myriad scandals have now walked away from their former party chief, using such words as disgusting and disgraceful to describe the clemencies Clinton granted during his final hectic hours in office.

“These pardons are indefensible,” said Art Torres, chairman of the California Democratic Party and a Clinton stalwart through past campaign-finance scandals. Asked the difference this time, Torres replied: “You didn’t have fugitives staying in the Lincoln Bedroom.”

Clinton’s travails are more than a personal embarrassment. As Democrats adjust to their subordinate role in Washington, the storm surrounding Clinton has thwarted the party’s efforts to regroup, take on President Bush and showcase a new cast of national leaders.

“There is genuine concern that we’re going to have trouble communicating our message as long as we’re competing not just with the current president, but with the former president as well,” said Anita Dunn, a Democratic campaign strategist with close ties to the Senate leadership. “People talk about how Clinton has knocked Bush off the front pages. He’s knocked other Democrats even farther off.”

That sort of candid assessment, stated openly, was all but unknown when Clinton was president. Now, many fellow Democrats find it liberating to finally speak their minds.

“There has always been the good Clinton and the bad Clinton,” said Dunn, who suggests Democrats learned through many up-and-down years to “compartmentalize” their feelings in the same way the former president boxed off his public and private tribulations. “It’s almost as though people feel a sense of freedom to go out now and say what they think.”

For many Democrats, however, the anger and frustration is tinged with sadness. It was Clinton, after all, who reshaped the Democratic Party and made it competitive again in presidential politics. “A lot of us looked forward to waxing nostalgic and maybe having a nice contrast with Bush,” said Paul Maslin, a Democratic pollster and strategist for Gov. Gray Davis. “That’s kind of blown away.”

Clinton Still Has Some Faithful Fans

Clinton’s fall has been precipitous. In just the few weeks since he left office, the ex-president has gone from being the Democrats’ cheerleader-in-chief and a top fund-raising asset into something approaching a party pariah. A Gallup Poll last month found his standing had plunged; his 55% unfavorable rating was the highest the survey ever recorded.

Not everyone is ready to crucify Clinton. “If people want to look at the difference between Bill Clinton and George Bush, have a look at your stock portfolios today versus when Bill Clinton was president,” said David Leland, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. “The bottom line is I would be happy to have him come to the state of Ohio any day of the week.”

But that puts Leland in a distinct minority. In interviews this week, nearly a dozen other party chairmen and campaign strategists demurred when asked whether they would choose to host Clinton or have the former president appear alongside their candidates--some politely, others less so. “He himself has said he wants to be off the front pages,” Sheila McGuire Riggs, head of the Iowa Democratic Party, said delicately. “It’s time for other leaders.”

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), long one of Clinton’s staunchest backers, endorsed the decision by the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People to honor him tonight. But she declined to defend the last-minute pardons. “Perhaps Clinton should have taken a little bit more care in the way he did this stuff to avoid criticism,” she said.

The key difference between this latest controversy and others is that Clinton is no longer in the White House. Gone is the fear of presidential retribution. Gone is the duty-bound imperative to rally by the party’s leader and fend off any opposition. Gone too is the aura that attaches to the most powerful man on the planet.

“There is still somehow an awe for the office,” said former Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.), who always swallowed hard when saying “no” to a president--any president. “It felt terrible.”

Clinton was never particularly well-liked on Capitol Hill. But like former President Richard Nixon he was well served by his enemies. In Nixon’s case, it was the far left; for Clinton, the far right. As long as Clinton was president, any attack--even over his personal conduct--was construed by many as an attack on the party’s collective agenda.

“Democrats stuck with Clinton because they hated [GOP leaders] Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey so much,” said Jim Pinkerton, a Republican strategist who, like many in his party, views the Democratic backbiting with no small satisfaction. “That dynamic doesn’t exist anymore. So it’s kind of a free shot.”

Another difference is the nature of the latest controversy.

The Monica S. Lewinsky scandal could be dismissed as a matter of personal conduct. Bunking wealthy donors in the Lincoln Bedroom brought a hail of criticism, but only because it seemed a rather egregious example of trading cash for perks and access, a practice that abounds in Washington’s campaign-finance culture.

“Everybody knows that, in one way or another, everybody does it,” said Leon E. Panetta, Clinton’s former White House chief of staff.

But Congress lacks the power to pardon, making it easier for members to criticize the president without having to justify their own conduct.

“It is a power that, I think, everyone acknowledges is important and has to be exercised with some degree of discretion,” Panetta said. Clinton’s actions were “obviously a reflection of very bad judgment. What he did is very difficult to justify under any circumstances.”

The question now for Democrats is how much collateral damage they suffer. Clinton’s wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been directly tied to the scandal through her brother, Hugh, who received $400,000 to lobby for a commutation for drug dealer Carlos Vignali and a pardon for Almon Glenn Braswell, a mail-order millionaire convicted of fraud and perjury. Sen. Clinton’s congressional debut has been spoiled and talk of a 2004 presidential bid has abruptly ceased. “If she was thinking about it, the last couple of months would not be a nail [in the coffin] but a sledgehammer,” said Jefrey Pollock, a Democratic pollster.

To Some, McAuliffe Stands for Clinton

There is also renewed grumbling about Terry McAuliffe, a Clinton friend and premiere fund-raiser, who was recently installed as Democratic Party chairman. “I think the Democratic Party could not have made a worse choice,” Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) told the Washington Times this week. “He stands in the shade of Bill Clinton.”

A spokeswoman, Jenny Backus, replied that McAuliffe was “selected unanimously with overwhelming support from every kind of Democrat.” As for the clemencies, McAuliffe has called the issue “disappointing, frustrating and distracting” but blamed Republicans for perpetuating the controversy.

Other Democrats remain hopeful this cloud too shall pass. Eventually, they said, Clinton will fade from the headlines, and the focus will turn to the skirmishing between Bush and Democrats on Capitol Hill.

“Two years is a long time” until the next election, pollster Maslin said, and “even when the scandal machine was operating at full force, voters were able to pretty much separate out their judgments about other Democrats and Bill Clinton.”

Besides, few dismissed the prospect of yet another Clinton resurrection. “If there’s one thing we learned throughout the last eight years . . . it’s that he always manages to come back,” Panetta said. “It is in the nature of Bill Clinton to be a survivor.”