As Bill Clinton assumes the presidency, he would do well to heed that famous admonition from baseball’s Leo Durocher: Nice guys finish last.
A nicer man on the planet might be harder to find than the man who takes the oath of office Wednesday, according to many who know him. He’s gracious, approachable, and earnestly and completely willing to please.
In most circumstances, such qualities are desirable and winning. But if Clinton wants to have a successful presidency and improve the nation’s standing domestically and internationally, he would be well advised to put an outer shell of toughness around that soft center of his.
The importance of this cannot be overemphasized. George Bush also had a natural inclination for niceness, a quality that did not serve him well during the presidential race and within his own party. Many of his political friends took advantage of his gentle, patrician grace and advised him poorly during his presidency.
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Being too nice can lead to reactive administrations that often struggle to control events or keep the lid on bad situations that at one time were manageable. This characterized the Bush presidency in both domestic and foreign policy. He won the battle of vetoes, but never fought aggressively for his own programs that might have made a difference to his presidency.
In the argot of the business world, what Clinton needs is a “pro-active” attitude that risks some of the good will he has built up in recent months. This early reservoir of good will feels so good to a new president, he might think he can stretch it out to four years by being nice to everyone. But he cannot.
A new president can be either an entrepreneur or a caretaker. There’s really no in-between in a capital where all of the nation’s interests come to bend public policy in their direction. Caretakers let government policy flow from this very unscientific, irrational process.
Smart political entrepreneurs decide at the beginning what they want to accomplish and do not hesitate to push their projects, taking some risks to bring in sizable returns.
Yet, during the transition, Clinton didn’t show much of that old entrepreneurial spirit he had during the campaign. He backed away from several campaign promises and strongly suggested that, because of new numbers, he might not be able to deliver on reducing the budget deficit by 50 percent over four years.
This sounded like some of the same old defeatist attitude that has characterized the federal government for a solid decade. Woe is me, the litany goes, nothing can be done about the deficit because nothing can be done about entitlements, defense and interest. Has nice-guy Clinton joined the do-nothing lament?
In his admirable effort to name a woman as attorney general, he selected Zoe Baird even after Baird told him that she might have violated the law by hiring illegal immigrants, and by not paying their Social Security.
While this is a minor offense, Clinton should have not been so nice and accommodating. He could have quietly told her that this was a distraction he did not need in his drive to make huge changes in his first few months in the job. And he could have easily found another qualified woman for the job.
Saying no can have a powerful effect. During President Reagan’s first few months in office, he showed his toughness by firing striking air traffic controllers and hiring an entirely new group of workers in their place. Many analysts believe to this day that this one event was the most decisive in restraining inflationary wage increases in the first Reagan administration.
One of Washington’s structural problems is that it is by nature a “yes” kind of town in a “no” kind of era. Many ideas that sound wonderful and progressive often roll out of Congress, until one looks at the price tags and discovers that, cumulatively, they would break the budget.
Clinton will have to go the extra mile in curtailing special-interest legislation. His campaign financing reforms are not in place and so there will be plenty of it coming his way. But he has an advantage over Bush. He can send it back to Capitol Hill with the comment: “Take this trash off this bill or I won’t sign it.”
And, unlike Bush, he stands a better chance of getting his way, because the Democrats control Congress. It would be lovely if, in his first week of office, Clinton would threaten to veto his own economic program if it contained too much of this Christmas-tree stuff.
Who says we need a happy, harmonious government just because it is controlled by one party? In these difficult times, the nation needs the Bill Clinton who did not hesitate to offend Jesse Jackson by criticizing Sister Souljah, not the Clinton who has been mostly walking backwards in his transition.
For the new president, just three little words of advice: Just say no.