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Subject: Clinton Still Alternating Between Mr. Outsider and Mr. Insider<By Dan
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 04:44:31 EST
Message-ID: <41.1992Nov19.044432@AmeriCast.com>

Clinton Still Alternating Between Mr. Outsider and Mr. Insider<By
Dan Balz=Washington Post Staff Writer=

He ran for president as a Washington outsider, an "agent of
change" with no ties to the mess inside the Beltway, no connec-
tion to the influence peddling and cozy deal-making of the capi-
tal, no responsibility for the gridlock of government.

He ran for president, too, as the nation's senior governor, a man
who has spent his adult life in politics and public policy, an
experienced politician who could make government work, he said,
because he already had.

Yesterday the two Bill Clintons met in Washington for the begin-
ning of what could be an uneasy coexistence.

The formal transfer of power from President Bush to President-
elect Clinton will come later, in the cold of a January after-
noon. But the fusing of the two Clintons began with a two-minute
photo opportunity outside the Oval Office and a walk along a
block of Georgia Avenue NW that is in many ways as far from the
White House as is Clinton's home town of Hope, Ark.

For two days on his carefully scripted "first visit" to Washing-
ton, Clinton is moving back and forth between the worlds of Mr.
Outsider and Mr. Insider: from Georgia Avenue to Georgetown, from
the Hill to the Hay-Adams Hotel (not official Blair House but not
exactly Motel 6 either), from private meetings and meals with the
practitioners of power to brief, symbolic forays into the "real
world" to see and be seen by the ordinary Americans whose votes
signaled a readiness to change the way Washington works.

It is impossible for any president-elect to avoid the clutch of
the Washington establishment. Clinton's presidency will in fact
define the standards of the new establishment beginning in Janu-
ary, signified by the cascade of re'sume's arriving at transition
headquarters and the endless networking to secure jobs.

But for Clinton, the dangers of being captured by Washington are
especially acute, given the overwhelming mandate for change that
the election two weeks ago provided. Some Democrats are already
nervous that the transition from outsider to insider has been too
swift and too obvious, that so far in the short period of transi-
tion there is too much Georgetown and not enough Georgia Avenue.

Stan Greenberg, Clinton's pollster during the campaign,
disagreed. "Insider is a label," Greenberg said yesterday. "What
people associate with a label is a do-nothing government owned by
special interests that doesn't address the country's needs. If
Bill Clinton comes to Washington on behalf of the people and gets
the country moving, that's the people's work, it's not politics."

As they plan the new administration, Clinton and his advisers
have two powerful images in mind: One, which comes from a year
spent on the campaign trail, is of an electorate fed up with
gridlock, fearful about the economy and resentful that government
has been taken hostage by special interests. The other image,
just as powerful as they come closer to Inauguration Day, is of
Jimmy Carter's failed administration.

Clinton's advisers know he must avoid Carter's mistakes if he is
to succeed with his legislative agenda on the economy and health
care, but to the degree he is co-opted by Washington to make that
happen, the greater the danger that the public will see business
as usual prevailing.  Carter's biggest mistake, or so it is ex-
plained, was his failure to win over the Washington establish-
ment, from the Democratic Congress to the power brokers who
outlast administrations and maintain the social order of the cap-
ital. That requires Clinton to hobnob with the power elite and to
send olive branches out to Congress - as he did yesterday and
will again today - all to reassure the establishment that he is
not coming to make war on them.  Throughout his campaign, Clinton
appeared frequently with members of Congress.  But he refused to
embrace the institution, and when it suited his political pur-
poses, he attacked Congress. One of his earliest ads, after all,
condemned the pay raise Congress voted itself, which brought a
cry of foul from some Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Now the success of his prospective presidency likely will hinge
on his ability to prod Congress to act quickly on an economic
agenda (and perhaps on a reform agenda as well), and on Monday in
Little Rock, he appeared with the Democratic congressional
leadership to pledge a new era of cooperation between Congress
and the White House.

"What is 'outside' is the ideas he brings to Washington, an ap-
proach to government that is new and fresh," said Mark D. Gearan,
who is director of Clinton's Washington transition office. But
Gearan said that Clinton's many years as a governor, which in-
cluded time spent lobbying Congress on welfare reform and other
issues, give him an understanding of "the workings of government"
that will mesh well with the existing order.

At the same time, Gearan said, the president-elect is "very mind-
ful and thoughtful of the bubble" around a president, adding that
the schedule in Washington yesterday and today is evidence of his
desire to maintain contact with the voters.

But the photo ops and the staged block walks are no substitute
for the kind of searing, day-in, day-out experience of the cam-
paign Clinton just concluded, and it will be difficult to main-
tain from the office he will soon occupy the mind-set - and the
hungry edge - of an outsider.

Clinton advisers see an unlikely model for their balancing act.
"Ronald Reagan went to Washington but he was never an insider,"
Greenberg said. "He fought for change and he stuck by his convic-
tions. . . . We need to keep Ronald Reagan in our heads when we
think of this problem."<02:31 11-19C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)