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Subject: Economic Summit Seen As a National Teach-In;How Best to Implement Clinton's
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 04:45:04 EST
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Economic Summit Seen As a National Teach-In;How Best to Implement
Clinton's Proposals?<By Ruth Marcus=Washington Post Staff Writer=

The economic summit that President-elect Clinton will convene
next month is shaping up as a televised national teach-in on the
state of the economy and how best to implement Clinton's propo-
sals for fixing it, transition officials said yesterday.

But they continued an effort to dampen expectations about the
event announced just after the election, saying that summit was
"too grandiose" a term for what was planned and cautioning that
no specific action plan will result from the two-day session.

Clinton's former campaign chairman, Mickey Kantor, yesterday
described the Dec. 14-15 meetings in Little Rock, Ark., as part
of the process of "putting some meat on the bones" of Clinton's
campaign proposals, and said more than 100 business leaders,
economists and labor officials will be invited.

Clinton, who hopes to have announced his key economic advisers in
time for the summit, met at the governor's mansion in Little Rock
yesterday with Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.).  The meeting fueled
speculation that the Senate Finance Committee chairman is in line
for a top economic job in the new administration, with treasury
secretary the most likely.

Kantor told reporters that Clinton would use the economic summit
as an opportunity to "bring to life" the economic proposals he
laid out in broad terms during the campaign "through discussion
with people who deal with it every day." Kantor, who is organiz-
ing the event, said Clinton wanted to "get an assessment of where
the economy is and how these proposals affect them."

Transition officials also portrayed the session as Clinton's
chance to underscore his commitment to working on the economy and
to launch an education effort that could become important as he
seeks to secure public support for the proposals as they move
through Congress.

"I think the important thing that's going to come out of this
meeting is a vision of the president-elect hands-on with the
economy, getting the best advice from the best experts in the
country, and starting to build consensus for his program," said
communications director George Stephanopoulos.

But Stephanopoulos said the event was being labeled a conference
rather than a summit because summit is "too grandiose" a term for
what Clinton hopes to achieve. "The word summit connoted some-
thing that was never intended," another aide said, noting that
people have been conditioned to expect that something specific
emerges at the end of a summit.

Stephanopoulos said the meeting would be something like a cross
between a congressional hearing with testimony and a discussion
session, with 20 to 25 experts sitting around a table and others
watching as they consider various aspects of Clinton's economic
proposals.

Since the event was announced the Sunday following the election,
aides said, the jockeying to be invited has made the angling for
a place at Pamela Harriman's dinner for Clinton last week look
mild by comparison.

"As far as I can tell every person who owns more than 50 cents in
America wants to be there," said one transition aide who is not
involved in the planning but still has been swamped with phone
calls from those bidding to participate. "The jockeying is pretty
intense."

Said another aide, "You've got a thousand important people out
there who want to get invited and you put yourself in a position
to (offend) 900 of them."

The initial announcement of the summit surprised some Clinton
aides. They were concerned that - in contrast to the careful
coordination of message and event that was the hallmark of the
campaign - the summit was unveiled before the transition had a
clear understanding of the meeting's purpose.

That consternation was exacerbated by the fact that, in the news
vacuum following the election, disclosure of the gathering
mushroomed into a full-blown economic summit that became the lead
story in the next morning's newspapers.

At first, "nobody had a handle on what it was going to be," said
one aide, who said he was "not concerned any more because it's
under control." One adviser said the summit was a "truly stupid"
idea because, unlike candidate Ross Perot, "Clinton did not run
around the country saying, 'I want to hold a meeting to talk
about what to do with the economy.' He said, 'I know exactly what
I want to do.' "

The risk of announcing an economic summit, the adviser said, was
"it would look like he didn't know what he wanted to do." Still,
this adviser predicted, "He'll turn something that was a dumb
idea into a net plus" as he gathers national leaders together.
Clinton can "buy them into his plan . . . everybody will leave
supporting it," the adviser said.  Clinton advisers have been
split over whether to use the meeting to try to diminish expecta-
tions of an economic quick fix, sources say. Some have urged
Clinton to emphasize bleak news about the economy to prepare
Americans for a long, hard slog.

But others have warned the president-elect not to toy with the
voters, whose confidence in the economy has risen somewhat since
the election; the public is primed for action, not excuses, these
advisers have said.

Characteristically, Clinton appears to be aiming at the middle of
this confrontation. "We want to keep expectations in check," said
press secretary Dee Dee Myers. "But the summit is not meant to
dampen expectations so much as build consensus."<Staff writer Da-
vid Von Drehle contributed to this report.<02:35 11-25:C9999-----

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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