POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM OR POLITICAL STRATEGY?
by
ANDREW BARD SCHMOOKLER

A lot of people have complained recently that Bill Clinton stands for nothing, believes in nothing. They might be right. But it's not easy to judge whether a politician lacks principles or is just strategic about where to make his stand.

Clinton is certainly willing to retreat, and his retreats have led all his core constituencies --environmentalists, blacks, civil liberarians, gays-- to feel betrayed by him and declare him unprincipled. But do his abandonments of previous positions show that Clinton fights for nothing or that he has a flexible style of fighting? Politics, after all, is the art of the possible, and a politician cannot be judged independently of the results he achieves.

Those who jump to the conclusion that Clinton stands for nothing might note that his elusive style of political combat has yielded some surprising successes. A year ago he seemed as politically dead as a president can be half way through his first term. Now he seems likely to be re-elected. His "betrayed" constituencies might belittle this turnaround by saying that it was achieved by yielding ground before the advancing Republican revolution, even pirating their issues. But think how much more ground that revolution would have gained --and would gain over the next four years-- if the Republicans in Congress had their own president to work with.

If Clinton had battled more for the causes dear to his core constituencies, would his chances for re-election be what they are today? And which leader serves those constituencies better, the one who stands his ground more firmly but loses the political center and the White House, or the one who retreats from many positions but manages to hold the fort?

It's a genuine dilemma for all concerned. When we complain about a politician being unprincipled, we generally mean he'll do whatever it takes to win an election. But a politician who doesn't win the election is powerless to advance his principles. So how are we citizens to tell the difference between the leader who doesn't care about anything except feeding his ambition and the leader who, like a good general in a difficult battle, knows he cannot defend every piece of terrain if he wants to win the war?

Even for the politician it must be tough. Once a politician tells himself that all his ability to do good depends upon having power, how well will he be able to tell --between his pursuit of power and his stand on the issues-- which is the means and which the end?