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Clinton and his advisers have been able to make the campaign about the future, and not a referendum on the Clinton record. Morris' well-known policy of "triangulation"--steering between the extremes of the House Republicans and the liberals in Clinton's own party--has had the counterintuitive effect of making Clinton seem like a "conviction politician." In the face of the Republican tirade, Clinton looked strong simply by not backing down. Notes Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos: "He has managed to speak to the country's desire for coming together, and to stand firm on his principles at the same time."
Letting Newt Be Newt. After the 1994 election, Clinton figured that no matter who gets the Republican nomination in 1996, his real opponent until then will be Newt. "There was a personification of the negative side of the G.O.P. revolution," says Senator Chris Dodd, co-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, "and it was the Speaker."
At the same time, Newt and his allies made a number of miscalculations. They not only thought Clinton would cave in on the budget, they boasted that he would do so--thereby ensuring that he didn't. They misjudged the public's reaction to the shutdown: it redounded against the recalcitrant Republicans, not the reasonable-sounding fellow in the White House. After a while, Newt's tantrums became so unappetizing to the public that Clinton scored points simply by being the un-Newt. And the Republicans never imagined that the man they deride as the Last Liberal would shanghai their less-government agenda.
Mending Fences in the Family. Only a couple of years ago, Clinton's rhetoric would have been anathema to the liberal core of the Democratic caucus. But the world has changed since then. No one is against a balanced budget anymore; everyone is a fiscal conservative. Like a political Gulliver, Clinton has been able to straddle the differences in his own party. As the popularity of his position on the budget has risen, Democrats figure, we'd better go along for the ride.
Another consequence was that as Clinton anchored himself in the middle, he was able to score points on the left by making the G.O.P. appear Scroogelike on Medicare, school lunches, the environment and education spending. It's a politician's dream: he's having it both ways.
Scaring Off the Competition. On the campaign front, Clinton is the colossus of the Democratic Party. The White House frightened off any potential rivals with a scorched-earth fund-raising policy. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton-Gore campaign finance chairman, has broken all records, collecting $26.8 million in eight months last year. Throw in an additional $11 million in matching funds, and McAuliffe's job was virtually done before 1996 even began.
The campaign's biggest expense so far was a Dick Morris-inspired $2.4 million ad campaign last summer featuring three slick commercials on the President's crime-fighting record. This was meant to inoculate Clinton against any G.O.P. soft-on-crime attacks and also warn off any other Democrats with big dreams.