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How will Clinton tap this trend? Last week he chewed over three major initiatives with advisers, which could be introduced at a child-care conference to be conducted by Hillary in October. The current $1 billion federal block grant to subsidize child care for low-income parents will be raised. Because uniform federal standards would never pass Congress, Clinton will probably propose an incentive system to improve day-care quality, such as giving states money to provide training. The most ambitious idea would supply funds to local districts for after-school programs aimed at older students as well as primary schoolers. This will be sold as a crime-fighting measure (more than two-thirds of juvenile crime occurs between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.), an aid to working parents and a way of honing the competitive edge of workers. A senior White House official is concerned that "we may have trouble with that," recalling how Republicans lampooned earlier efforts to fund after-school programs as "midnight basketball." But the idea polls extremely well, and some Republicans fear they have nothing good to counter it with.
"Nothing has been done in our party to take the offensive on child and education issues," laments Bob Dole's pollster Tony Fabrizio. "If we pick school choice and the Democrats pick teacher standards and after-school activities, we'll be going into a gunfight with a knife." And it's not nice to fight in front of the children.
--With reporting by James Carney and John F. Dickerson/Washington