Mr. Clinton Comes to Town

ONE WEEK before the Democrats were to meet in Santa Fe to hash out the first draft of their party platform, Bill Clinton was worried. The 22 men and women assigned to the task had been selected by Party Chairman Ron Brown, and it showed: carefully calibrated proportions of blacks, unionists, gays, women, etc. Nothing unusual here in Democratic circles. The committee was chosen to appeal to every group you need to get a Democratic nomination. And every group that’s going to cost you come November.

So Clinton made three calls. One was to Al From, president of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the last bastion of sanity in the Democratic Party. The other two were to Senator Joseph Lieberman and Representative Mike Espy, the former a moderate Orthodox Jew from Connecticut and the latter a moderate black from Mississippi. Mr. Clinton asked each of them to serve on the drafting committee.

WM

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William McGurn

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Presidential Election

ONE WEEK before the Democrats were to meet in Santa Fe to hash out the first draft of their party platform, Bill Clinton was worried. The 22 men and women assigned to the task had been selected by Party Chairman Ron Brown, and it showed: carefully calibrated proportions of blacks, unionists, gays, women, etc. Nothing unusual here in Democratic circles. The committee was chosen to appeal to every group you need to get a Democratic nomination. And every group that’s going to cost you come November.

So Clinton made three calls. One was to Al From, president of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the last bastion of sanity in the Democratic Party. The other two were to Senator Joseph Lieberman and Representative Mike Espy, the former a moderate Orthodox Jew from Connecticut and the latter a moderate black from Mississippi. Mr. Clinton asked each of them to serve on the drafting committee.