Missing Men by Kate O’Beirne The Democrats Gore is not getting.

In the Clinton White House in 1996 there was a dispute over how to talk about the economy. Labor secretary Robert Reich, in keeping with traditional liberal concerns, wanted to emphasize the economy’s failings, the workers “left behind.” Dick Morris urged the president to stay positive, heralding the economy’s achievements in a way that helped make the public more optimistic, and, in turn, win those optimists over to his side.

Gore is now attempting a straddle, sounding like Reich in his assault on the new malefactors of wealth, and like Morris in touting “progress and prosperity.” It’s a contradictory combination. A populist assault on business usually requires the dire atmospherics of a recession to catch fire (this is why Pat Buchanan’s populism seemed to have a future in the GOP in 1992, and now doesn’t even seem to have a future in the rump Reform party). It’s also tricky to sound anti-corporate and pro-capitalist at the same time. Gore and the Justice Department are open to the charge that they favor “progress and prosperity,” so long as no one makes a profit or expands his business.

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In the Clinton White House in 1996 there was a dispute over how to talk about the economy. Labor secretary Robert Reich, in keeping with traditional liberal concerns, wanted to emphasize the economy’s failings, the workers “left behind.” Dick Morris urged the president to stay positive, heralding the economy’s achievements in a way that helped make the public more optimistic, and, in turn, win those optimists over to his side.

Gore is now attempting a straddle, sounding like Reich in his assault on the new malefactors of wealth, and like Morris in touting “progress and prosperity.” It’s a contradictory combination. A populist assault on business usually requires the dire atmospherics of a recession to catch fire (this is why Pat Buchanan’s populism seemed to have a future in the GOP in 1992, and now doesn’t even seem to have a future in the rump Reform party). It’s also tricky to sound anti-corporate and pro-capitalist at the same time. Gore and the Justice Department are open to the charge that they favor “progress and prosperity,” so long as no one makes a profit or expands his business.