Word: careful
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Bill Clinton challenged his party to scrap the philosophy that had lost five of the past six elections and get back in touch with mainstream values: work, family, personal responsibility, free markets, accountable government. When he tried to do something very big, like overhaul the entire health-care system, it yielded a fiery Republican Congress. By 1996, Bill Bradley had given up on politics and Bill Clinton had conceded that "the era of Big Government is over...
Both men have always defied pigeonholes. In the Senate, Gore was an environmentalist who knew everything about the MX missile; Bradley favored funding the Nicaraguan contras, but was against the Gulf War. These days, whether they are talking health care, education, crime or poverty, the instruments they use, for the most part, all come out of the New Democrat toolbox. Bradley has gone further left on gays, proposing that they should have all the legal and economic rights of marriage short of the title itself, and he's gone further on gun control, where he favors registering all handguns...
...which implies that Gore isn't brave enough or doesn't care enough about the poor to spend what it takes to help them. And in a way, this is a hopeless trap. Bradley may be making promises he can't keep, but Gore suffers if he pulls on a green eyeshade and starts sounding bloodless as he challenges Bradley's numbers and details. After all, Bradley says, Kennedy didn't know what kind of rocket fuel it would take to get to the moon; he just had the nerve to vow that we would get there somehow...
...exactly is Gore supposed to argue with that? When he launched his campaign last summer, he promised to maintain the fiscal discipline that the Democrats finally embraced when they agreed to balance the budget. While he would dip into the projected surplus to pay for his own health-care and poverty programs, he is not as free-spending as Bradley, whose health-care plan alone could consume most of the non-Social Security surplus for the next 10 years. The minute he matches Bradley's wish list, however, Gore opens himself to attack from Bush for reverting to the days...
...doesn't care about fiscal responsibility," says a Gore adviser about Bradley. "Nobody in the world will pass Bill Bradley's plan--nobody--because it will crowd out all other government spending, including education and military readiness." Economists note that if current government spending simply keeps pace with inflation, the surplus never appears at all. Well, says Bradley spokesman Eric Hauser, "flexibility is part of the final decisions. If economic conditions change, we'll bear that into account." And besides, Hauser adds, "The Gore campaign has no credibility to analyze anyone else's budget numbers when they have...