The US in transition: Public waits for Clinton to fulfil its hopes: the promises

IS THE honeymoon over even before the marriage vows have been formally exchanged? There are still 24 hours before Bill Clinton places his hand on the Bible and takes the oath of office on the Capitol steps. But to judge from a bilious stream of newspaper editorials last week, the apposite question at this particular moment is less what Mr Clinton will do, than what he will not do.

He will not, for example, make it easier for Haitian refugees to gain political asylum in the United States, as he suggested during the campaign. The middle-class tax cut brandished with such effect during the early primaries is to all intents dead and buried; indeed a majority of Americans now believes he will raise taxes. New figures, he says, may hamper his undertaking to halve the budget deficit by 1996. A commitment to reduce the White House staff by 25 per cent has disappeared. Far from having an economic programme 'ready on Day One', his blueprint will not be delivered until February at the earliest.

And the list goes on. But such a rush to judgement can be discounted; the US press is adversarial by nature. More ominous perhaps, as yesterday's promises are downgraded to tomorrow's goals, was the alarm of the Democratic senator Patrick Moynihan, at 'a clatter of campaign promises being thrown out of the window'. That sort of music should not be playing this week.

The reality of power has come as a rude shock, as even Bill Clinton, that summa cum laude student of the art of governance, has admitted. His first feelings after winning, he confided to a friend, 'were like the dog who chased the pick-up truck. I got to it, but now what am I to do?' But he is not the first politician to back-track on campaign promises. No damage has been done that cannot be corrected by a rousing inaugural speech. In the country at large, if not among the scribes of Washington, the honeymoon is still intact. Most important, no one can doubt that he wants to do a great deal.

The first steps will be the easiest. A string of executive orders expected within a few weeks will show that, in style and spirit, 12 years of Republican rule is over. President Clinton will be able to strike down Mr Bush's 'gag rule' on abortion counselling, and his block on the use of aborted foetuses for medical research. Despite fierce opposition from the military, his aides say he will overturn the ban on homosexuals in the armed forces, and perhaps expand the role of women in combat. These promises at least can be speedily implemented. The substance, however, is a different matter. The transition has been agonisingly slow, showing Mr Clinton at his worst: the instinctive procrastinator; the coalition-builder who in striving to avoid offence only gives it; the micro-manager whose insistence on overseeing every decision merely delays the taking of them. This last is a special temptation for any newcomer. Jimmy Carter fell into the trap. The lack of focus that followed was instrumental in the failure of his presidency. All too aware of the danger, Clinton advisers such as George Stephanopoulos, the communications director, now talk of the 'Big Five' issues on which the administration will concentrate. Simplest is campaign finance reform, where a Democratic bill is in Congress. Next comes the National Service Trust Fund - a scheme guaranteeing university education for all who want it, to be repaid either in instalments or by community work. Toughest, however, will be the remaining three: health-care reform, and the economic goals which may prove an 'either-or' dilemma: reducing the dollars 300bn (pounds 195bn) federal budget deficit and boosting long-term public investment. All three, if the polls are correct, are top of the public's wish-list. After Mr Bush's neglect of domestic problems, all three reflect a yearning for greater state involvement.

In his inauguration speech 12 years ago, Ronald Reagan said that government was the problem. This time, a powerful strand in Mr Clinton's victory was his understanding of a feeling that after three years of recession, market forces alone are not enough, that government must be part of the solution. The constraint is money. Every sign is that the top priority will be reducing the deficit; hence the demise of the middle-class tax cut, and perhaps a scaling-back of other plans. In short that long unfashionable 'S-word', sacrifice.

Absent thus far is any mention of foreign affairs, where change may be more a shift of emphasis than any wholesale departure from Bush policies. Saddam Hussein can expect little quarter, while a President Clinton may realise that Russia's problems must be solved by Russia. But one notable role reversal may have unanticipated implications, not least for US attitudes to the war in Bosnia. In 1991 Mr Bush took the US to war in the Gulf against the will of a majority of congressional Democrats. Today it is not Republicans but Democrats who sound like foreign policy hawks. Thus another facet of the enigma of Bill Clinton the President.

For all that has been written about him, he comes to office as an unknown quantity. The desire for a fresh face and fresh policies are tempered by uncertainty over how he will handle the inhuman pressures of the White House.

Much is working in his favour. The Democratic majority in Congress should guarantee an end to gridlock. Mr Clinton has been courting the legislature with a deftness not seen here since Lyndon Johnson's times. The public yearns to give him the benefit of the doubt. His approval rating is at 80 per cent. But the capital could easily be squandered. Too much rhetoric and a few more broken undertakings, and the ghost of 'Slick Willie', the man who would say anything to get elected, might again stalk the land. But at least the waiting is over, to the profound relief of Mr Clinton and everyone around him. Tomorrow cannot come soon enough.

(Photograph omitted)