NEWS ANALYSIS : Clinton’s Laser Focus Diffuses on Wide Agenda

WASHINGTON —  President Clinton, who came into office vowing to focus on the economy like a laser beam, has now expanded his focus to encompass an agenda of new programs and revolutionary change that is breathtaking in its ambition.

The new President promises to remake the American economy, revolutionize health care, reinvent government, revise the regulations on raising and spending political money, reform the welfare system, launch a national youth service program, rewrite the rules on international trade and even rebuild the shattered Russian economy.

And those are only his front-burner issues. An array of second-tier initiatives--from resuscitating the airline industry to revamping the inspection of meat and fish--is bubbling up from newly named activists in the bureaucracy.

After 12 years of Republican rule, Clinton and his minions appear determined to reverse what they call a decade of domestic neglect--all in his first year in office.

But as the filibuster by Senate Republicans that caused Clinton to retrench on his short-term stimulus package--a relatively minor portion of his overall economic program--has demonstrated, every element on a President’s agenda demands time, energy and political capital--resources that almost always turn out to be less plentiful than the need.

And if presidents spread themselves too thin, scattering their energies and failing to maintain focus on the things that matter most to them and to voters, they risk seeing their administrations unravel. Historians and veterans of previous administrations caution that Clinton will face major setbacks if he assumes that just because his many goals seem worthy, Congress and the country will fall in line.

A handful of presidents have managed to pursue enormous agendas and still succeed. Franklin D. Roosevelt virtually remade the face of American society. He not only created the Social Security system and a host of other previously unimaginable programs, but he also fundamentally altered the role of government in national life.

Lyndon B. Johnson, though finally destroyed by his pursuit of the Vietnam War, broke through the historic roadblock on civil rights laws and unleashed an avalanche of programs that still form the basis of the social safety net.

Both Roosevelt and Johnson, however, occupied the White House at moments of national crisis that gave them extraordinary political strength--the Depression in Roosevelt’s case and the combination of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the rising wave of the civil rights movement in Johnson’s.

During Clinton’s campaign, he sounded the alarm over economic, social and educational problems that he said similarly imperil the nation’s future.

But for most voters these problems are abstract, complex and remote. Whether Clinton can turn them into anything like the situations that Roosevelt and Johnson turned to their advantage remains a large question.

If the answer is no, then his ability to avoid being spread too thin may become critical.

“We’re already seeing signs of overextension,” declared Republican political analyst Kevin Phillips. “The ineptitude of the Administration on a couple of early issues, the proliferation of foreign policy problems and a lack of adequate staffing throughout the government combine to create a need to tighten down to a couple of achievable priorities. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done.”

Senior Administration officials conceded that a potential problem exists, but they insisted that Clinton understands the dangers and is moving to avoid them. Besides, they said, as an activist President committed to change, he has no choice but to move on a broad front--even if that entails some defeats.

“I can see the concern about overloading the agenda, and we are mindful it can be a problem,” said Thomas (Mack) McLarty, Clinton’s chief of staff. “But we have a President who understands the issues and has definite ideas about what he can do for the country.”

McLarty said Clinton “knows he can’t do everything, but he’s engaged and he’s willing to tackle the tough issues, and sometimes that sets up a President for being less than successful on every issue he addresses.”

Clinton himself recognizes the risk of attempting to do too much too fast.

Asked at a recent photo opportunity whether his program is unraveling because it is too diffuse, he said: “We may not get 100% of everything we’re trying to do in every area, but I do think the American people will see that the focus of all of this is to guarantee a healthy economy and a growing jobs market to try to turn this around. There are so many things which need attention in the economic area, I think we have to be active in all of them.

“I don’t want to spread myself personally too thin, but we have, after all, a large number of people working in this government and a lot of work to do, and I think I have to keep pushing on the economic front.”

In the struggle to avoid scattering his efforts, Clinton has backed away from a host of earlier proposals, including a revamping of farm subsidies; boosting fees on grazing, mining and logging of federal lands, and the much-publicized middle-class tax cut. Under pressure, he also accepted $65 billion in additional spending cuts in his economic program.

Yet maintaining a narrow focus is never easy for a President. Circumstances change. Events at home and abroad intrude. Issues and problems thrust themselves to the fore. Emergency help for Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and his nation’s collapsing economy, for example, is an issue that has demanded immediate attention.

In addition to the major issues, said Jody Powell, who was press secretary to Jimmy Carter, the last Democratic President, “there are hundreds of other things that never make the front page of the newspaper but which may take about as much time and effort, and may be as important as things that you don’t necessarily read on page one of newspapers.”

For instance, he said, “you’ve got an airline industry about to go down the tubes, a terribly complicated mess. . . . A study commission is looking into it and will report back in few months, and that’s another problem for the President.”

Adding to the pressure on Clinton to take on more instead of less is the fact that he is the first Democrat to occupy the White House in more than a decade. Abortion rights organizations, gay rights activists and other interest groups that supported the Democratic ticket are clamoring for action on their agendas.

“The people voted for change and they expect it. They voted for an activist President and they got one. The American people expect him to handle a number of things at once,” said Democratic Party Chairman David C. Wilhelm.

George Stephanopoulos, Clinton’s communication director, said that, while the President is doing his best to set priorities and manage his time, “there’s an awful lot to do. . . . Remember the President was left with a huge plate of problems from the last 12 years of neglect.”

“Failing to address these problems will ensure that they only get worse,” he added.

The pressure to tackle even more issues is likely to increase.

Among the important matters closing in on the President, McLarty said, are the fallout from closing military bases, rebuilding hurricane-ravaged South Florida and dealing with problems stemming from last year’s Los Angeles riots, as well as addressing California’s anemic economy.

As the leader of the world’s only superpower, Clinton also feels a heavy responsibility to take the lead on major foreign policy issues, McLarty said, though he stressed that Clinton, who promised during last year’s campaign to focus mostly on domestic issues, has done no foreign traveling other than a two-day trip to Vancouver for a summit with Yeltsin.

Clinton came into office as an activist, decrying former President Ronald Reagan’s declaration in his first inaugural address that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

In presenting his economic program to Congress in February, Clinton vowed that the Reagan-George Bush legacy of laissez faire would end. “I want to talk with you about what the government can do, because I believe government must do more,” he said.

Clinton and his aides agree that Reagan was right about one thing, though: Restricting a President’s agenda to a few major issues is one of the keys to success. Reagan focused on three objectives in his first term and accomplished all three: a decrease in taxes, a buildup of the nation’s defenses and a reduction in the rate of growth of social programs.

Michael K. Deaver, Reagan’s communication director, said Clinton is in danger of being engulfed by a distracting and overambitious agenda, something Reagan’s lieutenants were careful to avoid.

“I think it’s clear that (Clinton) is undisciplined when it comes to focusing on one thing. He has an interest in so many things. That’s one of Clinton’s problems,” Deaver said. “One of the things Reagan was criticized for was that he was disinterested. He was. He was stubbornly disinterested. You could get him to engage in only one or two things at a time.”

As a result of Clinton’s scattered interests and energies, he and his staff are continually fighting brush fires when they should be concentrating solely on his economic program, Deaver said.

“When someone brings up gays in the military or something else,” Deaver said, “Clinton should say: ‘I don’t want to talk about that. I want to solve the economic problem before I talk about anything else.’ That worked for us for the first four or five years.”

Clinton’s advisers said that where Reagan’s first term illustrated the benefits of a focused agenda, they learned from the Carter presidency that an overloaded agenda spreads political resources too thin and can lead to major setbacks.

While Clinton has sought to apply that lesson to his dealings with Congress, where he basically has been fighting only for his economic program, in his public statements and appearances he has plunged into numerous other domestic and foreign issues that require a lot of energy and resources.

“He’s beginning to make Carter look like a piker when it comes to overloading the agenda,” said former Democratic Party Chairman John White.

Republicans, who have presented a solid front in opposing Clinton’s spending plans, said they are gleeful that the President has taken on so many battles at once.

“I was very surprised to see him get into the issues of gays in the military and immigration of AIDS-infected Haitians and have three or four little abortion fights going on,” said Republican Party Chairman Haley Barbour. “I thought they would limit the agenda as much as possible because they said they would. Most of the foreign policy stuff was unavoidable, but they injected domestic issues; they want to remake government.”

In setting agendas, presidents who plan to run for a second term usually pay special attention to the political costs of achieving their goals, and that presumably is a key factor for the 46-year-old Clinton.

Carter used up a lot of political capital early in his term by campaigning hard to turn around a skeptical public and Congress and win enactment of the Panama Canal Treaty. Although that was hailed as one of his major achievements, Carter later said that, had he known it could cost him so much political capital, he would have delayed pushing for the canal treaty until a hoped-for second term.

Thomas E. Mann, director of governmental studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, defended Clinton’s expansive view of the role of government.

“It is inevitable a new Administration’s plate will be filled with more than just the top priority item or items. That’s especially true when party control of the White House changes. It’s all well and good to say that what matters for Clinton is the economic package first and the health care package second, and those should be his priorities, and most of his energies and public campaigning should go into those programs.

“But the reality is that other things have to be done, and life goes on. He cannot distance himself from all of those efforts.”

The danger is not in trying to do too much but in squandering his precious political capital too early in his term, Mann said. “And there, the jury is out.”