Clinton Republicans

Amazing. For the past 12 years, millions of Democrats have voted Republican at the presidential level. They are called Reagan Democrats; a coalition. Now eight prominent Orange County Republicans voice their intent to support the Democratic candidate and a group of conservative, right-wing religious fanatics set up pickets, engage in ugly name-calling and even threaten their businesses. It seems you either agree with their increasingly narrow points of view or be publicly attacked.

Republican lawmakers failed to open new lines of inquiry on the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Libya despite back-to-back grillings Wednesday of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a fuller explanation of the administration's response to the much-debated terrorist assault. Testifying weeks before she is expected to leave office, Clinton emphasized in consecutive sessions before the House and Senate foreign policy committees that there was a "rapidly changing threat environment" in North Africa, citing the recent terrorist attack in Algeria and growing instability in Mali, Nigeria and elsewhere.

The Clinton campaign tried to capitalize on a host of political opportunities Thursday on the steps of the Old County Courthouse in Santa Ana. The president stopped in Orange County partly to boost voter turnout but also to cozy up to what his strategists proclaim is a new political animal--Clinton Republicans, who are attracted to the president because of his position on abortion, the environment, gun control and other issues.

President Clinton on Saturday urged Congress to fund his efforts to preserve national parks and historic sites, saying GOP leaders' tax plan "would actually roll back our progress" on environmental protection. The president also announced a $13-million deal to buy 9,300 acres of land to protect Yellowstone National Park. In a radio address taped while here on vacation, Clinton asked for the full $1 billion included in his budget proposal for a "lands legacy" initiative.

Your article "Clinton to Nudge Enlightened Capitalism Along" (March 3) is full of amazing statements, buzz and code words: enlightened capitalism (companies that bow to every whim of the administration), covenant between employer and employee (permanent employment), critical mass (enough docile CEOs so that a meeting will make a major media event), corporate citizenship (doing it our way), a sense of shame (do it or we will make you, one way or another), and "They haven't come up with much" (they didn't say what we wanted to hear)

President Clinton, mingling with big-money Democratic donors, described the Republicans' tax cutting plan in doomsday terms Saturday, saying it would "imperil the future stability of the country." "It doesn't make sense," Clinton said, asserting that the GOP program would soak up money needed to fix Social Security, Medicare and other social programs. He said Republicans were engaged in a childish tax cut bidding war.

President Clinton and Republicans clashed Saturday on tax and budget policy. In dueling radio broadcasts, Republicans derided the president's new budget plans as an empty bag of goodies. Clinton suggested GOP plans for a 10% income tax cut would "waste a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to shore up Social Security and Medicare.

White House officials revealed Sunday that they have surrendered to investigators dozens of videotapes showing President Clinton at private meetings with major Democratic campaign contributors and potential donors, gatherings that are pivotal to allegations of wholesale campaign fund-raising abuses in last year's elections.

As President Clinton promoted new college scholarships and tax breaks on Saturday, his refusal to spend public money on private-school tuition drew tartly personal Republican criticism. "We want every child in America to have the same choice as Chelsea Clinton," Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson said in the weekly GOP radio address. The president's 17-year-old daughter recently graduated from Sidwell Friends, a private prep school in Washington.

The largest number of potential voters in history have registered in Los Angeles County, making the nation's biggest county more of an electoral prize than ever in the upcoming presidential race and other campaigns. County Registrar-Recorder and Clerk Conny McCormack said that 3.9 million residents were registered to vote as of the Oct. 7 deadline for most residents. As many as 21,000 new citizens scheduled to be sworn in during the next few days can register until Oct. 29.

The Clinton campaign tried to capitalize on a host of political opportunities Thursday on the steps of the Old County Courthouse in Santa Ana. The president stopped in Orange County partly to boost voter turnout but also to cozy up to what his strategists proclaim is a new political animal--Clinton Republicans, who are attracted to the president because of his position on abortion, the environment, gun control and other issues.

For the past 16 years, much of the American political landscape has been defined by the phenomenon of the Reagan Democrat--the blue-collar, ethnic and patriotic former Democrats who helped Ronald Reagan win the presidential elections of 1980 and 1984, and to whom George Bush turned in 1988. But the role of the Reagan Democrat as the nation's political pivot may be giving way to an even more potent phenomenon.

Your article "Clinton to Nudge Enlightened Capitalism Along" (March 3) is full of amazing statements, buzz and code words: enlightened capitalism (companies that bow to every whim of the administration), covenant between employer and employee (permanent employment), critical mass (enough docile CEOs so that a meeting will make a major media event), corporate citizenship (doing it our way), a sense of shame (do it or we will make you, one way or another), and "They haven't come up with much" (they didn't say what we wanted to hear)