MISSOURI COMMENTARY: DEMOCRATS STIFLED ON LOW LUNG POWER

The president came to town last week. He is still a young man -- 51 -- but not quite so young as he presented himself in the last election. He appears to be a tired young man.

Things that went so well for him in 1996 are not going so well in 1997. Some call his predicament lame duckitis. That's as good a phrase as any.

By the end of this year, Bill Clinton will have achieved the apex of his presidency. He won't do any better. From this point on it's downhill all the way -- just as it was for the final years of every two-term president of this century. Even Franklin Roosevelt had trouble at times during his second term. He needed World War II, and an unprecedented (and no longer possible) third term, to bring him out of his funk.

Clinton has wheeled and dealed with Speaker Newt Gingrich just about as much as both can tolerate. Their curious pas-de-deux of compromise can't last much longer. Clinton is not Henry Clay.

The Republicans hate him and the Democrats won't support him. He is leading the charge over San Juan Hill, but there are few Democratic followers. Clinton's enormous charm and rhetorical excellence have exhausted their magic.

Considering the disaster of the 1994 election, Clinton played a cool hand for close to three years. He triangulated. He juggled three balls -- but now one has dropped to the floor. The best of agents can't book a juggler who can only keep the balls in the air.

As a chief executive pursuing a legislative agenda, Clinton will be remembered for the three years gone by more than the three years to come.

Presidents burn up more quickly now than in the past. The job is infinitely more intense. Even after more than 12 years, the country was willing to believe in Franklin Roosevelt. Dwight Eisenhower, in ill health for most of his second term, was still a reliable bet for the American people. Ronald Reagan, dented politically by the Iran-Contra crisis, would nonetheless have galloped to a third term if the Constitution had allowed it.

When it's all over for Clinton, he will have spent three-fourths of his presidency dueling against or making deals with a Republican Congress. No president in history was earned a place on Mount Rushmore by prolonged dependence on the opposite party. Woodrow Wilson wouldn't even hazard the thought of it. Harry Truman successfully used his opposition as a means to declare his political independence -- the independent man from independence.

Clinton succeeded for a while as the Great Accommodationist. He could alchemize some Republican positions into his own. He won re-election in 1996, but his party lost its way.

There are now all stripes of Democrats, but precious few are Clinton Democrats. There are old-fashioned New Deal Democrats. There are moderate Democrats. There are even Southern, conservative Democrats, although not many of them remain. But there are few Clinton Democrats -- Democrats who will stand up in Congress and say "I am with my president. He's my leader, right or wrong. Even if we are going down the tube on this or that issue, Clinton is my guy."

Years ago, I remember sitting in the Senate steambath with Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.). It was a designedly soggy place. Some magazines were passed in for the two of us to read in the sweaty fog. I grabbed Newsweek and turned to its Periscope section. There I read, "President Jimmy Carter has two best friends in the Senate: Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and Sen. Tom Eagleton of Missouri." I read it out loud to Biden. "Tom, if we are the two best friends he has, he's in one hell of a lot of trouble," Biden responded. Carter, in the second half of his term, was about what Clinton is now -- a president without a party.

There is no Clinton program worth mentioning that has the slightest chance of passage in the next three years. National educational testing -- forget it. Another shot at "fast track" - forget it. Tougher environmental laws -- forget it. Campaign-spending reform -- Clinton himself forgets it. Census estimates in minority areas -- forget it.

From here on out, it's defensive football -- some blocking and tackling, but no passing.

As Clinton's political muscles atrophy, the Democratic Party's clout slips as well. None of the potential Democratic presidential candidates for 2000 is elevated by a political party choking under its own diminished lung power.

A political party has to stand for something or doggedly oppose something. The mushy in-between is not the terrain where a successful party can thrive. Neutrals only occasionally win political wars.

Someday, probably after a great recession, the Democratic Party will find its soul. An economic downturn isn't enough. A switch from a bull to a bear market isn't enough -- a Great Recession is the engine of attitudinal change. When government is needed, when there is a greater empathy with the miserable, when little people are just as important as $5,000 contributors -- that's when the Democratic Party may rise again.

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.