Looking back through a prism of 20 years at the Clinton-Gore campaign that I worked on in Little Rock, I feel a temptation to reflect on the things that make policy wonks giddy.
Little Rock -- the campaign -- was the start of an administration that delivered the first federal budget that was in the black -- the largest surplus in U.S. history. It was the start of the nation's best economic performance and job creation of my lifetime.
It was the impetus for the Family and Medical Leave Act, a policy that would mean I could take three months off with the birth of each of my children. And through the creation in 1997 of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, the reform of America's health care system began.
The truth is that the Clinton campaign was transformative well before many of these and a host of other major policy changes were enacted. In an age when stagecraft, gauzy themes, and sound-bites have too often been substituted for leadership, Bill Clinton as a candidate made it essential to campaigning to take the specifics of governance seriously. Practical solutions were "in;" ideology was "out."
Pundits of the time might record the charisma of candidate Clinton. But those of us close at hand saw more than that. We saw someone with bedrock beliefs that had been honed into a pragmatic philosophy and policy approach through hard-won experience, voracious research, and an unerring instinct for when and how to listen.
It was no surprise, then, that his campaign book was not a biography. Putting People First was almost laughably devoid of the self-referential puffery. Instead, the book was a no-nonsense guide to advancing the interests of everyday Americans -- those who, as Clinton said, "work hard and play by the rules."
Putting People First was progressivism revived, and at its best. That is why the campaign rallied broad support across the political spectrum. Unbound to the old orthodoxies, it drew ideas from many sources. In doing so, the campaign helped Americans focus not on pleasant but vague sentiments, but on how in reality their votes would change our nation to give it a chance to become the best possible America.
This was a campaign that was based on and appealed to the drive, ingenuity, and resourcefulness of ordinary people. I can still see on the words written on the blackboard in the War Room: "Change vs. More of The Same." The premise was simple: the American character should be one forward-leaning and self-assured, not paralyzed by fear. As Clinton said, "There is not a problem that is not already being solved somewhere in America." The innovation of the Clinton team extended to campaign strategies and techniques, too. The idea of having a "rapid response" capability arose from the need quickly and effectively to react to inaccuracies or misinformation in the media that could falsely define the candidate and the campaign.
The Clinton-Gore administration went on to use a war room in its first budget battle -- the budget that laid the groundwork for the longest period of prosperity of our lifetimes -- as well as in the push for passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization. Thus, the War Room and its famous "speed kills" became an organizing technique now used in governing as well as campaigns.
I now look back and laugh when I think about all the "urgent" documents that page by agonizing page slowly emerged from our fax machines, compared to today's lightening-speed tools of social media. But, in its own time, the War Room early established the concept of working in a social matrix through open, proximate spaces.
For its time, it was the political and programmatic equivalent of Facebook. We believed that the mere fact of people coming together, in this case physically in open space, would accelerate the deliberative process, distill debates into crisper decisions, and drive better results. And if that weren't enough, there were always James Carville's gold stars rewarding excellence and motivating the team to drive harder and do more. Candidate Clinton faced some excruciating policy decisions head-on. The decision to support NAFTA was incredibly challenging, but in retrospect it rings true to how the Clinton-Gore team would govern. The analysis was painstaking, based on a myriad of facts and points of view. Most importantly, it was based on the recognition that the global economy was rapidly changing and that the U.S. would need to change in order to succeed. It also reflected the understanding that both business and labor were indispensable for a healthy American economy, and that workers are consumers who care how their families can lead healthier and more productive lives.
I remember one meeting with candidates Clinton and Gore that included union leaders, environmentalists, and businessmen. Differing points of view were welcomed. The discussion supplemented reams of briefing papers on possible job gains/losses, wage increases/decreases, environmental impact, and consumer benefits. In a way that he would do time and time again once he entered in the White House, candidate Clinton sought others' input. Then he would make a tough decision, and stick to it. It was modern progressivism: fact-based, open-minded, pragmatic, methodical, deliberative, consensus-oriented, and instinctively optimistic.
What became known as Clinton's "Third Way" policies was rooted in both the political and the personal: his innate capacity for understanding how peoples' concerns and hopes intertwined allowed him to discern what was politically feasible on the broad stage of presidential leadership. In the case of NAFTA, side agreements that addressed NAFTA-related issues of workers' rights and environmental protections defined the "Third Way."
We were all younger then and one naturally forgets quite a lot as the years speed by. But I do remember thinking that it didn't matter whether we were on a weekday or weekend, we were not going to slow down to rest. I remember thinking that, no matter how much we researched or consulted or studied, there was always another fact to be chased down, another argument to examined, still another policy option to be considered. We took nothing for granted. I remember being so exhausted at my campaign desk some nights that blinking seemed a horribly unfair amount of exertion. The most important thing I will never forget is the camaraderie. Never before and never since have I been part of a team that actually gained cohesiveness as it grew in numbers. Capturing that spirit is hard to describe, except perhaps indirectly. Within the campaign, there was a certain lore regarding the band of believers who soldiered through the dark, freezing days of the New Hampshire primary campaign and stuck with our candidate even when things seemed bleak. But the story was never recounted with an invidious dig, so that those early campaign workers would have more cache than later arrivals. Rather, the narrative attained a universality of acceptance that was almost tribal: it not only spoke to us all, it spoke for us all. At the time I thought that openness to new, dedicated talent and a single-minded focus on results was a hallmark of the campaign. But now, I've come to see that it was more than that. It was the hallmark of American progressivism, at its best. It was the hallmark of a great presidency. During the Clinton Administration, Sylvia Burwell served as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House, and Chief of Staff of the Treasury Department.