Democrats, Republicans Exchange Political Jabs

President Clinton and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole outlined stark ideological differences in speeches to the Democratic and Republican midwinter meetings Saturday, as a wave of partisan enmity drowned out recent vows of cooperation and threatened to dominate the new political year.

Democrats in a hotel ballroom here Saturday, were still buzzing about House Speaker New Gingrich’s fiercely partisan speech to the Republican Party on Friday, which included knocks of Clinton and his wife, when the president stepped to the podium Saturday, and responded to the GOP.

“I challenge the leaders of the other party. You won a piece of responsibility: Exercise it,” Clinton said. “Stop the politics of demonization and division.”

Clinton ridiculed Gingrich’s notion that the Democrats and their vision of activist government are obsolete in the coming information age.

“I do not believe there is a program for every problem in the information age. I do not believe government can solve all the problems,” Clinton said. “But I do not believe that government is inherently bad.

“Will we have a different form of government in the 21st century? You bet we will. And will it be less bureaucratic and more entrepeneurial and more creative? You bet.

“But does it still need to be on the side of average Americans, to help empower them, to give them the means so that they can survive and do well and have the American dream in their lives?” Clinton asked. “I say yes. That is our job.” He was met with several standing ovations and shouts of “Six more years” from the party faithful.

Dole stated the conservative case with equal passion just a few blocks away, where the jubilant Republicans were gathered for their strategy session. The Kansas senator cited with approval Ronald Reagan’s words that “government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”

Dole urged his GOP colleagues to “repeat it and repeat it, and repeat it, and repeat it. It’s called the message: Limited government. Rein in the federal government. Give more power to the people. Give more power back to the governors; back to the states.”

Dole proposed a “litmus test” to define the differences between the two parties.

Democrats believe that freedom means being “guaranteed certain resources … by a governing elite,” Dole said. But Republicans, he said, believe freedom means that “government will not interfere with your ability to pursue what you choose.”

Both Democrats and Republicans agreed Saturday, that, as Dole put it, Washington is in the grip of a “defining moment” in American history.

“We have profoundly different ideas, Democrats and Republicans, about government. We disagree about some fundamental social values. We have a different understanding about America’s place in the world,” Dole said.

Clinton called on his fellow Democrats to reject Gingrich’s suggestion that the Democrats should be given a “gold watch” and sent home. They should instead enlist their friends and neighbors in “the great drama that is unfolding,” he said.

The president did urge Americans to rally, as they do in national disasters, around the ideas of community and individual responsibility. Dole, citing the courage and selflessness of his fellow World War II veterans, said “this is what America is all about.”

But even as they nodded to the goals of national unity and purpose, the two party leaders - currently favored by political oddsmakers to square off against each other in 1996 - could not resist a few partisan digs.

Clinton took a two-cushion shot at Gingrich’s efforts to cut funding for public broadcasting, and the speaker’s controversial book deal with a company owned by conservative media magnate Rupert Murdoch.

“It’s a funny world, that world they’re sketching - where Big Bird is an elitist and right-wing media magnates are populists,” the president said.

Clinton also brought up Gingrich’s recent lecture about the differences between men and women, in which the speaker from Georgia said men were better suited for combat because of a genetic urge to go “hunt giraffes.”

Noting how the GOP fought a ban on the sale of assault weapons, Clinton, who was photographed hunting ducks on an outing three weeks ago, said, “You may need assault weapons to hunt giraffes, but you can go at ducks just fine with an ordinary shotgun.”

Hillary Clinton told Democrats that she had enjoyed Gingrich’s intensely personal and somewhat defensive speech Friday, saying after enduring her own share of approbation “I love watching the Republicans squirm as the tables are turned.”

Dole, for his part, crowed that “the Democrats are having their wake this weekend here in Washington.”

And the Kansan blasted Clinton’s performance as commander in chief.

“Another thing you cannot do, if you’re the president of the United States, is to let public opinion dictate what you do when it comes to foreign policy,” Dole said. “You don’t back off and back off. You don’t say in a campaign we’re going to have to lift the embargo in Bosnia and have air strikes, and then just suddenly take if off the radar screen.”

Dole appeared to be defending Gingrich when he said, “I would say to my Democratic friends in the House, ‘Get off Newt and get on with the issues.’ Let’s talk about the issues; let’s talk about America.”

But Dole got in his own sly dig at Gingrich - his legislative partner but party rival - over the speaker’s literary dealings when the Kansan told the Republicans that “Newt Gingrich is all right, in my book.”