Republicans can't bear to give Clinton creditor the economic boom. But they should.

IN THE EIGHTH INNING OF THE FIRST GAME of the 1954 World Series, the New York Giants brought in Don Liddle to pitch to Cleveland Indians' slugger Vic Wertz. Liddle's pitch was down the center of the plate and Wertz crushed it. The ball rocketed 425 feet to deep center field where Willie Mays dashed back, glanced over his shoulder, stretched out his arms, and made a dazzling catch often considered to be the greatest in baseball history. According to legend, Liddle returned to the dugout and said to a teammate, "Well, I got my man out."

To his opponents, Bill Clinton is Don Liddle. The economy is booming on his watch, but only because of the work of others. Larry Lindsay, George Bush's chief economic adviser, suggests that Ronald Reagan is the real Willie Mays. Conservative pundit Robert Novak thanks entrepreneurs and says that giving credit for the boom to Clinton is like ascribing "the Johnstown flood" to "a leaky toilet in Altoona" Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott joked recently that "Some people say `Well Bill and Al deserve the credit.' I agree. Bill Gates and Alan Greenspan"

Of course Republicans are going to try to pry all the credit away from Clinton before the elections. They can't run against unemployment (it's down), productivity (it's up), inflation (it's barely rising), or the budget deficit (we've got surpluses). Most of all, as the President says, "They can't run against the longest economic expansion in history." Almost by necessity, they have to run on the grounds that Clinton, and consequently Gore, has merely been a fortunate bystander. If they can make that stick, George W. Bush may be able to neutralize the Democrats' strongest argument; if they can't, Gore has a much clearer line to victory. And, unfortunately for Republican partisans, they've got a tough case to make.

Agendas

Presidents don't run the economy in a real sense. They don't write business plans and they don't pour concrete. They rarely inspire workers to get out of bed in the morning, and they don't even directly set interest rates. According to Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, when Clinton began to lay out his first economic plan, he said to his advisors: "You mean to tell me that the success of my program and my reelection hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of fucking bond traders?"