Parts of L.A. had come to resemble Kuwait City by the time President Bush began to treat the riots there with a Desert Storm level of interest. Blind to the passions surrounding the King case, the administration had no plan for instant action if-as happened-the jury voted for acquittal. The night of the verdict, Bush blandly asserted that “the court system has worked” and that “what’s needed now is calm and respect for the law.” His first federal legal response was slow, too. It took 48 hours (and a meeting with civil-rights leaders) to ensure that a grand jury was in place to launch a federal civil-rights prosecution against the acquitted Los Angeles cops.
In his nationally televised prime-time speech, Bush tried to be all things to both sides. He stressed that he was genuinely “stunned” at the verdict, a shock shared not only by black America but by many of the middle-of-the-road voters Bush needs. He didn’t mention that even after the King beating last year, he made a point of publicly praising Daryl Gates, the controversial L.A. police chief. Bush did his best to play Top Cop himself, for the benefit of the Bubbas-not to mention the California suburbanites-who are so critical to his coalition. He dispatched federal troops with an Eastwoodian cadence that sought to recall his most successful role: commander in chief But by then the worst of the rioting had ended, 38 people already had died and whole swatches of L.A. were rubble.
The crunch-time behavior of Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee presumptive, was no more courageous. At first he expressed anger and outrage at the verdict. He said it would add to a feeling that the “system is broken, unresponsive and unfair.” Proud that he had assembled what his aides call a “biracial coalition” in the primaries, Clinton seemed ready to play the role of his hero, Robert F. Kennedy. Some aides suggested that he go immediately to L.A.; he turned it down, they said, because it would seem too “political.”
Then the video returns began coming in: the killing, the looting, the chaos. Clinton (and many others) changed tone and decried the violence. It still was no time to be “political,” said one top aide. But, in a TV speech following Bush’s, Clinton crammed a critique of the Reagan-Bush era into a five-minute address. “It’s worse than the ’60s” now, he said. “There are gangs, and more drugs and guns and poverty-and we’re more divided.” He said he would take part in a “national day of prayer” in Washington. It was symbolism as low-risk as anything Bush had done except his supporters might expect more from Clinton.
Ross Perot’s legendary boldness-and lofty poll standing-would seem to demand that he take charge. He issued a bland written statement deploring both the verdict and the violence, and made himself scarce. One reason he might have been so cautious: his alleged proposal, supposedly made off the record in 1988, that police in Dallas commence a door-to-door sweep through minority. neighborhoods in search of drugs and guns. Perot vehemently denies saying such a thing.
The candidates’ limp performances last week may owe something to the fact that in the 1992 campaign, Urban America has been the Lost City of Atlantis: submerged and forgotten. Democrats were obsessed with winning back the white, middle-class “swing” voters who fled the cities decades ago and have been voting against them ever since. The president and his senior aides remain confident that Bush will keep those voters-just as long as he doesn’t stray too far from the kind of “us versus them,” tough-on-crime tactics the GOP has used with increasing success since 1964.
But that may not be enough this summer, this year. In California-the Big Enchilada this fall-the same crime fears that have driven suburbanites into the Republican Party could drive them out again, and into a newly urgent concern for curing urban ills. After all, the L.A. unrest showed that upscale office blocks and leafy suburbs no longer are havens, easily cordoned off. “If the Democrats can focus on the failures of the last two administrations– on the growing disparity of incomes, on the chaos in the cities, on our declining expectations-they can beat the callous manipulation of suburban fear,” says GOP theorist Kevin Phillips. “But, of course, that’s a very big ‘if’.” And the other “if” is if Clinton and Perot can make that case with greater daring than they’ve shown so far.
Is the Bush administration doing as much as it can to reduce crime at the local level?
WHITES BLACKS Yes 24% 18% No 65% 76%
Is the Bush administration doing as much as it can to guarantee equal justice for black Americans?
WHITES BLACKS Yes 37% 17% No 49% 78% From the NEWSWEEK Poll of April 30-May 1, 1992
