Overview
From the Reagan Revolution to the "Clinton-Gingrich co-presidency," Who's in Control? recounts how the once dependable, pragmatic center in American politics came to be "missing in action" in the momentous battle to define the role of the federal government. Darman reveals in detail the interaction of the political strategies, legislative tactics, and colorful personalities that produced these policies - including the making and the breaking of President Bush's "no new taxes" pledge. In assessing the subsequent debate about the budget and "big government," Darman laments the decline of the political center. He holds both President Clinton and House Speaker Gingrich accountable for the politics of polarization and stalemate that have made it seem as if no one is in control in Washington.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
In this spirited, if defensive, political memoir, Darman, who held key posts in the Reagan and Bush administrations, argues that the American political system requires an effective center based on constructive compromise. That center, he maintains, has been undermined by indecisive President Clinton and extremist House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who, in effect, preside over "a new odd-couple co-presidency" plagued by frequent stalemate and partisan posturing. Darman calls himself a moderate pragmatist and credits Reagan with upholding the political center against ultraconservatives who wanted to ostracize the U.S.S.R., ban abortion and abolish government intervention in the private marketplace. Darman defends his record as Bush's budget director, arguing that the much-criticized 1990 budget act actually led to an economic upturn in 1991-1992. He offers advice to whoever wins the next presidential race: cap the growth of federal expenditures and decentralize power to the states in education, welfare reform, crime prevention, job retraining and the creation of enterprise zones. (Sept.)Library Journal
As a longtime, high-ranking Republican Party insider, Darman has the political background, friends, and educational credentials to ask the question "Who's in control?" In this semibiographical analysis of the disappearance of middle-of-the-road politics, Darman discusses the political processes affecting the 1996 presidential election with a historian's perspective of recent past elections. Viewing the politics of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole against the background of the Bush-Reagan White House years, he also examines in detail Newt Gingrich's influence on the role of the federal government and on Clinton. Darman explains why the Republicans in Congress have moved from the "sensible center" and why Clinton seems now to occupy this position. He concludes that this year's winner will be the candidate who best represents center-of-the-road politics. For readers deeply involved in politics and larger public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/96.]Robert Cowger, Poteet P.L., Tex.Kirkus Reviews
A Reagan-Bush insider's sorrowful look at the current government stalemate in Washington—and the opportunities he and his GOP colleagues missed while in office to dent the troublingly persistent budget deficit.Darman was a James Baker protégé who served as assistant to the president, assistant secretary of the Treasury, and in the Bush years, director of the Office of Management and Budget. Yet this tough pro admits to being politically gun-shy after years of enduring calls for his scalp (from Nancy Reagan for overpreparing her husband for his first debate with Walter Mondale, and from the far right for his "pragmatism"). His tributes to the personal decency of Reagan and Bush have the ring of sincerity. Yet Darman notes that, for all of the Gipper's conservative rhetoric, he only slowed, not reversed, government growth, and that, when forced, he selected policies designed to appeal to the broad electorate instead of his right-wing true believers. Moreover, Darman notes ruefully his own failures of governance, both as a David Stockman ally in the abortive attempt to narrow the deficit after the budget-straining tax cuts of 1981 and when he was unable to get traction on the problem in the protracted 1990 budget negotiations without violating Bush's ill-advised "read my lips" pledge not to raise taxes. He sees the current political landscape as a scorched terrain generated by the wily Clinton and by Gingrich (who, he says, trashed the 1990 budget agreement to further his own presidential ambitions). Although Darman claims to prefer substance to symbolism, he could have acknowledged the role that he and other political pros played in producing the current polarized environment by feeding candidates hotly rhetorical sound bites.
Reading at times like an appeal to the GOP not to forsake the center, this account offers little on how to handle the political consultants who have done so much to marginalize centrists of both parties.