Gang of three; meet the real Democratic Party bosses: teachers' unions, government employees and the AARP.

• Author: Mitchell, Chris
• Position: Presidential candidate Bill Clinton panders to special interest groups

Just before Bill Clinton's speech at the AFSCME convention last summer, the inside word was that the candidate would give a gloves-off, fire-in-the-belly performance. He'd speak the hard truths about cutting government payrolls; he'd talk about unpadding pensions; he'd talk about responsibility and sacrifice and biting the bullet. Clinton, it appeared, was going to lecture a government union, one of the most powerful of the country's special interests, on issues vital to its members, and grab your belts with both hands folks because he wasn't going to blink.

Clinton didn't blink--he winked. He told the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees that he planned to shrink the country's distended bureaucracy by cutting 100,000 unnecessary souls from--wait for it--the federal payroll. And even those cuts would be by attrition. The audience was euphoric and party officials lauded Clinton's plan as an act of political bravery.

Of course, Clinton's proposal was as gutsy as telling a convention of yacht owners that he planned to impose a tax on private airplanes. And while that sort of pandering is nothing new for politicians, Clinton--like Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and thousands of state and 10cal Democrats throughout the country-- has been especially careful to kow-tow to three particular special interest groups: government unions, teachers' unions, and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).

With the unions, the candidate's obeisance, like that of his party, brings easy dollars and a reliable voting bloc squarely into the Democrat's corner, while the spoils of the elderly lobby must be shared with the Republicans. But the Democrats' efforts to woo all three groups stifles productive debate on several Democratic articles of faith--like making government work, reforming public schools, and getting a fair shake for the poor.

These interest groups should be rapped for their failure to compromise on common-sense reforms and for trying to make their parochial desires sound like a national consensus. But the real blame belongs to Democrats who, like Clinton at the AFSCME convention, are mainlining on interest group cash and clout and lack the wherewithal to just say no.

If you still believe the old saw that no army is strong enough to stop an idea whose time has come, you're probably not familiar with these three interest groups. Their power was made possible by 1968 reforms to the Democrats' nomination process. The current primary- and caucus-based system curtails the role of the party bosses and greatly enhances that of special interests. Today these groups are strong enough to straitjacket ideas they oppose.

Take education reform. On some issues teachers' unions like the...