A Clash of Visions

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Amid the furious negative ads Bill Clinton and Paul Tsongas have been firing at each other, it is easy to forget that a presidential campaign is supposed to be a contest over ideas. In TV spots, Tsongas has accused his rival of pandering and dishonesty, while Clinton has painted Tsongas as a hard-hearted crypto-Republican. Lost in the din is the fact that these two leading contenders for the Democratic nomination are charting a new direction for their party, moving it away from interest-group economics toward a new vision of American competitiveness.

The seriousness of that quest was underscored last week as Tsongas and Clinton met in an unprecedented one-on-one debate about economic issues arranged and moderated by TIME. Facing each other across a wooden table in a small conference room at Chicago's Midway Airport, the two rivals engaged in a freewheeling, hourlong dialogue on whose ideas can best restore the country's economic strength.

For both candidates, the debate came at a crucial moment. Clinton had just swept seven Southern- and Border-state contests on Super Tuesday, bringing his estimated delegate count to 763 of the 2,145 needed for the nomination. Tsongas had carried only his home state of Massachusetts, plus tiny Rhode Island and Delaware, and was trailing Clinton by about 400 delegates. If Clinton can follow up this week with strong victories in the Illinois and Michigan primaries over Tsongas and ex-California Governor Jerry Brown, his lead could be insurmountable. The biggest threat to Clinton's momentum comes from a surprising source. In Michigan, union members who regard Clinton and Tsongas as hostile to organized labor have been flocking to Brown's anti- Establishment banner. Brown could siphon off enough votes from Clinton to slow him down, permitting Tsongas to fight on next month in New York and Pennsylvania.

Brown has made no pretense of matching the highly detailed economic plans that Clinton and Tsongas debated last week. The two candidates were in accord that national policy must shift drastically away from consumption toward investment in industrial innovation. They concurred that the Federal Government must play a large role in fostering that change, providing incentives for research and for ventures that can transform technological breakthroughs into profitable products. While diverging on details, both supported a capital-gains-tax reduction to promote job creation.

Sharp differences emerged. Tsongas depicted himself as the champion of deferred gratification and Clinton as a politician merely trying to win votes by promising tax relief for ordinary Americans. Tsongas argued that the middle-class tax cut and the tax credit for children younger than 18 -- both moves favored by Clinton -- would divert $55 billion a year from investment. In Tsongas' mashed metaphor, Clinton would waste precious "bullets" that could be used to jump-start the economy's manufacturing "engine." Only "when the engine runs," Tsongas said, can the country afford "other kinds of things," such as tax relief.