WASHINGTON DC - "Now and then," the late literary critic Lionel Trilling began his best book, Sincerity and Authenticity, "it is possible to observe the moral life in process of revising itself, perhaps by reducing the emphasis it formerly placed upon one or another of its elements, perhaps by inventing and adding to itself a new element, some mode of conduct or of feeling which hitherto it had not regarded as essential to virtue." Trilling's great theme comes to mind when struggling for an explanation of the remarkably durable popularity President Clinton enjoys.

The key to understanding the moral sensibility at the heart of Clinton's success can be found in Clifford Orwin's article in the latest issue of The Public Interest entitled "Moist Eyes-From Rousseau to Clinton." Orwin explores how compassion-"I feel your pain"-has become a substitute for individual moral goodness in the modern world. Compassion is to be distinguished from charity, which is a Christian duty rooted in our ultimate concern for the other fellow's eternal soul. Compassion, on the other hand, is a largely self-indulgent and this-worldly virtue, especially on the political level. Look how good I am: I feel your pain.

Clinton is a politically virtuous person because, well... because he just cares, and by implication Republicans, by opposing "caring" policies, whether hospital stay mandates for new moms or new air quality regulations, don't care. It was the genius of Dick Morris (another moral reprobate) to figure out that there was more political mileage to be gained through a lot of small ideas (school uniforms and V-chips) than through big ideas, such as sweeping health care reform. People are resistant to big changes, like the New Coke or wholesale health care reform, even when they say they favor "change." But small measures such as the summit on voluntarism are big symbols of compassion. This is especially useful for a liberal in times of constrained opportunities for new welfare state programs.

The rise of political compassion, and not single issues such as abortion, is at the root of the so-called "gender gap." And it is not fundamentally a gender question; this same sensibility is catching on quickly with SNAGs (Sensitive New Age Guys), the 90s successor to the yuppies of the 80s.

Just as liberals consistently underestimated the skill and appeal of Ronald Reagan, it would be a mistake for conservatives and Republicans to underestimate the seriousness of this profound turn in our moral sensibilities. Conservative policies are actually more charitable than liberal policies in the classical sense of that virtue, but we need to be able to explain our policies in terms that bridge the compassion gap that is liberalism's last refuge. Otherwise the gap may turn into an abyss, into which the political sense of the country will be swallowed up.

-By Steven Hayward