Magaziner, who is regularly described as gangly and disheveled (and brilliant), is emerging from behind thousands of pages of tortuous analysis on health-care policy to do what for him is the hard part: sell it. The haircut was supposed to get Magaziner ready for prime time. He may actually turn out to be a pretty good salesman, the type who can wow-or at least cow-an audience with his sheer grasp and articulation of an issue. But there is a limit. After all, this is the guy who, on regular Concorde flights, was nicknamed L’Homme de Thon (Tuna Man) by flight attendants because he eschewed the gourmet fare for his own homemade tuna-fish sandwiches. Style is not his middle name.
Still, the question surrounding Magaziner is about more than how he’ll play on TV. It’s the same question posed about the policy he has crafted and the administration that will push it: can they convince skeptical voters that government can and will do the right thing? Magaziner, 45, who will be testifying before Congress and peddling the plan to the public, personifies Bill and Hillary Clinton’s belief in both markets and government activism; he has excelled in both arenas and spent years arguing that they are compatible. But he is a man who revels in analysis in a town so discomfited by intellectual pursuits that his type is labeled “wonk.” Of course, wonkery is at least fashionable inside the White House, and Magaziner is getting more comfortable with disclosing disarming trivia to reporters (he loves Mallomars and, as a New York native, roots for the Yankees against his family, who are Red Sox fans). Since day one of his task force’s work, Magaziner has had Clinton pollster Stan Greenberg and media adviser Mandy Grunwald working closely with the policy mavens, doing polls and holding focus groups.
But Republican Sen. John Chafee, who speaks highly of Magaziner, also voices the kind of caution that is already swelling around him: “I think Ira is what You might call in the lingo a big thinker’, which is fine. But big thinking can lead to big stumbles.” One of the most powerful people in the White House, Magaziner is also probably the least comfortable with the compromises demanded by politics. And he could face problems with lawmakers if his impatience leaks through. “He certainly will be disdainful” of the process, says Bill Brock, former labor secretary, who has cochaired a commission with Magaziner. “Whether he hides it or not is the question.”
In a NEWSWEEK interview, Magaziner shakes his head vigorously at the word disdain. But he argues that Washington’s policy-making habits, even in creating the Democrats’ Great Society programs, are historically sloppy. it’s so “loose,” he says, “if you get three columns and a Washington Post editorial in favor, it’s considered a success.” Then the badly conceived policy goes on to fail. He wants, he says carefully, “to remain as much as possible an outside Washington” type, playing the role he perfected as a consultant: forcing the insiders to a higher level of intellectual honesty and clarity. The problem is, he’s already offended some with his dogged bluntness, and even a few top administration officials, jealous or simply opposed to his views, are sniping. One condemns him as “a command-and-control socialist,” and another suggests that he says “we” when he really isn’t speaking for everyone.
Magaziner has been a professional outsider since he led fellow waiters on strike at summer camp 30 years ago. At Brown University in the late 1960s, he became a legend, not by occupying the dean’s office, but with a 425-page analysis of Brown’s educational system–the first in a lifetime of closely argued tomes. The faculty adopted his plan, giving students more choice in curriculum and liberalizing the grading policy. While he was socially uncomfortable (he recalls that he was “shy” and says he’s still “not a dinner-party type person”), he had a charisma of his own. As valedictorian, he got the class to stand up and turn their backs on speaker Henry Kissinger. And he has always had a self-confidence that can be unnerving. A campus graffito posited this exchange: IRA, PLEASE SEE ME.–GOD. YOU COME TO ME.–IRA.
After two years in England, where he met fellow Rhodes scholar Bill Clinton, Magaziner embarked on the next of his ambitious makeovers: revitalizing the faded Massachusetts factory town of Brockton by organizing workers and the community. It was a classic case of reality triumphing over ideals, and when one plant shut down, despite his group’s efforts, Magaziner went to apply for work at the Boston Consulting Group. Magaziner remembers, “I wanted to know how the world worked.”
After that, his track record improved–as did his reputation as a businessman. He paid secretaries overtime out of his own pocket to keep them working through his legendary long hours. He went out on his own, forming a company called Telesis (Greek for well-planned progress), collecting $600-an-hour fees from corporations and foreign governments, and sold it in 1988 for $6 million, giving him the chance to spend most of his time on policy work. Magaziner also won praise as an adviser to some of the nation’s top corporations. General Electric chief Jack Welch, for whom Magaziner helped define strategy, is among his fans. He has had notable flops, including his failure to forestall the bankruptcy of Wang Laboratories. Still, his clients don’t question his talent or his politics. “The idea that he’s a left-wing industrial-policy guy is a lot of bunk,” says Roger Ackerman, president of Corning Inc.
In Washington, though, that is one of the charges circulating about the man who is already an administration lightning rod. One top official makes sly digs, describing Magaziner as a cross between Ichabod Crane and Svengali. On the Hill, liberal Democratic Congressman Pete Stark has labeled Magaziner a “nut” who sprinkles “fairy dust” on problems. And conservative Republicans determined to kill mandatory employer health-care payments were plainly hostile in last week’s policy meeting.
There’s no question of Magaziner’s passionate belief in government action. Since the late 1970s, in speeches, books and articles, he has been warning, Cassandra-like, about America’s declining economic power and the government’s responsibility to act on it. He has constantly pointed to countries that do things better than America, and give their citizens more–not a popular sentiment in certain quarters. And he says that before he started studying health care, he leaned toward a single-payer approach. Magaziner would have more credibility, too, if his biggest social initiative an attempt to create industrial policy for Rhode Island–hadn’t gone down in a massive defeat by voters in 1984.
In Washington, Magaziner is determined to avoid the mistakes he made in Brockton and Rhode Island. But his approach still threatens to get in his way. Magaziner says that he fights the urge to insist that the merits of a policy, rather than its palatability should always carry the day. He says he backed off on several ideas when his staff proved to him they wouldn’t sell. But the hurdle for such concessions is high. An admiring staffer describes him as a sophisticated version of the child who asks “Why?” and, after every answer, asks “Why?” again. When he disagrees, he’ll bark out, “You’re wrong!” Only the equally secure survive.
Magaziner admits to falling a little short on “the daily niceties of interaction.” But he believes that the only way to arrive at a truly workable policy is to force the experts–from insurance executives to government bureaucrats–to challenge their long-held assumptions. That was the role he was invited to play by corporate chiefs, who often hire consultants precisely so that they can not only deliver answers, but rebuff the “we never did it that way” whines of middle managers. Washington experts, of course, may not enjoy such an exercise.
Still, Magaziner seems to have reconciled himself to the coming onslaught. “We’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg” in terms of abuse, he says calmly. A voracious consumer of presidential biographies, Magaziner takes comfort in remembering that Thomas Jefferson was accused of being a spy for the French and that George Washington was accused of wanting to be king. His hope is that history will treat Bill and Hillary Clinton as kindly as those temporarily maligned leaders. How history will treat Ira Magaziner is another question that, so far, has no answer.
