On his choo-choo trip and in his acceptance speech, Clinton failed at the thing he needed to do most: draw a clear line of distinction not just between himself and Bob Dole, but between himself and the big-spending Democratic Party he says is dead and gone. If you total all the new spending Clinton announced during his train ride alone, it comes to $12.1 million a mile. And this is the guy who keeps saying ““the era of big government is over’'?

For the first few days, everything seemed to be going exactly as planned. What a snoozefest (except for the music: I was honored to learn the Macarena from none other than Donna Shalala). Instead of substance, the image doctors offered up a parade of sob stories. Victims of tragic shootings, accidents, illnesses were all wheeled out to tell their tales. Very touching. Yes, what happened to Christopher Reeve is terribly sad. But did any undecided voter make a connection between his inspiring appeal for spinal-cord-injury research and the president’s agenda? I doubt it. (Sure, Republicans showcased real people in San Diego, but our infomercial was about Bob Dole.)

The worst of them all was Al Gore. At the last convention the vice president broke our hearts – mine included – with a moving story of every parent’s worst nightmare: his son had been hit by a car. Though that had nothing to do with voting Democratic, it deftly introduced the man to America. For him now to use his sister’s death from lung cancer as a political ploy is deeply cynical. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton spoke forcefully about important issues like health care and adoption (never mind that the fixes she heralded were pilfered from Republicans). The fact is, despite her image problems, a lot of women, Republicans included, respect Hillary Clinton because she has strong convictions and defends them. Unfortunately, the tough-minded Hillary we’ve admired wasn’t on display in Chicago. Handlers replaced her with a safe, nonthreatening Mommy Clinton.

But none of it mattered. Clinton could have delivered the address of a lifetime, a Churchillian spine-tingler. And no one would have cared. Because on the night of the president’s all-important speech, the story that led all three network newscasts wasn’t President Bill Clinton. It was Svengali Dick Morris. Despite the endless spin from Democrats that the revelation of Morris’s alleged sordid little secret won’t have any effect on Clinton, it will. Once again it dredges up the problem Clinton is desperate to minimize: the staggering number of people associated with this administration – the president and his wife included – who have been compromised by weird personal behavior. Now the man widely credited for Clinton’s comeback, the alter ego he turned to in his darkest moments, turned out to be sharing those moments with someone… else. Will this be enough to send Clinton plummeting in the polls? Probably not. But it will make Clinton’s coveted swing voters take another hard look at his Republican rival. Clinton needed a way to distinguish himself from Bob Dole. This probably isn’t what he had in mind.