NAFTA: CHALK ONE UP FOR THE PRESIDENT

Since taking office in January, President Clinton has waffled on issue after issue, big and small, causing us to wonder if he could make a decision without doubling back on it when the going got tough. But his hoisting of the NAFTA banner the past three weeks answers questions about his ability to commit. Even if the North American Free Trade Agreement had failed Wednesday, the president showed he could fight for a cause to its conclusion.

The fact is that NAFTA passed, and it passed comfortably thanks to the president. We believe this sends the world a strong signal about the importance the United States places on free and fair trade. With the deadline on negotiations for the much more significant General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT accords) looming in December, this signal did not come a day too early.

The president deserves much credit for championing NAFTA. Wednesday night after the vote, House Republican whip Newt Gingrich said of Clinton, "He did an extraordinary effort to get votes. I don't know that there has been a president who has done a better job of getting on the phone and staying on the phone."

As recently as three weeks ago, it was not clear that Bill Clinton would stand up to the challenge created by NAFTA opponents. While identifying NAFTA and its positive impact for America as a priority for his administration, he did little publicly to advance the cause. But in the past couple weeks he elevated the visibility of the topic and discussed NAFTA in some form every day.

Clinton did not have to do this. As a Republican congressman from California said, "It was Ronald Reagan as a candidate in 1979 who first talked about a North American accord. Bush negotiated it. Clinton supported it." Clinton could have just as easily rejected the agreement as a "Bush plan" and not bothered with the issue. While this would not have been good for America, it would have saved the president from alienating the Labor lobby, one of his strongest allies in last year's election.

Not all is glowing about Clinton's handling of NAFTA, however. In fact, as seems to be the case so often with this president, he might have created his own troubles in the first place. For months he allowed NAFTA opponents like Ross Perot, Patrick Buchanan and Ralph Nader to demagogue the issue, while supporters of the agreement wondered if they were just being set-up by a president who would switch sides again at the last minute.

In addition, Clinton sat silently while congressional leaders of his own party assailed the treaty. Certainly, Clinton's hunkering down saved the plan, but the margin of passage would have been wider if he had made the case for NAFTA earlier instead of later. Indeed, look at the final vote totals: 75 percent of Republican congressmen voted in favor; less than 40 percent of Democrats did. How can a Democratic president do so miserably within his own party on an issue he calls not only essential to America, but essential to his presidency?

We're also troubled by President Clinton's increasing dependency on buying votes. Those who argue that Clinton would have been criticized if he had not used all the tools of his office, and failed, might be right. But they miss the larger point. On this issue where the president had opposition party support, it never should have reached a crisis stage. The sad thing is that even in victory the president is gaining a reputation for being at the mercy of those congressmen who hold their vote in hope of negotiating a federal grant or tax break.

Such crisis leadership, while perhaps workable for domestic legislation, causes problems in issues of foreign policy where stability, conviction and predictability are prized traits.

Flaws aside, the end result is that the president was successful in passing a major trade agreement, which had appeared doomed less than a month ago. And, thanks ironically to Republicans, he has resurrected his presidency by sticking with a tough issue to the end. These are both good for America.

Now, if only President Clinton would listen to his own rhetoric to the rest of the world about competitiveness, the importance of free trade, lower taxes and reduced government regulation, and bring the same message home.