TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/092391/0923104.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.2 KB | 136 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 24

THE POLITICAL INTEREST

Fears and Choices on the Road to '92


By Michael Kramer


    At this time four years ago, the Democratic presidential
contenders were roundly derided as "the seven dwarfs." Ten
months later, Michael Dukakis began the general election
campaign with a double-digit lead and George Bush seemed doomed.
"It is always volatile," says Roger Ailes, the media magician
who helped guide Bush's comeback in 1988, "and it is sure to be
volatile again. If 75 years of communism can collapse in three
days, anything is possible, anywhere."

    Ailes' caution is not surprising. Overconfidence is
congenitally avoided so far in advance of an election. But
G.O.P. strategists privately point to eight potential pitfalls
capable of crippling the President next year, either singly or
in combination:

    1. Iran-contra disclosures suggesting that Bush knew more
than he has admitted.

    2. Proof that the late CIA director William Casey
conspired to have U.S. hostages held by Iran until after the
1980 election.

    3. A Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the
abortion-rights decision, or some other court or Administration
actions that cause large numbers of female Republicans to defect
to the Democrats.

    4. A foreign policy tangle that negates the high marks
Bush has won for his handling of the gulf war and the Soviet
Union's failed coup. (Upheaval in China is No. 1 on the watch
list.)

    5. Renewed concerns about the President's health that
accentuate qualms about Dan Quayle.

    6. A combative Democratic candidate who wages an "in your
face" campaign that ties Bush closely to his patrician roots.
After New York's Mario Cuomo, who still appears disinclined to
run, Bush's advisers most fear Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa.
Their public glee at the prospect of an old-fashioned liberal
leading the Democrats is tempered by Harkin's populist rhetoric
and slashing stump style.

    7. A halting, flustered debate performance that diminishes
Bush's strongest suit, his image of competence.

    8. A sagging economy. This trumps every other fear.
Administration officials admit they don't have a clue as to
where the economy will be in the fall of '92 and that it won't
matter what the economic indicators really prove. "If the polls
continue to show that almost 60% of the electorate thinks the
country is on the wrong track," says a G.O.P. aide, "we could
be on the track out of here."

    To some degree, these scenarios prove that political aides
are paid to worry; most Bush advisers are confident about the
outcome of next year's election. "Even with bumps in the road,"
says Rich Bond, the Republican consultant who engineered Bush's
startling upset of Ronald Reagan in the 1980 Iowa caucuses, "at
some point the President will stare straight into the camera and
remind people that the world is still a very messy place and
that he, rather than the other guy, has proved he can manage
America's role in it. When all is said and done, that should be
enough."

    It is this underlying optimism that accounts for the quiet
debate now consuming Bush's strategists: What kind of campaign
should the President wage? There are two choices. Either Bush
can ape Reagan and seek a first-ever 50-state landslide or he
can run a serious coattail campaign designed to wrest effective
control of Congress from the Democrats by devoting considerable
time and money to helping specific congressional candidates.
Past G.O.P. candidates have hoped for a trickle-down effect --
a huge presidential victory that pulls in enough Republican
legislators, who then join with conservative Democrats to
fashion a working majority on major congressional initiatives.
Trouble is, trickle down rarely works.

    In political terms, a coattail campaign could be a twofer.
Until now, Bush has testily sought to deflect his obvious lack
of interest in domestic affairs by claiming he does indeed have a
domestic policy -- while at the same time saying that those who
think otherwise should blame obstructionist congressional
Democrats, not him. "If you run against the `Do Nothing'
Congress, as Truman did in 1948," says Bond, "you can both lower
expectations of your own plurality so you're not called a loser
even if you win, and you can put the Democrats on the defensive.
A non-coattail campaign becomes a referendum on the President's
first four years. It's hard to derive a working mandate from
that."

    Which is exactly why a coattail strategy should be
pursued. "A serious President does everything he can to secure
a meaningful mandate," says Ed Rollins, who directed Reagan's
1984 campaign. "And that means doing your best to elect a
Congress of your own party. If you don't even try, then you
deserve to be hit when you moan about how everything would just
be fine if it weren't for those lousy Democrats on the Hill."

    Traditional presidential re-election campaigns allocate
resources to areas won or lost marginally the first time around.
A coattail strategy would operate in reverse. In 1988, for
example, Bush carried Georgia with 60% of the vote while
Democrat Wyche Fowler won his 1986 Senate race by only 2 points.
With Fowler facing re-election this year, a coattail campaign
would target an even greater effort in Georgia -- not to raise
the President's already ample victory margin but to drag in
Fowler's Republican challenger.

    That's the theory, and on paper it can be applied to a
large number of Senate and House races. The question is, Will
Bush go for it? The coattailers are up against two obstacles:
the President's innate prudence, which makes him understandably
leery of any strategy that could conceivably jeopardize his own
re-election; and the vanity he shares with all politicians,
which feeds his dream of besting the modern record shared by
Reagan and Richard Nixon -- a 49-state sweep. Those two hurdles
alone may prove impossible to overcome, with predictable
results: a normal "me first" campaign that produces a Bush
victory and a Democratic Congress. Or, to put it another way,
four more years of governmental paralysis.