by Steven V. Roberts; Katia Hetter; Jim Impoco; Scott Minerbrook
Mary Louise Julian, a divorced mother of seven in Youngstown, Ohio, speaks for American voters this fall. To make ends meet, she sometimes goes three months without a day off from her job as a personnel manager for the Air Force. When her older teenagers find work, each one pays a different bill: the phone, the gas, the electric. About politicians in Washington she says: "They live in a different world there. They need to get out and talk to more people, maybe listen to them. In a normal American home, they have no idea what's going on."
Voters are so angry this year that they seem poised to throw out incumbents and throw over the system. Democrats could lose control of both the House and the Senate, but even if they don't, President Clinton will certainly face a more conservative and less friendly Congress next year. The taproot of this anger is the distance between Julian's kitchen table and Capitol Hill. In Washington, leaders point to national statistics and say the economy is improving: 4.6 million jobs created in two years, lowest unemployment rate in four years, minimal inflation. But for many families, this recovery has simply not shown up in their lives and budgets. They complain that they are working harder and earning less. In a new U.S. News poll, only 36 percent of respondents said the economy is improving; 57 percent said it is stagnating or declining. Their gloom is reinforced by a skepticism toward all government claims and promises. Realtor Bonnie Varley in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., has heard the talk of better times from the Clinton administration but snaps: "Where's the proof?"
Family values. The money crunch means many parents have to take extra jobs and extra shifts. Family cohesion is down, stress and guilt are up. Adults are not around to protect kids from crime in the neighborhood, violence on television or sex in the basement. Democratic consultant Ann Lewis summed it up last week during a debate produced by U.S. News and broadcast on CNBC: "Being middle class used to mean you were comfortable. Today, being middle class means you're scared. Families are squeezed, not just for money but for time. And time is what you use to build a family with."
The stormy forecast for Democrats can be blamed partly on Bill Clinton and the widespread belief that he lacks the character to be a good president (story, Page 37). But the White House and its congressional allies are also victims of their own campaign. Two years ago, they made promises and raised expectations that life would improve. Says a senior Democratic strategist on the West Coast: "None of that has happened. So people have gone from being very high to being very low -- it's almost manic-depressive."
Democrats also inherited an underlying set of problems that were plaguing the economy long before Clinton's election: sluggish incomes, global competition, corporate downsizing, defense cutbacks. These trends helped defeat George Bush two years ago, and they are undermining the Democrats today. Says Republican pollster Ed Goeas, who worked with Democrat Celinda Lake on the U.S. News survey: "The day Clinton was elected, he became the enemy."
Late polls indicate that the anti-incumbent flood might be cresting. Many Republican governors, from Massachusetts to Michigan, are cruising toward re-election. And even some senior Democrats, like Sen. Edward Kennedy, are pulling ahead after early scares. But even if the political upheaval is not quite so jarring as once predicted, the deep-running sources of voter anger will continue to demand attention.
Some Democrats say their real problem is public relations. "There's a lot of good news out there," said Sen. John Breaux in the U.S. News debate. "We're lousy communicators."
But there's a lot of bad news out there, too. Perhaps the most important political fact of 1994 was contained in a recent report from the Census Bureau: The real income of a typical household declined in 1993 by about $300. Particularly hard hit are what Labor Secretary Robert Reich calls the "anxious class," workers who lack the education and skills to compete for the high-tech jobs now being created. Reich points out that 15 years ago, a college-educated male worker made 49 percent more than a worker with only a high school diploma. That gap has now ballooned to 83 percent. Working with data on men ages 25 to 34, economics Prof. Frank Levy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that in 1979, a 30-year-old man with a high school diploma earned about $27,074 in 1992 dollars; in 1992, a 30-year-old man with a high school diploma earned about $20,016.
The anxious class is everywhere. Marc Woodyard's industrial supply business in Pittsburg, Calif., has been decimated by base closings in the area, and he's laid off 11 workers in two years: "We're working 14-hour days and seven days a week just to break even." In Chicopee, Mass., Dennis Manley's wife is working fewer hours as a nursing home cook, and his brother-in-law has been forced to work nights to keep his job as a meatcutter: "This whole country can't keep running on a part-time work force." Even college graduates like Drew Porter, a 24-year-old insurance broker in Montgomery, Ala., are not immune: "Every one of my friends I grew up with -- all college graduates -- still hasn't found a decent job. They're waiting tables, doing part-time stuff. That just shouldn't be."
Fading hopes. More than two thirds of those surveyed by U.S. News worry that their kids will not live as well as they do, and 57 percent say the American dream is out of reach for most families -- a major shift from our historic optimism. In Youngstown, Al Meranzo, a retired truck driver, says his son and son-in-law were both laid off: "I feel very bad for my grandchildren. I don't see what the hell they have to look forward to." These economic views relate directly to political views: Those who say the country is rebounding are more likely to trust Democrats, while those who see stagnation tend to prefer Republicans.
To many families, time is as valuable as money. Lunch hour at Rowney's restaurant in Youngstown echoes with complaints. Jeannie Hepfner took a job on the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift at a pharmaceutical company so she could be home when her kids got up. She slept about three hours a day for three years until her health collapsed. Hepfner's mother, Loretta Guyer, went to work for the first time in her 50s when her husband died and left no pension. "It's getting real tough to keep your job," notes Guyer, a cleaning woman in the public schools. "Don't screw up." At another table, a woman says her husband gets up every day at 4:15 so he can drive 80 miles to his accountant's job in Cleveland -- the only one he can find. Says Mary Louise Julian: "I travel a lot with my job, and my children let themselves in at night. It's just not the way I want to bring up my children. I'm not really the '90s lady, but I have to be, because I have to work."
These parents worry constantly. They can't supervise their children's homework, or their television watching, or their friends. But their biggest concern is safety. Asked to name the nation's No. 1 problem, 34 percent said crime; nothing else came close. Al Meranzo and his wife take care of their two grandsons every day, mainly because their daughter-in-law is so afraid of entrusting them to strangers: "You read about these day care centers, these children being molested." Women say they don't stop for red lights in downtown Youngstown because they're afraid of being assaulted.
Special interests. In the face of these problems, many voters say, politicians are not listening and not helping. Seventy percent disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job. Four out of five say government benefits special interests, not the people, and cares too much about foreign countries while ignoring needs at home. Sums up pollster Lake: "They think no matter who they send here, until they change this place or torch this p
