To November, and beyond - assessing potential political scenarios for the November 1994 elections

National Review, June 27, 1994 by Christopher Matthews

For the GOP, it must seem like 1952 all over again. Ike's back on the cover of Time and, thanks to the 17-count indictment of Dan Rostenkowski, "corruption" is back as a Republican campaign issue. The big question for this fall's elections is, What will the out-of-power party be able to make of this partisan windfall?

If the Eisenhower - Nixon experience of '52 is any guide, the Republican chances are spectacular. Murray Chotiner, the California political guru who guided the vice-presidential candidate in that race, knew the trick to any election is recognizing that voters can keep only three or four issues in their heads at any given time.

Four decades ago, the Republicans spent the campaign season hitting four buttons: Korea, Crime, Communism, Corruption. This time, assuming that the United States avoids war over North Korea's nuclear enterprises and that the Berlin Wall remains atomized into a million desk-top souvenirs, GOP candidates are left with "crime" and "corruption." Add "Clinton" and "character" and you've got your quota.

"Clinton! Character! Crime! Corruption!" How can it miss? I can already hear that C-SPAN drill sergeant Bob Dornan shouting out the cadence.

What will the Democrats bellow back? The answer is crisp and Kennedyesque: We're getting the country moving again.

To make this credible, the Democrats need to pass health-care reform. To do that, the House leadership has redesigned its offense. Had Rosty avoided trouble, the Ways and Means chairman would have been the most valuable Democratic player in this summer's white-hot fight on health care. When he did not, Speaker Tom Foley quietly named Majority Leader Dick Gephardt to ramrod the measure through the House.

For the once and, some believe, future presidential candidate, it is the assignment of a lifetime. The strategy, according to a well-informed source, is, "Try to influence what happens at the committee stage," so that the bill that emerges is a bill that can pass. So it's Gephardt's job to get three House committees - Ways and Means, Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce - to report a composite health-care reform bill able to win 218 votes and the President's signature. One element will be an employer-mandate provision designed to cause the least anger among business.

The effort could succeed for two reasons. One is track record. Last year, House Democrats, who enjoy a 257- 178 majority, jammed through a budget that raised taxes on the top brackets and included a BTU tax besides. Compared to that castor oil, this year's partisan offering will seem like a dark chocolate Dove Bar.

A second, more basic reason: Democrats, who control the body, are different from Republicans. Even the most conservative Democratic representatives must deal with the labor groups, minority groups, women's groups, and seniors' groups that make up their party's base. However divided the rest of the electorate might be on the topic, these people want action. They don't want their Democratic member of Congress voting "Nay" on their Democratic President's number-one priority.

Prospects in the Senate have been enhanced, meanwhile, by bipartisan talks among members of the Finance Committee. Assuming chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan can strike a deal with moderate GOP panel members Bob Packwood, Dave Durenberger, and John Chafee on some sort of financing mechanism, he could achieve the magic number 60, avoiding any possible filibuster. We could than expect a House-Senate conference on health-care reform to convene by late summer, with a bill signing in October.

Success on health care, even limited success, would give the Clinton-led Democrats what they need in November: a tangible emblem of accomplishment. Having inherited gridlock, they got the country moving again. They lowered deficits, increased growth, created three million new American jobs since Inauguration, etc., etc.

Will it work? Not entirely. People are in a nasty mood these days. Those hurt by the Clinton tax increase have revenge in their hearts. Those who re- sent his pushes for gays in the military and abortion rights know their enemy well. So do those who see the words "Clinton" and "character" as antonymous.

So the Democrats will lose seats this November, perhaps twenty or more in the House, perhaps three or more in the Senate.

But the battle is not the war. Whatever setbacks the '94 Democratic legislative push may lead to this November, it will have a tonic effect among those needed to fight the war in 1996. Parental- and family-leave rights, the Brady bill, health care, and other Clinton successes won't make the Right any more antagonistic than it already is. They will mobilize the Left.

As for those voters in the center who decide presidential elections, let this be a prediction. Having won the Left in 1994 with health care, Bill Clinton will march rightward in 1995, ending welfare "as we know it," delivering on that middle-class tax cut he promised, maybe cutting capital-gains taxes besides.

Too nervy, you say.?