Get used to it - new Republican majority - Editorial

National Review, August 28, 1995

NOT long ago conventional wisdom was pooh-poohing Republican chances in the 1994 elections. Fifty-two new Republican seats later, conventional wisdom -- aptly incarnated in Kevin Phillips, writing in the Washington Post -- compared the 104th Congress to the short-lived GOP majority won in 1946. ``Gingrich's crowd makes the 80th Congress -- which [lost] 75 Republican House members and 9 senators in 1948 -- look like a convention of wise men by comparison.'' Are Republicans headed for the dustbin before they make it out of the broom closet?

The case for the declining hegemony of the GOP rests on three (alleged) phenomena: the unpopularity of Newt Gingrich; the uncertainty of a distrustful public about the sweep of Republican changes; and the comeback of Bill Clinton. The fact that Newt Gingrich is ``the most unpopular Speaker of the House ever'' reflects little more than the fact that he is the first high-profile Speaker of the new media age, advancing an aggressive, buck-the-establishment agenda. It's also a quirk of his personality that he comes off poorly in the soundbites that are the coin of 1990s politics. But focus groups suggest that the more people see of Gingrich the more they like him. Once his message is given a chance, it resonates. The best-seller status of his new book, To Renew America, confirms this point.

But is the message itself too radical? A March Washington Post poll showed 59 per cent worrying that Republicans would ``go too far in helping the rich and cutting needed government services that benefit average Americans as well as the poor.'' But some nervousness is to be expected; cutting government is a public service that is rewarded only after the fact, as Michigan Governor John Engler's recovery from dismal early polls shows. Washington still oozes arrogance and a vague corruption, for which PAC-squeezing Republicans must now shoulder some of the blame. But Republicans will be fine as long as they give the electorate reason to believe that they keep promises and make the tough choices necessary for a broader good.

Now, President Clinton supposedly enjoys rebounding popularity thanks to his own tough choices. The Wall Street Journal recently ran a story touting the fact that Clinton's approval rating was holding steady at 47 per cent. But excuse us: Clinton's approval rating has always been somewhere in the 40s. It's going to be difficult for him to get beyond that plateau because some parts of his program are out of sympathy with the American public, others are a me-too version of the GOP agenda. The Republicans' occupation of the conservative ground on every issue from taxes to welfare is their most precious political asset. As soon as they relinquish it to be ``responsible'' or ``mainstream'' -- as President Bush did on taxes -- they give Democrats a chance to flank them on the right and flay them for their hypocrisy.

Republicans are going with the flow of history. Five Democrats have switched parties in the last ten months. (A sixth, Mike Parker of Mississippi, should be coming over soon, leaving Republicans just one switcher short of taking House Democrats below what Newt Gingrich considers the psychologically important 200 mark.) On average, 42 per cent of Democrats voted for the items in the Contract with America. Indeed, the Democrats arguably are more divided than the Republicans, who make headlines in the New York Times every time a moderate sneezes. The Republicans won a key vote on the EPA early this month not just because 11 Democrats didn't show up, but because 32 voted with the Republicans. Latest party-switcher Billy Tauzin, a politician attuned to the feelings of the voters if there ever was one, says the party's position on the EPA pushed him over the edge.

So Republicans just need to keep moving. NR readers have seen a lot in our pages about various GOP betrayals of the ``revolution'': the survival (so far) of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Legal Services, and assorted Cabinet departments; the reluctance to take on gut issues like affirmative action and immigration; the fear -- still, amazingly -- of social issues. But these disappointments have generally arisen not because of cave-ins by Newt Gingrich or even Bob Dole, but despite their best efforts to push the GOP agenda as far right as possible. Too often they have bumped against the realities of moderates in the House (who, on the whole, have been remarkably cooperative) or of the Old Bulls and the filibuster in the Senate. The only way to change those realities is more election victories. The New Deal wasn't won in 1932, but in 1934 and 1936 and every subsequent election that ratified the new order. So it is with 1994. The ``revolution'' is still pending. It will arrive only if the GOP stays the course, which will mean being more wise than conventional.