Reagan's no-risk regimen

National Review, Nov 6, 1987 by John J. McLaughlin

REAGAN'S NO-RISK REGIMEN

LAST WINTER Pat Buchanan, then White House Director of Communications, tried to rally support for his embattled President in a Washington Post column, "No One Gave the Order to Abandon Reagan's Ship.' Concerned that the Republican reaction to the Iran-Contra affair would erode presidential power, Buchanan urged Reaganites to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.

Shortly thereafter, Buchanan resigned. Then Reagan unceremoniously, if not uncivilly, relieved Donald Regan of his chief-of-staff responsibilities, substituting Howard Baker, the consummate Washington insider and member of the club.

As the Iran-Contra story dominated the headlines, the political world watched for the first signs of the smoking gun that would lead to Reagan's impeachment. But while that drama unfolded, a momentous change in White House strategy was going on virtually unnoticed. Call the new strategy the "No Risk' approach to the management of presidential power.

No Risk began simply enough when, in April, Baker took the President to Congress to appeal to wayward members intent on passing the highway bill, which Reagan said was "loaded with pork-barrel projects.' Baker called into play the Administration's most precious political asset, a personal appeal from the President. Reagan was seeking to have his veto sustained; instead, it was overridden, and Baker took the heat for having put his boss into a situation in which he was sure to be publicly spurned by Congress. Out of this fiasco the new White House strategy of shunning confrontation was born. Charter members of the No Risk party were Baker himself; his deputy, Ken Duberstein; and the First Lady, who wants her husband to finish his second term with no new major controversies.

The strategy rests on the premise that sooner or later all Presidents become lame ducks, but later is better than sooner. Public losses, according to this view, accelerate the decay in presidential power, whereas lame-duckery can be held off if the President's men avoid issues on which their Chief is likely to take a public beating. By preserving some power--so the logic goes--you can still win some battles.

Judge Bork's confirmation fight was a laboratory test of the No Risk theory, and it shows all the pitfalls. Early in the summer Duberstein approached GOP strategists and conservatives generally, requesting their advice on confirmation strategy. Uniformly, they warned of the dangers of letting the opposition mount a campaign against Bork without his supporters' mounting an equal and opposing campaign. But the governing No Risk strategy demanded that Bork's partisan foes be placated, not inflamed. Hence the White House chose to present Bork as a moderate when it ought to have been rallying the conservative troops.

The lack of mobilized conservative support meant that liberals had an open field to label Bork an extremist. That in turn tarnished him in the polls, and cost him votes in the Senate. October had begun before Reagan awakened to his team's error in judgment and became personally involved. He invited Democratic Senator Howell Heflin of Alabama for a meeting in the White House. But caution persisted even then: while Strom Thurmond was pushing the President to begin stroking Democratic fence-sitters, Mr. Reagan's staff was speaking anonymously of withdrawing Bork's nomination.

No Risk explains other presidential behavior, such as letting House Speaker Jim Wright draft a Nicaragua peace plan, instead of riding Oliver North's coattails to a public-relations victory on Contra aid. It also explains why the White House has threatened vetoes, as with HR-3, the proposed trade bill, but rarely delivered. And it explains why, in the haste to arrive at a summit and a treaty, obstacles to Euromissile arms control--principally Soviet cheating and the difficulty of verification --were never faced head-on.

Mr. Reagan's handlers want him to go out of office on a winning streak, and if that means turning control of the nation's agenda over to the opposition, so be it. In fact, the strategy of early concessions is paralyzing: for fear of losing, opportunities are lost; for fear of failure, too much is ceded. Which leads one to ask, What's the difference between a lame duck and one that simply won't paddle?

A lame-duck President is not just a President who cannot get Congress to agree with him. If that were the case, FDR would have been a lame duck every time he failed to pass a piece of New Deal legislation. The political fact of realignment under FDR, however, proved far more significant than any one bill, shaping legislation well beyond his tenure, and indeed dominating the political landscape until 1980.

PRESIDENTS who fail to engage in "bold experimentation,' as FDR called it, really are lame ducks. Reagan, who came in with a bang, threatens to go out with a whimper. Doing battle--even at the risk of losing --is what keeps a political coalition intact and energetic. Reagan ought not abandon the field yet. He has given us 59 months of solid economic growth, a rising standard of living, the largest peacetime defense buildup in history, a sense of renewal on a national--even a global--scale: substantial accomplishments all. Mr. Reagan has 15 months to go. If he uses them well, the Reagan Revolution may be as long-lived as the New Deal realignment. That means taking risks.