How the Democrats hold on to Congress - includes related article

National Review, Nov 24, 1989 by Susan Mandel, William McGurn

How the Democrats Hold On to Congress

IN 1980 RONALD REAGAN soundly defeated Jimmy Carter in a race that gave the nation its clearest choice between a liberal and a conservative in almost two decades. At the time, the conventional wisdom was that a modern President could not last more than one term; four years later not only did Ronald Reagan win re-election, he did so by an even larger margin, capturing all but the District of Columbia and Walter Mondale's home state of Minnesota. Nor were his electoral victories merely owing to his personal charm or his acting skills, as some pundits would have it; in 1988, George Bush, charging Michael Dukakis with being "a card-carrying member of the ACLU," carried forty states and 59 per cent of the popular vote. The decade that began with a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and an America wracked by double-digit inflation and rising unemployment is now ending with the Soviet Empire in disarray and America enjoying its longest postwar economic expansion.

Clearly a major realignment of forces has occurred. The question, however, is why this has yet to filter down to the House of Representatives. During the Reagan years this institution opposed the President on virtually every issue he was elected on. House Democrats display a fixation with raising taxes, perhaps the most unpopular issue in America. The party is under the thumb of special-interest groups, many of them espousing fringe ideas repugnant to the vast majority of Americans. The Democrats have recently lost both their Speaker and their Whip to scandals. Yet despite all this, and despite more than $200 million spent by the Republicans in House races since 1980, the party of Ronald Reagan and George Bush remains a minority (258 to 176) in a Congress dominated by what Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R., Ga.) calls "the most liberal leadership in history."

Why?

THAT'S THE PARADOX they're trying to resolve in a white brick office building on First Street just south of the Capitol, headquarters for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). The NRCC is the only Republican Party organization charged specifically with electing Republicans to the House of Representatives. It has proved a Sisyphean task. In the mid 1970s, for example, just as the Republicans seemed on the verge of rebuilding in Congress, Watergate blew them out of the water. Then Representative Guy Vander Jagt (R., Mich.) took over and hope was renewed, as he turned the NRCC into a highly respected political operation credited with the party's stunning 34-seat advance in 1980.

With this boost Republicans seemed poised to make another strike, but again fate intervened, in the form of the 1981-82 recession. The upshot was that in 1982 they took a beating from which they've never recovered, losing 26 seats. Last year, too, was a disappointment, with the GOP losing three seats in Congress even in the midst of a Bush landslide. All this, despite having raised five times as much money as the rival Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and despite polls that show as many Republicans as Democrats for the first time since Franklin Roosevelt.

Dissatisfaction with the party's House losses last year refocused attention on the NRCC, which responded this March by bringing in Ed Rollins, Reagan's campaign manager in 1984, as co-chairman. Rollins has not been there long enough for a considered judgment, but he faces an array of criticisms about the organization. These complaints include charges that the NRCC tries to micromanage campaigns from Washington [see box, p. 39], does not recruit good candidates, and spends too much time and effort protecting incumbents who don't need it. "We seem to be more interested in providing services to incumbents than in winning new seats," says one Republican congressman.

A good example of the problem is the case of Mike Brown, an Oklahoma Republican. In 1988 Brown challenged incumbent Democratic Representative Glenn English in a district that had gone 69 per cent for Reagan in 1984 and would go 58 per cent for Bush in 1988. Unlike many Republican congressional challengers, Mr. Brown was not a businessman; on his resume are political jobs ranging from city councilman to chairman of the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority. Yet he received only $5,000 from the NRCC, and that not until October, too late to make an impact on other donors. Not surprisingly, he lost.

He's not the only one. Of the seven special elections that have been held this year, Republicans have been defeated in all but the ones in Wyoming and Florida, and the NRCC's role in both of those aroused controversy. In last year's congressional elections, moreover, the Republicans didn't even field candidates in 61 of the races (the Democrats stayed out of only twenty). Worse still, last year was the first time since 1960 that a party had captured the White House and suffered a decline in Congress. Even in open seats, where there was no incumbent, the Republicans have suffered net losses in the last two elections.