Past Policy, Future Pressure : Reagan’s Personal Appeal Still Unbeatable

For President Reagan, 1985 has been the best of years and the worst of years. His personal popularity is at an all-time high. But he has achieved little or nothing of his legislative program.

The President is faced with distasteful compromises on the federal budget, trade and farm policy. On tax reform--Reagan’s legislative priority for the second term--the President first had to endorse a proposal completely rewritten by Democrats, only to undergo the humiliation last Wednesday of seeing his own party turn against it in the House of Representatives. The year saw little progress on arms control and no important foreign-policy achievements. The Administration’s social-issue agenda has gone nowhere. The only serious move toward reducing the deficit was initiated by Congress--a program of automatic spending cuts that Reagan endorsed reluctantly.

Yet Ronald Reagan’s reputation for leadership and effectiveness remain undiminished. What’s going on here?

What’s going on here has been going on for Reagan’s entire political career. The secret of his success is his ability to have his cake and eat it too. He defines his program in bold, uncompromising terms and then proceeds to play the moderate politician, bargaining for the best deal he can get. Sometimes he even abandons his principles, as many Republicans say he is now doing on tax reform. And so what? He does it cheerfully, without appearing to notice any inconsistency.

Reagan’s habit of saying one thing and doing another drives his critics to distraction. They say he is a fraud. Actually, he is a political genius. For example, most Americans are afraid of Reagan’s harsh, divisive economic policies and his aggressive foreign policy. Throughout his presidency, his failure to carry out the most controversial elements of his program has saved him politically and has allowed his coalition to hold together.

Electing Reagan in 1980 was a departure for the United States. We don’t usually elect ideological candidates. They are too divisive. We prefer centrists and compromisers like Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. On the other hand, individuals like Barry Goldwater, George McGovern, George Wallace and Jesse Jackson often elicit admiration, even if they don’t win many votes. They are not typical politicians--they say what they believe. We took a chance with Reagan because, in 1980, the country desperately wanted leadership. It has worked out because Reagan is not a typical ideologue. He seldom acts on his ideology, and so people don’t feel threatened by him.

Indeed, many right-wingers criticize Reagan for failing to implement a true conservative program. He has not done so for a simple reason: It is bad politics.

Reagan has been following this strategy for years. As governor of California, he liberalized the abortion law and expanded welfare rolls. Then he demanded that abortions be outlawed and attacked “welfare queens.” As President, he has accepted budget compromises year after year and then attacked Congress for not keeping spending under control. His tax-reform proposal did not go as far as supply-siders wanted. And neo-conservative intellectuals are driven crazy when Reagan talks a tough line on foreign policy, then fails to act on it.

Having characterized the Soviet Union as “an evil empire” and its leaders as able liars, Reagan now describes Soviet General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev as “just as sincere as we are” in his commitment to peace. Last summer, Reagan defended the apartheid regime in South Africa and declared that his policy of constructive engagement was working. Then, when the pressure from Congress became inexorable, the President signed an executive order imposing sanctions against the South African government. Few attacked him for inconsistency. Instead, it was seen as a brilliant political stroke that undercut his critics.

Reagan also dismays Moral Majoritarians by endorsing their social agenda and then doing little to implement it. On issues like school prayer, he usually lets Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) lead the fight, a tactic that virtually ensures defeat. Reagan manages to have it both ways. Religious fundamentalists continue to support him, but he is careful not to do anything that would alienate upper-middle-class suburbanites and yuppies--constituencies that like his fiscal conservatism but feel threatened by right-wing social and foreign policies.

Reagan has employed this strategy in the case of two more popular causes--deficit reduction and arms control. He has convinced the public that he is sincerely committed to both, but he has made little progress toward achieving either. In the case of the federal budget, the President’s priorities are now clear: Keeping taxes down and military spending up takes precedence over reducing the deficit. Reagan has attacked Congress’ current budget proposal for including a permanent excise tax on cigarettes of 16 cents a pack. He criticized Congress’ bill to ensure a balanced budget by 1991 because it requires that defense bear a proportionate share of the mandatory spending cuts.

As for arms control, the Geneva summit was judged to have been a triumph for Reagan because little of substance was accomplished.

The Republicans have credibility on both arms control and the deficit because the Democrats’ credibility is so low and because the Administration’s policies are still working.

In fact, neither deficit reduction nor arms control is really in the Administration’s interest. The existence of an enormous budget deficit institutionalizes the Reagan program. As long as the deficit problem is unresolved, Democrats cannot talk about new spending initiatives. Reagan is undoubtedly aware that every time the United States signs an arms-control agreement, the pressure to cut military spending intensifies. Without an agreement, Reagan can argue that the “window of vulnerability” is still open and that we can’t afford to fall further behind the Soviet Union. That leaves Democrats in a bind. If they talk about any new social programs, they are going to have to talk about raising taxes--exactly what Reagan wants them to talk about.

The strategy is working. When Democratic state chairmen met in Orlando, Fla., last month, they were advised not to make 1986 a referendum on Reagan or his policies. Participants were presented with the results of a research project showing that voters are no longer interested in the “fairness” issue. “Middle class voters all over the country read ‘fairness’ as ‘not me but some other guy,’ ” said a party official. “When party leaders talk about ‘fairness,’ middle-class voters see it as a code word for ‘giveaway.’ ” Reagan has succeeded in setting the national agenda.

In fact, fairness--the party’s commitment to working people and to the economically disadvantaged--is the one thing voters like about the Democratic Party. Having stood on those principles for 150 years, the Democratic Party, the oldest continuing political party in the world, has acquired a certain brand-name loyalty. Before party operatives start fooling around with the product, they would well-advised to consider the experience of Coca-Cola.

The Democrats are utterly confounded by the fact of two Reagans--the passionate ideologue and the pragmatic politician. Reagan has them fooled into believing that his political success demonstrates the appeal of his ideology. To a large extent, he has succeeded in spite of, not because of, his ideology.

Reagan’s dual legacy also presents a problem for the GOP: What form shall Reaganism take when Reagan is gone? Throughout history, whenever a great prophet or charismatic leader leaves the scene, his followers divide into factions and squabble over who is his rightful inheritor. The lines are already forming in the Republican Party.

On the one hand, there is Vice President George Bush, Reagan’s designated heir. Bush leads the official, or “Sunni,” faction of the GOP. He and the party Establishment will guard the holy places of Reaganism against any effort to desecrate Reagan’s program. Rep. Jack Kemp of New York is shaping up as the leader of the insurgent, or “Shia,” faction of the party. Kemp claims to be the legitimate heir to Reagan’s ideological mandate--what he stood for, not what he did.

Already, the two sides are squabbling over a Republican National Committee poll that included many questions dealing with Bush’s appeal as a presidential candidate. Kemp and other potential candidates are crying “foul.” How can the party Establishment assume that Bush is the only rightful successor? If there were two Reagans, one an inspired prophet and the other a wily prince, there will be at least that many versions of Reaganism.