Hope Strategy Will Avert Defeat : GOP Candidates Disavow Reagan Economic Policies

Despite President Reagan’s persisting popularity, many Republican House candidates are disavowing his policies as they strive to buck the odds and maintain their numbers in November’s congressional elections.

In Midwestern states hit by a farm depression, in the Southwest where falling world oil prices have caused heavy layoffs and in other regions that have not shared in the general prosperity following the 1981-82 recession, Democrats are hammering President Reagan’s free trade-free market economic policies while GOP candidates are busy disassociating themselves from those policies.

In a highly visible measure of that disassociation, 59 Republican congressmen joined 236 Democrats Thursday to pass an omnibus trade bill that Reagan has threatened to veto on the grounds that it is overly protectionist.

The strategy of distancing themselves from the President on such politically sensitive subjects is expected to succeed enough to prevent Republicans from suffering the huge losses that traditionally beset the party in power during the sixth year of a presidential term. Joseph Gaylord, executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the GOP is still fighting hard to keep alive its hopes of displacing the Democrats as the nation’s majority party.

“If we get our butts kicked,” he admitted, “people are going to say, ‘It’s over, folks.’ ”

California Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, acknowledged that he does not expect Democrats to gain more than 10 or 15 House seats in November--far fewer than the 48-seat gain that is the historical average for an opposition party in the sixth year of a presidency.

But even that, Coelho insisted, will disprove the GOP’s claim that it is becoming the majority party--especially if the Democrats reclaim some of the seats they lost in the South two years ago during the Reagan presidential sweep.

“Realignment is dead,” Coelho said. “Ronald Reagan is very popular in the South. But Ronald Reagan couldn’t transfer his personal popularity into party popularity.”

And Democrats believe that the Republican Party could be in serious trouble beginning in 1988, when Reagan will be retiring and GOP candidates no longer will be able to trade on his personal mystique. Ed Martin, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said: “Realignment’s a myth without Ronald Reagan at the top of the ticket.”

Overall, November’s elections are not expected to work dramatic changes in the makeup of the House, which currently has 252 Democrats, 182 Republicans and one vacancy.

The challengers in this year’s House sweepstakes include two members of the Kennedy family; former congresswoman and feminist leader Bella Abzug; Ben Nighthorse Campbell, an American Indian who headed the 1964 U.S. Olympic judo team; actor Fred Grandy, who plays “Gopher” on the television show “The Love Boat,” and Tom McMillen, former Washington Bullets basketball player.

In Massachusetts, Joseph Kennedy, the 33-year-old son of Robert F. Kennedy, is running for the House seat being vacated by House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. His sister, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, 34, is trying to unseat first-term Rep. Helen Delich Bentley (R-Md.).

A Woman Will Win

Women are not expected to increase their numbers in the House, however, and may suffer a net loss. Four of the 23 women House members are retiring--two to run for the Senate--and women’s groups see little likelihood that four more women can be elected in November.

Likewise, the number of black House members may not rise significantly. The likeliest gains are in Atlanta, where two prominent civil rights leaders--State Sen. Julian Bond and City Council President John Lewis--are competing for a seat currently held by a white, and in Mississippi, where Mike Espy, a black lawyer, is trying to become the state’s first black congressman.

Among the most strongly contested races will be a rerun of the bitter 1984 battle between Democrat Frank McCloskey and Republican Richard D. McIntyre in Indiana, which was so close that it had to be decided by the House itself. Republicans accused the Democratic majority of a raw political power grab in naming McCloskey the winner.

A Nasty Idaho Race

A nasty race is also developing in Idaho, where Democratic Rep. Richard H. Stallings may be challenged by the wife of the man he defeated two years ago, Rep. George Hansen. Stallings won by only 170 votes in 1984, even though Hansen was running after a felony conviction for filing false financial disclosure statements.

Republicans contend that Stallings is too liberal for their conservative district, even though he supports Reagan on many issues. Some have even circulated a picture of Stallings with liberal actress Jane Fonda, implying a friendship between them. Actually, the photo was taken when Fonda testified before a House committee on which Stallings serves.

Democrats are making their strongest bid for GOP seats in the Farm Belt, where Reagan’s policies frequently come under fire from Republicans such as Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa. The President’s approval rating in Iowa fell to 43% last October, the lowest in the nation.

“If you’re smart in Iowa and you are going to run as a Republican, you are going to do everything short of changing your registration to distance yourself from Reagan,” said Phil Roeder, spokesman for the Iowa Democrats. Most GOP candidates are taking the advice.

Democrats’ Target

The Democrats’ chief target in the Farm Belt is Rep. Vin Weber (R-Minn.), a leader of the right-wing caucus in the House known as the Conservative Opportunity Society. His challenger is a farmer, David Johnson, a former Republican who switched to the Democratic Party to demonstrate his opposition to Reagan’s farm policies.

“I think I have become a kind of model for the rebellion that’s out there,” said Johnson, predicting a Democratic sweep of the Farm Belt similar to the one in 1958.

In North Carolina and Texas, where Reagan’s coattails produced a 10-seat swing toward the GOP in 1984, Democrats are struggling to reclaim as many of those seats as possible to disprove the thesis that Southern Democrats are moving to the Republican Party.

Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), a one-time Democrat and driving force behind the GOP’s rise in his home state, acknowledged that the realignment theory has yet to be proved. “We had a great victory in Texas in 1984,” he said. “The question is, is that realignment permanent or can the Democrats come in and take those seats back? If we can hold our own in an off-year election, it will be a pretty remarkable victory.”

A half-dozen freshman Republicans who were elected to the House in 1984 and promptly dubbed the “Texas Six-Pack” will try to prove that their elections were not flukes.

Only two of the “six pack”--Reps. Joe L. Barton and Mac Sweeney--appear to be in any serious danger, and their confidence was bolstered when the Democrats failed to draft the challengers they originally wanted. Barton said of his opponent, Preston Geren: “I guaran-damn-tee you I can beat him.”

Texas’ Oil Crisis

Texas GOP Party Chairman George W. Strake sums up the issues in Texas this year as “the economy and the economy and the economy.” The oil crisis has cost the state an estimated 130,000 jobs since last November and its effects are spreading to the other industries--most notably, banking--that feed off oil.

Thus, Texas Republicans are supporting an oil import fee, which the President opposes. Sweeney, who said he differs “more than slightly from the Administration” on farm and trade policy, added: “I don’t think that they’re approaching this whole oil crisis from the right perspective.”

Likewise, trade will be an issue in North Carolina, where the textile and furniture industries have been hit hard by imports. Reagan exacerbated Republicans’ problems by vetoing a bill to reduce textile imports. His threat to veto an omnibus trade bill passed by the House Thursday puts more heat on GOP congressmen in states hurt by imports.

Rep. McMillan’s View

“Obviously they will try to key on the President’s veto of the textile bill,” said Rep. J. Alex McMillan (R-N.C.), a freshman who won by 321 votes in 1984 and faces the same opponent in November. But, pointing out that the entire North Carolina delegation voted for the textile bill and for the omnibus trade bill, he said he and his fellow North Carolina Republicans stray far from Reagan’s trade policy.

North Carolina is considered by many political scientists as a laboratory for the theory of party realignment. The Republican Party, which was practically non-existent in that state a decade ago, has gained considerable power in recent years on the strength of the conservative political organization founded by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), and four freshman Republicans are fighting to retain their seats.

“I think we’re on the front lines here in North Carolina,” said one of the freshmen, Rep. Bill Cobey (R-N.C.). “We are definitely moving to the right down here. My opponent sounds more like a Republican every day.”