GOP Frustrated by Election in Alabama; Chicago Results Troubling to Democrats

When they captured the White House for a third successive term last November, Republicans began to dream once again of achieving a partisan realignment that would establish them as the undisputed majority party.

But the defeat Tuesday of a Republican candidate in a special House race in Alabama--the second such setback in as many weeks--drove home the point that the GOP goal of extending the party’s dominance from the White House to Congress remains as elusive as ever.

Democrats, too, got disturbing news Tuesday. In the Chicago mayoral race, Democrat Richard M. Daley defeated black third-party candidate Timothy C. Evans. But the vote was divided almost entirely along racial lines, and the absence of significant black support for Daley made it clear that the Democrats still must find a way to reconcile the racial tensions that have hampered their efforts to fashion a majority in presidential races.

Blow to Jackson

The results were also a blow to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a former and likely future candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, who had campaigned vigorously for Evans in Jackson’s home town.

“The old theory is that the home folks know you best,” University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato said. “This doesn’t say much for Jackson’s influence at home.”

However, the situation in Chicago was small solace to Republican leaders as they contemplated their own wounds in the Alabama congressional race. Democratic Secretary of State Glen Browder overwhelmed Republican state Sen. John Rice by a 30-percentage-point margin in the contest for a seat made vacant by the death of Rep. Bill Nichols, a Democrat. The victory preserved the party’s 86-seat majority in the House, where Democrats hold 260 seats to 174 for the Republicans.

Republican strategists had seen the conservative district in rural Alabama as an excellent staging ground for their realignment strategy, which is based on exploiting the popularity of President Bush and the appeal of issues stressed in GOP presidential campaigns in an effort to win over Democratic voters in congressional races.

After all, Bush had carried this same district by a margin of more than 20 percentage points in 1988, much as President Reagan had done in 1984.

But, once again, the Republican effort to “nationalize” a congressional election was foiled by an aggressive Democratic candidate and by voter preoccupation with local issues.

“Rice took a page out of the Republican presidential campaign book and tried to apply it here,” said Tom O’Donnell, political director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Rice, nicknamed “Hand Grenade” because of his explosive style, tried to paint Browder, who is generally regarded as a moderate conservative, as a liberal. The Republican sought to win white votes by brandishing a small Confederate flag and pointing out that he had voted to keep that emblem flying over the state Capitol, over black objections, while Browder had missed the roll call on that issue when they were both in the Legislature.

But Browder, a former college professor, successfully blunted Rice’s attacks with his low-key campaign style. And the Democrat benefited from voter concern about unemployment in the local textile industry and from the financial and organizational support of labor unions.

The Republican defeat in Alabama followed a similar loss last week in Indiana, where a Democrat won a special election to fill a House seat once held by Vice President Dan Quayle and later by Republican Dan Coates, who was appointed to the Senate to fill Quayle’s vacant seat.

Democrat Jill Long had an initial advantage of being better known than her GOP opponent, Jeff Heath. And she caught the Republicans off guard with her aggressive tactics, particularly her success in linking Heath to an unpopular proposal to institute a local income tax. The tax proposal was advocated by Ft. Wayne Mayor Paul Helmke, in whose adminstration Heath had served.

After the setbacks in Alabama and Indiana, Republican strategists acknowledged that realignment is a task that will require painstaking effort and plenty of patience.

“We can only make progress on an inch-by-inch basis,” said Arizona Rep. Jon Kyl, head of the Conservative Opportunity Society, a group of House Republicans dedicated to reversing the 34-year Democratic domination of that body.

“It takes a lot of time to get people to realize that they need a Republican Congress to back up a Republican President,” Kyl said.

The party’s defeats in the first special elections to be held during the Bush presidency are certain to focus increased attention on a third contest, on April 26, for a Wyoming House seat vacated when Bush named former Rep. Dick Cheney as defense secretary.

Even in the heart of the conservative Rocky Mountain region, the Republicans have plenty to worry about. The Democratic candidate, state Sen. John Vinich, lost a close contest to Republican Sen. Malcolm Wallop last fall and has a big advantage in name recognition over the Republican nominee, state Rep. Craig Thomas.

In Chicago, Daley’s approximately 15-percentage-point victory over Evans was overshadowed by the fact that the Democratic candidate managed to attract only 5% of the black vote.

“The blacks are the Democratic base,” said American Enterprise Institute analyst William Schneider, who toured Chicago’s black wards on Election Day. “This means that the Democrats are having trouble with their base.”