The Not-So-Civil War Between Republicans and Democrats

The ethics mess now embroiling Washington isn’t about integrity. It’s a potential--but reversible--civil war between Republicans and Democrats to solve a question that 20 years of national elections have never answered: Who’s running the federal government?

Temporary or genuine peacemaking may prevail, yet with the potential stakes so high and so many controversies in the news--rumor mongering about new House Speaker Thomas S. Foley; FBI investigations touching House Democratic Caucus Chairman William H. Gray III; demands by some Democrats for George Bush to sack street-fighter Lee Atwater as GOP national chairman; congressional investigation of a possible major GOP scandal in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Senate Democrats’ whipsawing of Bush Administration nominees with Iran-Contra linkages--it won’t be easy for either side to back down. And that’s how some of history’s bloodiest wars have started: mobilization provoked a counter-mobilization--and nobody was willing to retreat.

The growing incidence of military and “warfare” rhetoric gives a better clue to party anger. Earlier Democratic complaints about unfair 1988 Bush attacks on Michael S. Dukakis didn’t reflect ethics as much as frustration at again losing the presidency, while Democratic refusal to confirm John Tower as defense secretary drew on a desire to teach the White House a lesson. In turn, the GOP effort to drive out House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas drew on a strategy to win House control by identifying the Democratic majority with corruption. Possible Democratic counterattacks--against GOP House Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia on ethical grounds and the Bush Administration over unanswered Iran-Contra scandal questions--will be no less political.

Excessive attention to ethics misses the critical context of institutional hostility. During most of the Republic’s 200 years, the party in the White House also controlled Congress, but over the last four decades, a complicating split emerged. When Bush’s term ends in 1993, the GOP will have controlled the White House for 20 of the last 24 years and 28 of the preceding 40. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Democrats will have controlled the Senate for 32 years out of 40 and the House for 38 of the last 40.

This cleavage frustrates people in both parties and the heightened frustrations of 1988 laid the groundwork for 1989 acrimony. Democrats, who saw Republicans destroy Dukakis’ 17-point lead with a more professional organization--to say nothing of Atwater’s vaunted dirty campaign tactics--began to wonder how they could ever win the White House. The Republicans, for their part, again saw Democrats hold lopsided control of Congress--gaining in the House and Senate despite Bush’s victory. In despair of ever winning the House, they began hypothesizing a new and dark excuse: Dishonest congressional Democrats had become entrenched through state-level gerrymandering and “institutionalized corruption” to extort campaign funds in Washington.

This is the real-world context of the Capital’s crocodile tears about ethics. Senior GOP strategists, including Atwater, Gingrich and Edward J. Rollins, GOP Congressional Committee co-chairman, have a blueprint for winning control of the House. They focus not on issues but on drowning Democratic congressmen in dirt. Wright’s resignation was a milestone, but even earlier this year, Atwater established a special $1-million “opposition research” unit under Mark W. Goodin, with 40 staffers assigned to collect damaging information on hundreds of Democratic congressional incumbents and candidates. Goodin, however, was the official forced to resign early this month. He had to take responsibility for the RNC memo about Foley “coming out of the liberal closet”--likening Foley’s voting record to that of Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, an admitted homosexual.

Democrats also mix hypocrisy with ethical bluster. Frank has threatened to reveal homosexuals among GOP congressional ranks. One central reason for Democrats not confirming Tower as defense secretary was to reveal Bush’s ineffectiveness, by making him the first newly elected President to have a Cabinet nominee rejected by Congress. And Democratic desire to camouflage the ethics resignation of Wright with a similar investigation of Gingrich pivots on transparent “so’s your old man” politics.

The Democrats, in turn, have their own political interest in using their congressional leverage--from committee investigations to Senate confirmation proceedings--to display the ineffectiveness, corruption or deceit of the Executive Branch. Three areas now seem to head the list.

First, there’s the Iran-Contra matter, what with polls taken after the Oliver L. North trial showing that 60%-65% of Americans feel Bush has not told the truth about his involvement. Senate Democrats, anxious to slash at this potentially serious GOP Achilles’ heel, have been holding up White House nominations to force further disclosure. Ten days ago the Senate Foreign Relations Committee finally scheduled a long-delayed vote on the confirmation of Bush’s former national security adviser, Donald P. Gregg, as ambassador to Korea. Gregg was Bush’s go-between in Contra-related matters, and Democrats only scheduled a confirmation hearing in return for White House agreement to provide key Iran-Contra documents.

Second, the Democratic-controlled House Government Operations Committee--investigating corruption in federal housing programs--may have its hand on a Pandora’s box of payoffs to influential Republicans. On Tuesday, former HUD official Deborah Gore Dean took the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer questions on self-incrimination grounds--suggesting high political stakes.

Finally, Democratic House members, while dropping their insistence that Bush fire Atwater or forfeit bipartisan support, say they’ll renew those demands any time the GOP National Committee repeats the sort of tactics used against Foley.

As captains of their parties’ Washington strongholds, Bush and Foley are moderates working to stop the conflict before it escalates. But it’s easy to see why congressional GOP activists disagree--as do Democrats anxious to soften up the White House so they can recapture it. Indeed, both confrontational cadres may be correct--that bipartisanship will entrench the two parties at their respective ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, while combat is the only road to a decisive popular verdict and unified government.

Atwater and Gingrich probably aren’t the generals to lead the pseudo-ethical cavalry charge, but their strategy does have some political merit. Spotlighting eight or 10 vulnerable Democratic congressmen isn’t likely to yield much--because Democrats will come up with a like number of vulnerable Republicans. Nor will popular individual Democratic House members be defeated by Congress’ broad disrepute. Yet if the GOP can further besmirch the House as an institution, then a fair number of senior members--especially Democrats--might retire, creating the open seats GOP strategists want.

In addition, the GOP’s attack strategy and the resignations of Wright and Majority Whip Tony Coelho have thrown the House into policy-making disarray, reducing the Democrats’ ability to take advantage of increasing public sympathy for liberal positions on issues from taxation and national health insurance to merger-mania and the environment. If the balance of individual scandal defeats in the 1990 elections should be favorable to the GOP by from two to four seats, the overall benefit of a 1989-90 GOP “attack” strategy could be as many as 12 House seats--conceivably the difference between losing or gaining in 1990.

For Democratic hard-liners, on the other hand, while confrontation could be risky in 1990 congressional terms, tactics that embarrass Bush--or further cast doubt on his denial of an Iran-Contra role--could help the Democrats win back the presidency in 1992.

Neither side is genuinely preoccupied with ethics or scandals: The basic frustration has to do with power and increasingly intolerable institutional limitations. The Democrats, in truth, may not be able to win the Oval Office without eroding the reputation that GOP Presidents have for the ability to govern. And the Republicans, for their part, may not be able to win Congress without first half-destroying it. If this situation cannot be defused, the idea of a “civil war” in U.S. politics may not be as far-fetched as it may sound.