‘Wait’ til Next Year’; Bush : GOP Has Big Losses in 3 States

President Bush sounded a defiant “Wait ‘til next year” today as he and Republican congressional leaders opened a “very candid discussion” of GOP election losses and the impact of the party’s abortion stand on future races.

After the hourlong meeting at the White House--the morning after Democratic victories in major races in New Jersey, New York and Virginia--a Bush spokesman said the President, who campaigned for the losers in each state, was looking ahead to the next election.

“We’re turning our attention to the 1990 races,” said deputy press secretary Roman Popadiuk. “The election is over . . . and we’re looking forward optimistically to the next elections.”

Although Popadiuk and Republican Party Chairman Lee Atwater, also at the meeting, pointed to some GOP wins, Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) told reporters afterward that the party will have to reassess its abortion stand if it hopes to win in next year’s critical mid-term elections.

“Lee Atwater indicated today, and he’s right . . . if we happen to be in the last week of October of 1990 in an election battle around this country where abortion is the main issue, we will just get the bejabbers kicked out of us,” Packwood said.

In 1990, all 435 House seats will be up for grabs, as well as a third of the Senate and 36 governorships.

In Tuesday’s voting, Democrat Douglas Wilder was the apparent winner in Virginia in an extremely close contest with Republican Marshall Coleman to become the nation’s first elected black governor in a race where abortion was a premier issue.

In New York City, Democrat David Dinkins defeated Republican Rudolph Giuliani to become that city’s first black mayor, and in New Jersey, Rep. James Florio won the governorship with 62% of the vote to Republican Rep. James Courter’s 38%.

“Clearly, yesterday was not a bright day,” Packwood said, adding that he hoped the results “might bring us to our senses and we would understand that the public is not on our side on this (abortion) issue.”

“Republicans cannot rely on George Bush’s popularity,” Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the assistant House minority leader, said in a candid appraisal of the lessons learned from Democratic gains.

In each of the three major campaigns, the candidate who took the more restrictive attitude toward abortion rights was clearly on the defensive.

But Gingrich asserted abortion was only “a very small part of the equation” and blamed the Republican candidates for waging poor campaigns.

“I think any Republican who looks honestly at yesterday’s results has to be very sobered up and has to be willing to rethink exactly what we’re going to do in 1990,” Gingrich said. “We had a very honest discussion in there, a very candid discussion about where we are.”

Acknowledging that the party “got blown out in New Jersey,” Gingrich criticized fellow GOP House member Courter for being kept on the defensive.

Bush supports abortion only in cases where a mother’s life is in danger or in cases of rape or incest and favors government financing only in cases of the mother’s health.