The Fight to Define the ‘80’s : Legacy: By winning, Bill Clinton now has the chance to put his spin on what the policies of Ronald Reagan meant for the nation.

While lame-duck President George Bush appears to have nothing but time on his hands these days, November has been a busy month for many Republicans. Their proj ect: trying to spin Bill Clinton’s triumph into something more palatable. They would have us believe that, for Republicans, and for conservatives, Nov. 3 was not as bad as it looks.

It wasn’t. It was a whole lot worse.

Republicans lost a battle for something even larger than the presidency, a point they thought they had already won: defining the meaning of the 1980s. That decade had stood as proof of the superiority of conservative ideas and, as such, was their most valuable piece of political capital. But it has slipped away, victim of a historical revisionism that has transformed the national memory of the period from one of entrepreneurial success to one of shortsighted neglect and failure. The 1992 campaign and its results ratified this change. Conservatives didn’t just lose the White House, they lost a legacy.

Liberals know the consequences of such a loss: The same thing happened to them with regard to the 1960s. A decade they thought represented liberation and progress came to be seen as one of decadence, disrespect and violence. The themes that the Republicans developed out of this period--crime, patriotism, religion--helped win elections for more than two decades. Anyone who doubts their lasting power should confer with Michael S. Dukakis. Forty years earlier, the Republicans saw their Roaring ‘20s wiped out by the Great Depression.

The GOP is already looking to the future--to 1996 and beyond--but their rear flank is badly exposed. And there’s almost nothing they can do about it.

Conservatives have actually been losing ground in the fight over the 1980s for a while now. They should have known they were in trouble when greedy yuppies and corporate-takeover barons started displacing left-wing terrorists as standard TV and film villains. (You gotta watch out for that liberal cultural elite!) In the public mind, the decade is associated more and more with greed and excess, less and less with opportunity and prosperity. Last spring, polls revealed Americans to be twice as likely to blame the Los Angeles riots on Republican economic policies as on Great Society programs. Polls this summer found former President Ronald Reagan’s tenure judged as no more successful than Jimmy Carter’s.

Now Clinton has taken it a step farther, running and winning as an explicit critic of the era. Clinton gave few speeches, if any, in which he neglected to attack “trickle-down economics” as pursued by Reagan and George Bush. He scored its inequity, as liberals have for years, but added a more powerful critique: He called it a failure. Giving more money to rich people and hoping they invest it, Clinton said 100 times over, just doesn’t work.

We heard this argument from Clinton so often this year that it’s easy to take it for granted. But this was a strategic choice, and by no means an obvious one. He could have pursued a more narrow-gauged assault on Bush and his record, remaining silent on Reagan and the 1980s. Some might have called this the safer course. Why take on a guy who won two landslide elections if you don’t have to? Dwight D. Eisenhower won that way in 1952, eschewing criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.

But Clinton did take on the 1980s, and he made it work where others had failed. For some time, liberals had argued that the decade’s prosperity was illusory. The public never bought it. Clinton made a different argument: The 1980s were a success on the surface, but underneath was decay and neglect. We didn’t invest in people or infrastructure, which is how you create real wealth. You’ve got some lovely towers there, Clinton said in effect, but they’re built on sand.

Clinton didn’t ask voters to ignore the economic growth of the 1980s--a strategy certain to fail--but persuaded them of the disastrous long-term consequences of the decade’s policies. In doing so, Clinton did more than just nab the White House, rather he robbed the conservatives of their historical legacy. Whatever quarrels liberal Democrats may have had with candidate Clinton--or will have with President Clinton--they will always owe him a tremendous debt for this.

Ross Perot told a somewhat different story. His major issue, of course, was the budget deficit. He chided both Clinton and Bush for failing to formulate plans that would dramatically reduce it. Perot also spoke powerfully and repeatedly of the dangers inherent in the decline of domestic manufacturing, especially the flight of American jobs abroad.

Despite his differences with Clinton, Perot’s themes generally dovetailed with Clinton’s indictment of the GOP’s economic performance. He provided an explanation for the apparent prosperity of the 1980s: It was debt-driven, and thus not sustainable. He reinforced the message that the previous decade had been one of too much inequality, and too little investment in both human and physical assets. Most important, he echoed the call for fundamental change.

Even Bush’s own campaign revealed the changed political terrain. Rather than defend conservative economic policy, he accused Clinton of preaching “trickle-down government,” a lame rhetorical gambit that never made sense. He tried to scare voters with the now faded memory of Carter, but never invoked the once-venerable Reagan. Ultimately, his strategy was to acknowledge that change must come and try to position himself as the safest route there. But that virtually conceded the election: If voters want change, they won’t vote for the guy who’s been there 12 years.

In his heart, Bush clearly didn’t embrace this change stuff. Every once in a while he couldn’t restrain himself, and would talk about how good things really are. In one speech he responded to Clinton’s criticisms of the 1980s, musing that he remembered them as darn good times. Again and again, though, his advisers steered him back to a pro-change message. There was no choice: They knew that defense of the status quo meant political death.

Was every single Clinton (or Perot) voter consciously repudiating Reaganomics? Of course not. But Clinton will soon step into the biggest pulpit in the world. If the President of the United States says his election represents a rejection of Republican economics--after campaigning for a year on just that basis--that’s not just an opinion. That becomes a political fact. To the victor goes the spoils--and also the spin.

Faced with this calamity, Republicans have had two responses. The most popular is denial: It didn’t happen. The best in this genre remains Sen. Robert Dole’s (R-Kan.) astonishing statement that 57% of the public voted against Clinton, and that he intended to represent them.

Dole appears to have forgotten his membership in a political party--the “R” that follows his name in the newspaper stands for “Republican,” not “remainder.” Thanks to the wonder of the democratic process, we have rather precise measures of what his party represents: 38% of the presidential vote (and 0% of the presidency), 40% of the House, and 42% of the Senate. Dole should ponder the meaning of the phrase that precedes his name: “minority leader.”

One wonders what it’s going to take to get Dole’s attention--finding Millie’s head under his sheets? Wake up, senator: Your party just got whacked.

The other response comes from those on the GOP’s far right, such as former Delaware Gov. Pete DuPont. They hope to save the Reagan legacy by deeming Bush an apostate. If only Bush had been a “true” conservative, this argument goes, all would be well. But significant obstacles to this include Bush’s service as Reagan’s vice president, his continuation of virtually all of Reagan’s policies and his insistence on calling himself a conservative. Liberals tried to get Carter off their back for years--with far more justification--but never succeeded.

The Democrats have a historic political opportunity. If Clinton can bring economic prosperity, Democrats will govern for years to come. As the Republicans demonstrated with the Civil War, and Democrats with the New Deal, great successes have enduring political power. On the other hand, economic failure will give the Republicans a chance to rise from the ashes. Ironically, the GOP’s best hope is that Clinton is right about the depths of the nation’s economic problems, and cannot solve them.

The lesson Clinton should learn from his own victory is that cashing in on this opportunity requires a prosperity both real and lasting. Political legacies, it turns out, are fragile things. Clinton won’t know his until long after he leaves office.

In politics, they like to say it ain’t over ‘till its over. But the truth is, it ain’t over even then. Just ask Reagan.