When an 800-lb. Gorilla Becomes Dead Weight : Voters Now Turn Against Clinton

President Clinton was 0 for 2 last week. He endorsed Democratic candidates in two elections in two big states. Both lost. So the trend continues: Every week of Clinton’s presidency seems to be the worst yet.

The political earthquake started in Texas. Last Saturday, Texas voters elected a Republican, state treasurer Kay Bailey Hutchison, to take Lloyd Bentsen’s seat in the U.S. Senate. Hutchison defeated the appointed Democratic incumbent, Sen. Bob Krueger. She was expected to win, but the results were still a shock. Hutchison didn’t just beat Krueger. She stomped him into the ground.

Sixty-seven percent of the vote! Even Bentsen, a Texas icon, never got that big a vote. Texas hasn’t seen such a rout since the 1950s, when the state Republican Party was a joke. Texas now has two Republican senators. The Democrats aren’t laughing.

If Texas was the shock, Los Angeles was the aftershock. In April, a Democratic spokesman said confidently, “Los Angeles isn’t about to elect an old, rich, white Republican” for mayor. On Tuesday, it did. Richard Riordan becomes the first Republican mayor of Los Angeles in 36 years. The GOP has taken the very citadel of multiculturalism.

Clinton is trying to distance himself from both defeats. After all, he gave both Democrats only half-hearted endorsements. After endorsing Michael Woo in Los Angeles, the President said he had nothing against Woo’s Republican opponent. In Texas, Clinton gave his support to Krueger and then added, “I’ve always been skeptical about the question of whether any of us can have any impact on anyone else’s races.” Krueger returned the favor by voting against Clinton’s economic-stimulus package.

But the President can’t get off the hook that easily. In Texas, Hutchison made Clinton the central issue in her campaign. How could she resist? Clinton’s dismal job ratings made him too good a target. Gays in the military and energy taxes are not big vote-getters in Texas. One of Hutchison’s ads said, “Upset about Clinton’s plans to raise your taxes and spend more money? June 5th, send him a message.”

Try as he might, Krueger could not escape the burden of Clinton’s unpopularity. The Texas Democratic chairman described the problem Clinton posed for his party this way: “It was like trying to swim with a battleship anchor strapped on your back.”

True, Krueger was one of the worst candidates in modern political history. A former English professor, he was fond of quoting Shakespeare in campaign speeches. (Eventually, Krueger got the message this didn’t work. He switched to Plutarch.) So the White House sent one of its top political consultants to help.

The result was a campaign ad in which Krueger made fun of his own ineptitude. Dressed up as “The Terminator,” in leather jacket and sunglasses, the candidate snarled, “Was it Shakespeare who said, ‘Hasta la vista, baby?’ ” Bad idea. The tag line in Hutchison’s next ad was, “Hasta la vista, Bobby.”

Bad as Krueger was, Hutchison had something else going for her--Clinton. After winning, Hutchison defined her mandate this way: “I am going to make sure that I sign on for everything I can do to kill the taxes in the Clinton economic program.”

Clinton was not a central issue in the Los Angeles campaign. His endorsement of Woo made little difference to the outcome. In fact, according to The Times exit poll, “The endorsement repelled as many voters from Woo as it attracted.” That is not what a presidential endorsement is supposed to do. Bottom line? Clinton hurt Krueger in Texas and did nothing to help Woo in Los Angeles.

The message that came through loud and clear in Washington was, “No-Clout Clinton.” That will seriously weaken the President’s position in Congress. It’s bad enough when a President’s job-approval ratings go down. It’s worse when he’s seen as poison at the polls. Members of Congress are in business for themselves. They don’t want to be identified with a loser--even if he heads their party.

Senate Democrats are starting to worry about losing their majority next year, when they have 21 seats at stake compared to 13 for the GOP. If it’s a choice between supporting the President and protecting their committee chairmanships, they’ll discover they have higher principles than party loyalty. Texas and Los Angeles proved Clinton can’t help them. He can only hurt them. Sen. Hutchison will be there every day to remind them.

Immediately after the Texas vote, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) reportedly telephoned reporters and said, “Texas voters may have saved the economy by getting Clinton to back off on his tax package.” A few days later, Clinton did just that. On Tuesday, he abandoned his controversial energy tax and left it to the Democrats in Congress to come up with an alternative source of revenue. Clinton now says he will stick to broad “principles” and allow congressional and Administration negotiators to work out the details. That’s what Presidents do when they lose clout.

The Los Angeles defeat portends even more problems for the Democrats. By 1994, Los Angeles and New York, the nation’s largest cities, could have Republican mayors. What Riordan did was devise a GOP strategy for making inroads into normally hostile urban territory.

Riordan resisted the temptation to run a campaign based on racial backlash. He did not appeal to racial resentment, like former L.A. Mayor Sam Yorty or former New York Mayor Edward I. Koch, who were eventually defeated because they were seen as too divisive.

Instead, Riordan made the election a referendum on the decline of the city. He did it by turning Woo into the incumbent. Woo had spent most of his life in government. He had been on the City Council for eight years. He was a professional city planner and politician. That made him the perfect target. “Welcome to Mike Woo’s Los Angeles,” Riordan’s ads said, as they depicted the city’s woes.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the GOP candidate for mayor of New York, will do the same thing this fall. New York is in just as bad shape as Los Angeles. And Giuliani will be running against a real Democratic incumbent--Mayor David Dinkins. Polls in New York, like pre-election polls in Los Angeles, predict a close race.

To make this urban strategy work, Republicans have to move to the center to make themselves acceptable to unhappy Democrats, moderates and liberals who want to vote against the status quo. Riordan did that. He shifted positions on abortion, repudiated his credentials as a Reaganite and stressed his philanthropic commitment to the inner city. In New York, Giuliani has persuaded two well-known Democratic politicians, one Jewish and the other Puerto Rican, to join him as running mates on a fusion ticket.

Clinton has much at stake here. The cities are the Democrats’ base. They delivered for Clinton last year. But he hasn’t delivered for them. The Administration’s economic-stimulus package was designed, in part, as a payoff to the cities. But it was killed by a Senate filibuster.

Virtually all big cities are run by Democrats. The mayors had high hopes that a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress would reverse 12 years of urban neglect. We learned in the 1980s that economic growth is not enough to save the cities. The nation’s economy boomed, but the cities still declined. What they need is targeted spending programs. Exactly what Clinton can’t deliver, given his commitment to deficit reduction.

So the decline continues. And that gives the GOP an opening to score points with disgruntled urban voters, as Riordan did. The risk for Clinton is that, under Republican mayors, the cities may not deliver for him in 1996 as they did in 1992.

Los Angeles is a particular problem for the President. It’s the largest city in the most populous state. If Clinton has any hope of getting reelected, he’s going to have to keep California in the Democratic column. That’s because the Democrats can no longer rely on the South. With two Southerners on the ticket last year, the Democrats still lost the South to George Bush. Texas, in particular, looks hopeless for Democrats after Krueger’s defeat.

California is essential. And the Los Angeles media market, where Riordan will be a familiar figure, represents a large hunk of the California vote. Clinton already has ties to Riordan. Riordan’s campaign chairman and transition chief headed Clinton’s California primary campaign. Moreover, Riordan, like all mayors, will need good relations with the White House. Cities have to rely on the federal government. They can’t rely on unfriendly state governments--particularly in California, where the state is broke.

In the end, however, Riordan is a Republican. If the Administration doesn’t come through for Los Angeles, Riordan could make trouble. Mayors are never happy, but it’s better to have an unhappy mayor on your side than the other.

Two defeats in one week. Can it get any worse for Clinton? Sure it can. His presidency has another 187 weeks to go.