All Voters Care About Is: What Have You Done For Me Lately? : Election: The President’s party is zero for six, but mood is more anti-incumbent than anti-Clinton. And crime is the key issue.

A profound question lies at the heart of American politics these days. It goes by a lot of different names. Commentators call it the “change” issue or the “anti-incumbency” factor. Scholars write about “dealignment” and “the decline of party.”

But it all amounts to the same thing. What voters want to know is: “What have you done for me lately?”

In this new populist era, party loyalty and ideological conviction don’t count for much. The voters elect you, and then they expect you to deliver--fast. Otherwise, off with your head. Which is what happened to a lot of politicians on Tuesday. The story is told of the speaker of a state legislature who was turned out of office after a lifetime of public service. Appearing before his supporters on election night, the old man offered a solemn concession: “The people have spoken. God bless the people! The rotten, filthy bastards.”

It’s different today, of course. New York Mayor David N. Dinkins and New Jersey Gov. Jim Florio only served four years before they got turned out. In fact, the voters aren’t taking any chances. They’re voting incumbents out of office preemptively, before they even elect them. That’s what term limitations are all about. Term limits passed last week in Maine and New York City, as they have in just about every place they’ve been on the ballot. Today, politicians are to voters as male praying mantises are to females. They’re expected to deliver. Then they get devoured.

Ask George Bush. Bush will go down in history as the President who blew the biggest lead ever. In 1991, he stood astride the world. In 1992, he was toast. The voters asked, “What have you done for me lately?” And Bush had no answer.

It’s not just a problem in this country. Look at what happened in Canada two weeks ago. Canadians didn’t just vote the Conservatives out of power. They voted them out of existence. The Tories ended up with two seats in Parliament--not even enough to qualify as a legitimate political party.

It took U.S. voters about three weeks to turn on Bill Clinton. They elected Clinton a year ago. Three weeks later, voters in Georgia thumbed their nose at the President-elect by defeating an incumbent Democratic senator. Since then, the Democrats have lost another Senate seat (Texas), mayoralties in the nation’s two largest cities (Los Angeles and New York) and two governorships (New Jersey and Virginia). The President’s party is zero for six.

You can argue these elections didn’t have much to do with Clinton personally. Sure, both the President and the First Lady campaigned for Dinkins in New York and for Florio in New Jersey. But Clinton gave Michael Woo only a perfunctory endorsement in Los Angeles. And two of the Democrats, Bob Krueger in Texas and Mary Sue Terry in Virginia, kept their distance from the President. It didn’t matter what Clinton did. All the Democrats lost. Nor is there much evidence of an ideological shift. The Republican men who won in Virginia and Georgia are staunch conservatives. The Republican women who won in Texas and New Jersey are moderates--at least on social issues. In the two mayoral elections, the voters didn’t move to the right. The GOP candidates moved to the center.

Rudolph W. Giuliani did the same thing in New York that Richard Riordan did five months ago in Los Angeles. Both Republicans turned the election into a referendum on the decline of the city. Giuliani ran against Dinkins’ record. Riordan managed to pin the burden of incumbency on Woo, an eight-year City Council veteran. By moving to the center, Riordan and Giuliani made themselves acceptable to thousands of Democratic voters dissatisfied with the way things were going in their troubled cities.

The Democrats lost every race on an anti-incumbent vote--even if, as in Los Angeles, the Democratic candidate was not technically the incumbent. In Virginia, for example, Republican George F. Allen never stopped talking about the “Robb-Wilder-Terry Administration,” thus linking Terry, who had been attorney general for nearly eight years, with two unpopular Democratic incumbents.

Well, so what if voters this year were not really anti-Clinton, but anti-Democratic or anti-incumbent? It still adds up to a kick in the pants for the President. He is, after all, a Democrat. And he is, after all, an incumbent.

Crime was the big issue. Americans are horrified by the news of violence across the country, particularly involving juveniles. It used to be that crime was the Republicans’ issue, just as the economy was the Democrats’. But the parties have lost their purchase on the issues. In mid-October, one poll asked which party would do a better job handling the crime problem. One-third said Democrats, a third said Republicans and a third saw no difference.

There are several dimensions to the crime issue. One is anti-incumbent. The public gives Clinton worse ratings on crime than on any other issue--including foreign policy, where he has been taking a lot of hits lately. If voters believe the crime problem is getting out of control, they take it out on all incumbents--mayors, governors and the President.

Conservatives have always had an angle on crime: Get tough. It still works. Three-quarters of Americans believe juveniles who commit violent crimes should be treated the same as adults. Eighty-two percent want to make it more difficult for criminals to get out on parole, up from 68% four years ago.

What’s new this year is that liberals figured out some angles they could use on the crime issue. One is the crusade against TV violence. Democratic Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno picked up on that one. Here’s how it works: Conservatives worry about sex on TV. Liberals worry about violence. Parents worry about everything.

Gun control is another liberal angle on crime. Finally, liberals sound tough. Get tough on guns! Get tough with the National Rifle Assn.! You could see the testosterone level rising at Americans for Democratic Action meetings across the country. “First we’ll go after Arnold Schwarzenegger! Then we’ll get Charlton Heston!”

Gun control was supposed to be the abortion issue of 1993. Back in 1989, pro-choice voters felt abortion rights were threatened. So they started doing what pro-life voters had been doing for years: voting the issue. Pro-choice voters helped Florio win by a landslide in New Jersey. They were critical in getting the first black governor elected in Virginia.

This year, it looked as if the public’s concern over violence would do the same thing for gun control. It’s not so much that people have changed their minds about gun control. Support for tougher gun-control laws increased only marginally from 1989 to 1993 (60% to 64%).

What went up was the intensity of feeling about the issue. In 1989, 28% told the Gallup Poll they “strongly favored” tougher gun-control laws. Last month, 40% felt that way. The implication was that gun-control supporters would start doing what gun owners have been doing for years: voting the issue.

Sure enough, earlier this year both the Virginia and New Jersey legislatures defied the NRA and passed tough new gun laws. The legislators knew they would be facing the voters soon, and figured they could score points by taking on the NRA.

But look at what happened Tuesday. Terry ran on gun control and lost in Virginia. Florio, the NRA’s No. 1 target, lost in New Jersey. The NRA is dancing in the streets--without their guns, we hope.

Was gun control really a losing issue last week? Not exactly. It just got trumped by other issues. Remember, there are several dimensions to the crime issue. They don’t always work in the same direction.

Take Terry in Virginia. Her support for a five-day waiting period for gun purchases appears to have helped her. In the exit poll, Virginia voters who cited “guns” as a major issue voted 54% for Terry.

But she was vulnerable for other reasons. As attorney general, she was the incumbent most directly responsible for dealing with crime. Moreover, her GOP opponent moved quickly to show how tough he was. Allen said he would abolish parole for violent criminals. Terry said it wouldn’t work. In the end, Virginia voters who cited “crime” as an issue voted almost 2 to 1 for Allen.

The crime issue worked differently in New Jersey. Like Terry, Florio had the burden of incumbency. But unlike Terry, he gained the advantage on both gun control and toughness. As governor, Florio pushed through the toughest assault-weapon ban in the country. He supported mandatory minimum sentences for violent criminals. His Republican opponent, Christine Todd Whitman, even did Florio a favor. She described his approach to crime as “extremely right-wing.”

In the New Jersey exit poll, voters who cited “crime” as the major issue voted 72% for Florio. Voters who cited “gun control” voted 81% for Florio.

Then why didn’t he win? Because crime and gun control weren’t the biggest issues in New Jersey. Twice as many voters cited taxes and the economy. Both those issues worked to Whitman’s advantage. Florio lost because of taxes. Crime is what made the race so close.

Gun control wasn’t an issue in New York. Both candidates supported it. In fact, crime was the biggest issue of all in the exit poll. With Dinkins, the incumbent, facing Giuliani, the former federal prosecutor, it was no contest. Among New York voters concerned about crime, Giuliani beat Dinkins 2 to 1.

Voters in New York weren’t looking for a conservative. They were looking for a tough guy. They did the same thing Los Angeles voters did when they elected Riordan, the candidate whose slogan was, “Tough enough to turn L.A. around.”

Notice that the crime issue worked to the advantage of two male candidates-- Democrat Florio and Republican Allen-- running against two women. Did gender stereotypes play a part? Of course. Voters tend to see men as tougher and more aggressive. Women have to prove they’re tough. Ann Richards did it three years ago in Texas. Whitman and Terry didn’t.

That could be more bad news for the President. The message of 1993 is that crime-obsessed voters are looking for candidates who show toughness and discipline. That doesn’t sound much like Bill Clinton. Actually, it sounds more like Hillary.