Capitol Horse-Trading Seen as Politics, American Style : Government: Dealing is as old as Foggy Bottom itself. But presidents like L.B.J. turned it into an art form.

For most of his political career, Theodore Roosevelt had openly regarded James S. Clarkson as the worst sort of scoundrel.

The hero of the Spanish-American war had denounced Clarkson bitterly when the Iowan was assistant postmaster general, deriding him as a “tool” of the patronage system. Roosevelt, elected as a reformer, pledged never to appoint such political hacks to government posts.

So it understandably raised a few eyebrows when, in 1902, he abruptly named Clarkson to one of the nation’s juiciest political jobs: surveyor of customs for the port of New York.

While Roosevelt’s critics were shocked, Teddy, mindful of his political alliances for the 1904 election, was unfazed. “In politics, we have to do a great many things that we ought not to do,” he explained.

Roosevelt’s deft turnabout may not win any historians’ votes as the most egregious example of political maneuvering, but it does illustrate a point:

For all the hullabaloo over President Clinton’s latest round of deal-making in garnering support for the House vote on the North American Free Trade Agreement last week, out-and-out horse-trading is a rule--not an aberration--in the federal governing process.

“Horrors! There’s gambling in Casablanca--how shocking!” gasps Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution presidential scholar, mimicking the sardonic Capt. Louis Renault in the movie “Casablanca.” Hess’s reaction was typical among both Republican and Democratic political analysts here.

Although Hess concedes that “on a 1-to-10 scale, Clinton’s performance has been on the high side” during the NAFTA lobbying effort, he argues that it’s all a part of the normal political process and is “as American as apple pie.”

But as Clinton learned last week, especially aggressive horse-trading can cause some awkward moments for presidents who style themselves as anti-Old Guard reformers and then wind up trading pork in the back room with the old-timers, just like their predecessors.

In Clinton’s case, the White House, like a Las Vegas casino dealer, found itself tossing out rapid-fire concessions to vegetable growers, wheat farmers and other special interests while more lobbyists swarmed to get in on the game and opponent Ross Perot spewed scorn and outrage.

To most political analysts, the late President Lyndon B. Johnson remains the modern standard by which presidential horse-trading is measured. When the Texan was in power, lawmakers were plied with everything from military bases and dam projects to first say in choosing judges and federal appointees in exchange for their cooperation on Johnson’s programs.

Indeed, Johnson was so adept at political deal-making that his machinations became known irreverently as “the Johnson treatment.”

Jack Valenti, a key White House aide then, recalls that Johnson frequently convened with Senate Minority Leader Everett M. Dirksen (R-Ill.) to fix the price of GOP votes on measures he wanted passed.

“They’d joke with each other, and the President would say: ‘Ev, I’ve got three votes I’ve got to have, and I want you to deliver them,’ ” Valenti recalls. Dirksen would protest, “I can’t deliver any votes,” and then he would reel off names of people he wanted appointed to regulatory agencies.

If a lawmaker ever balked too much, the famous Johnson treatment could quickly turn uncomfortable, Valenti, now president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, says.

Once, when Sen. Frank Church (D-Ida.), an opponent of the Vietnam War, protested that his own views on a tough vote were shared by noted columnist Walter Lippmann, Johnson retorted: “I’ll tell you what, Frank, next time you want a dam in Idaho, you call Walter Lippmann and let him put it through for you.”

John Alexander, a University of Cincinnati historian, points out that vote-buying dates to the earliest days of the Republic and was practiced by those famous now more for their high ideals than their finesse.

In 1790, when Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton sought to redeem soldiers’ chits at full value, he was opposed by James Madison of Virginia, who wanted to protect speculators who had bought them earlier at a discount.

But the Treasury secretary had a counteroffer. If the Virginian were to go along, the fledgling new government would have its new capital on the Potomac rather than in the north. The rest, as they say, is history.

Ever since then, horse-trading has been no small factor in a President’s success or lack thereof in office. Woodrow Wilson, who failed to win support for his League of Nations largely because he refused to cater to the political overtures of individual lawmakers, was not very good at it.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Ronald Reagan--and a spate of other chief executives who now are regarded as successful--were.

Even Abraham Lincoln was not above dispensing some political largess: Washington historian Nathan Miller says that in order to get the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery through Congress, the Great Emancipator doled out “several fat jobs” to wavering lawmakers.

“He was also not above using Army commissions,” Miller says.

Charles Morgan, a former civil rights strategist and lobbyist, points out that most presidents regard such horse-trading with Congress as the price of pushing through broader goals--such as the Great Society program of the Lyndon Johnson years or the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In Clinton’s case, Morgan contends, the deal-making is even more necessary because the Arkansan was a minority President without any strong mandate from the voters. “You’ve got to ask, what would have happened if NAFTA hadn’t gone through?” Morgan asserts.

In reality, most political horse-trading is fairly straightforward and is almost inevitable when a President’s priorities collide with congressional opposition on major issues.

Former Sen. Henry Bellmon (D-Okla.), in his memoirs, describes a series of conversations he had with James McIntyre, budget director of the Jimmy Carter Administration, in the tense weeks in which Carter labored to get support for treaties transferring the Panama Canal to the Panamanians.

Bellmon was undecided on the treaty but made the point that a yes vote would get him roasted by conservatives in his home state and that he could sure use some help in return--for example, favorable consideration of a chloride control project for the Arkansas and Red rivers back home.

With the Administration on a cost-cutting binge on water projects, “McIntyre told me he would take the matter up with Carter” himself, Bellmon wrote. “Within a day or two” he called back and “stated . . . that I could be assured the Administration would look kindly upon” the project.

McIntyre also agreed to inspect the site personally. In the end, Bellmon decided he could take the heat and voted yes. The treaty was approved.

To be sure, some of the political deal-making in which presidents have engaged has, as Perot charges, effectively wasted “taxpayer dollars.”

Military bases often have been used as bargaining chips, even though keeping obsolete ones open costs billions. Also expensive is expanding the number of counties eligible for grants under a particular program--as Johnson did in the 1960s to push through the Appalachian Regional Commission and Model Cities programs.

Joseph A. Califano, one of Johnson’s senior lieutenants, recalls that the Administration had to sponsor Model Cities projects in 10 large cities and 50 smaller ones in order to get the program through. It had sought only five sites.

At other times, the cost is borne by individual buyers: In order to get Louisiana Sen. Russell B. Long’s support for his tax cut program, Reagan had to sign off on a complex price support system for Louisiana sugar cane growers that has resulted in consumers paying artificially high sugar prices for the last 10 years.

Admittedly, the list of “political incentives” that Clinton doled out to win support for NAFTA was sizable. Califano, for one, estimates that together they may add up to almost $3 billion, if indirect costs and lost revenues are included.

But Califano argues that today’s presidents have to make more promises than their predecessors did because Congress has proportionally more power now. “For all the Great Society, you weren’t talking about $100 million,” the former Johnson aide says. “But it’s a different world now.”

Because the federal budget is so tight, the bulk of today’s presidential horse-trading comes in areas such as political appointments and promises to develop new proposals on policy issues that do not involve massive spending.

“The real pork is gone,” says Republican lobbyist Tom C. Korologos.

For all his fury, Perot is no stranger to political horse-trading. In 1975, the maverick Texas businessman won a sizable personal tax break from members of the House Ways and Means Committee--after donating a total of $27,400 to a dozen of its members.

Among presidents, some managed to excel in deft dealing with foreign leaders while being flops in horse-trading at home.

Korologos, once an official in the Richard Nixon White House, recalls how he brought Sen. Winston L. Prouty (R-Vt.) in so that Nixon could pressure him on a vote relating to the Vietnam War.

“Nixon just looked at him and said, ‘I understand the electorate in Vermont and why you have to vote against me,’ ” Korologos recalls. “I was saying to myself, ‘Why did I bring the guy around for?’ It wasn’t a very big success.”

While Nixon was an uneasy deal-cutter, Clinton has shown just the opposite. That’s a message certainly not lost on lawmakers as a series of tough votes approaches.