Nattering Nabobs Are Back--This Time as Republicans : Politics: The GOP gambles that L.B.J.’s ‘can do’ America is ready for the ‘can’t do’ party that sank reforms in Congress.

In order to fully appreciate how much of a change in the public consciousness has occurred in recent years, it is instructive to look back on a revealing moment that occurred exactly 30 years ago. When a huge crowd turned out to line the route of Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 campaign motorcade in Providence, R.I., the President stood up in his car, seized a bullhorn and bellowed: “I just want to tell you this--we’re in favor of a lot things and we’re against mighty few.”

No statement ever better captured the spirit of a time or more succinctly encapsulated the liberal outlook. That approach perfectly matched the American viewpoint in the first half of the ‘60s; it also meshed with the traditional American optimism and “can do” attitude.

Johnson’s answer to every seemingly intractable problem was the same. Is it possible to protect the civil rights of black Americans that have been trampled upon for nearly a century? “We can do it,” the incumbent President said in 1964. Can we fight a successful war on poverty? “We certainly can,” he affirmed. Can we provide health-care security for the elderly and the poor? “Yes, we can!”

This approach so well corresponded to the historical American spirit and the national mood of 1964 that the contrast between the positive-speaking Johnson and his negative-sounding Republican opponent, Barry M. Goldwater, resulted in the Democrat winning the highest percentage of the popular vote ever attained in a contested presidential election.

How different the situation is today. Republican leaders apparently concluded some weeks ago that the current public temper is so sour and cynical that it would be to their advantage in the mid-term elections to oppose virtually every proposal that would come before the 103rd Congress in its closing weeks. The most surprising aspect of this strategy is that Newt Gingrich (who is already measuring himself for the House Speaker’s chair) and his followers were prepared to apply it even to reforms that were demonstrably popular with a substantial majority of the voters. By the time the campaign against health-insurance reform had run its course, there may not have been a majority constituency for any particular plan on that issue. But surely there remains very strong backing for campaign-finance reform and lobbying reform. Yet no matter what the reform or how popular it is, the GOP response has been the same: Just say “no.”

Nearly half a century ago, Harry S. Truman won the presidency by running against a legislative branch he castigated as the “Do-Nothing Congress.” Today, Republicans shamelessly boast that they have kept Congress from doing anything.

The Republican position on almost every question is the opposite of what L.B.J. affirmed in 1964. Can we provide security to all Americans so that they will not have to fear losing their health insurance if they suffer a serious illness or change jobs? The 1994 Republican answer is, “We can’t do that.” Can we reduce the leverage of big money interests on our government? “No, we can’t.” Can we stop lobbyists from buying influence with legislators and obtaining laws that go against the public interest? “It can’t be done,” say today’s Republicans.

This “can’t do” attitude is the antithesis of what has historically been the most American of outlooks. Today’s Republicans have become the sort of “nattering nabobs of negativism” of which their own Vice President Spiro T. Agnew used to complain in the early ‘70s.

Republicans have now taken the step from negative campaigning, which has plagued us for years (and which the Johnson campaign itself employed to great effect against Goldwater in 1964) to the more troubling idea of negative governing.

Three decades after L.B.J. won a landslide victory by taking a positive view of almost everything, the Republicans are turning his words inside-out with the message: “We just want to tell you this--we’re against a lot of things and we’re in favor of mighty few.” If this strategy proves successful next month, it will demonstrate just how much the nation has changed in 30 years.

Goldwater preached negativism in an age of great optimism. The results were disastrous for him and the Republicans. This year, his party is once again preaching (and practicing) negativism, but Republicans are betting that this now matches the national mood. If so, it is a sad commentary on the state of our nation.