Failure of Both Parties to Deliver Could Spawn a Third : Political pundits see a rise from the center if GOP promises fall apart and Clinton’s ratings keep tumbling.

Almost everyone in Washington has a favorite scenario for the crackup that could be lurking just around the bend as President Clinton and the new Congress take to the track this week.

Here’s one way it could happen: House Republicans fail to muster the two-thirds vote to pass their Constitutional amendment imposing term limits. Senate Republicans fall just short of approving a balanced-budget amendment. Welfare reform collapses in a three-way standoff among the President, raze-it-to-the-ground House Newtoids and governors nervous about being left with the tab. Congress showers tax breaks in every direction--and pays for them with papier-mache budget cuts.

Asked on a talk show about House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s rising irritation with the Senate, Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) tells him to “stop lying about my record.” Gingrich (R-Ga.) calls Dole “a transitional figure” and proposes he begin his “re-education” by reading the complete works of John Naisbitt, Alvin Toffler and William Shatner.

Congressional Republicans launch an armada of investigative hearings against the Clinton Administration. Democrats raise their drumbeat of ethical allegations against Gingrich, including charges that he accepted an illegal gratuity from Rupert Murdoch by appearing as an alien abductee on “The X Files.” Clinton takes on more flesh wounds from the Whitewater probe and the legal battle with Paula Corbin Jones, who is named the White House correspondent for “Hard Copy.”

Clinton’s approval rating collapses. Gingrich and Dole sink with him. At some point this summer the cry rises: The Democrats have failed, the Republicans have failed--are these the only choices we have? Surely, Americans demand, there must be something else back there on the shelf.

Could there be a viable alternative to the two dominant political parties? It hasn’t happened since the 1850s, when the Republican Party emerged from the failure of both Whigs and Democrats to confront slavery. The Republicans took a stand against the expansion of slavery and swept the North to win the White House in only their second presidential campaign. That was 1860, and their candidate was Abraham Lincoln. The new party then controlled the White House for 56 of the next 72 years.

Obviously, it didn’t hurt the Republicans to select a candidate whose literary genius and moral resolve have been unmatched in the Oval Office since. But the key to the Republicans’ initial success was their ability to fill what amounted to a vacuum in the political market: the hunger in the North and West for a party that would maintain the Union and quarantine slavery.

From divergent points along the ideological spectrum, a growing chorus of political analysts and activists maintain that a similar market failure exists today--with neither party providing the mix of fiscal conservatism, political reform and social toleration demanded by a growing bloc of disaffected centrist voters. “There is a lot of room for a third party,” said Martin P. Wattenberg, a political scientist at UC Irvine. “The middle is not being occupied, and that’s where most of the people are.”

There’s plenty of evidence of public dissatisfaction with both Column A and Column B. In surveys during the past three years, more than 20% of Americans consistently refuse to identify with either party and militantly describe themselves as independents; in 1992, Ross Perot drew about that large a vote, despite behavior erratic enough to give millions more pause. In a Times Mirror survey last year, more than half of those polled said they would consider voting for a third party, a large increase over the past decade. Polls show dissatisfaction with Washington is higher now than during the Great Depression.

Numbers like that inevitably attract political entrepreneurs. The Rev. Jesse Jackson has broadly hinted that he may launch an independent bid for the White House next year, although he’s an implausible vehicle to rally the center. Following Congress’ endorsement of the world trade treaty that he opposed late last year, Perot has begun legal research toward the formation of a third party, although surveys show his star has dimmed since 1992.

The latest in this line is former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, last seen battling Clinton for the 1992 Democratic nomination.

Echoing the prevailing view, Tsongas maintains centrist voters are hungering for a party that combines “social liberalism and fiscal conservatism.” But neither party appears capable of delivering the agenda they demand: “The reason is obvious,” he maintains. “Both parties are beholden to constituencies that drive them off center.”

Of course, the political center is in the eye of the beholder. Perot’s version includes vehement protectionism and suspicion of foreign entanglements; Tsongas sees as ingredients free trade, gay rights, sweeping deficit reduction (including means-testing across the range of middle-class entitlements), political reform (including term limits) and elimination of capital gains taxes on securities held for at least five years.

Tsongas’ specific agenda suffers from the same deficiencies as his presidential campaign. It is skewed heavily to the priorities and preferences of college-educated, white-collar America and is unlikely, on its own, to attract many votes in neighborhoods where the bars don’t stock Pellegrino.

But, as Tsongas acknowledged in a memo circulated to political reporters and activists last month, a new movement might head in different directions on some of these issues, and the broad principles of deficit reduction, political reform and social moderation are good stars to steer by. The bigger questions confronting any potential third party are those of logistics and leadership. Ballot access, financing and candidate recruitment all promise headaches. Even more difficult would be recruiting national leadership of sufficient stature to endow the party with credibility as more than a protest vehicle.

Tsongas is hardly a household name, and even he says he would initiate such an effort only as a last resort.

Then there is the Perot problem. Perot is such a powerful symbol to many disaffected voters that it might be impossible to launch a third party movement he opposes; on the other hand, Perot’s standing has eroded to the point where his support would probably repel potential supporters outside his circle of adherents. To Tsongas and many others who dream of a new alternative, the answer to all of these problems would be an independent presidential campaign from former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin L. Powell--a figure potentially large enough to subsume a new party’s contradictions. But Powell’s intentions remain Delphic.

All of these calculations are hostage to events. Polls show many independent voters are now tentatively identifying with the GOP. If Republicans can avoid the kind of crackup sketched above, all of this ferment for new alternatives may dissolve, along with Clinton’s prospects of holding the White House. But if Washington melts down into partisan warfare, personal acrimony and stalemate, Tsongas predicts, “something is going to happen.”

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Outside Looking In

Third parties have appeared periodically over the past century, but none has mounted a sustained challenge to the dominance of the Democrats and Republicans. Here are the best showings in presidential races since the 1890s:

YEAR: 1892

CANDIDATE: JAMES B. WEAVER

PARTY: Populist

% OF VOTE: 8.5

ELECTORAL VOTE: 22

WINNER: Cleveland (D)

*

YEAR: 1912

CANDIDATE: THEODORE ROOSEVELT

PARTY: Progressive

% OF VOTE: 27.4

ELECTORAL VOTE: 88

WINNER: Wilson (D)

*

YEAR: 1924

CANDIDATE: ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE

PARTY: Progressive

% OF VOTE: 16.6

ELECTORAL VOTE: 13

WINNER: Coolidge (R)

*

YEAR: 1948

CANDIDATE: STROM THURMOND

PARTY: States’ Rights Democrat

% OF VOTE: 2.4

ELECTORAL VOTE: 39

WINNER: Truman (D)

*

YEAR: 1948

CANDIDATE: HENRY A. WALLACE

PARTY: Progressive

% OF VOTE: 2.4

ELECTORAL VOTE: 0

WINNER: Truman (D)

*

YEAR: 1968

CANDIDATE: GEORGE WALLACE

PARTY: American Independent

% OF VOTE: 6.6

ELECTORAL VOTE: 0

WINNER: Nixon (R)

*

YEAR: 1980

CANDIDATE: JOHN A. ANDERSON

PARTY: Independent

% OF VOTE: 6.6

ELECTORAL VOTE: 0

WINNER: Reagan (R)

*

YEAR: 1992

CANDIDATE: ROSS PEROT

PARTY: Independent

% OF VOTE: 18.9

ELECTORAL VOTE: 0

WINNER: Clinton (D)

Source: Presidential Elections Since 1789 by Congressional Quarterly Inc.