Will 1996 Be ‘The Year of Coming Unglued’? : With political scandals in the offing and the strong economic cycle aging fast, we should fasten our seatbelts for 1996.

Next year, 1996, looks like the chronological equivalent of a minefield. And when we come out on the other side, 1997 doesn’t appear to be any cakewalk either.

With no more than a bit of bad luck, 1996 could bring a recession, an unpopular U.S. military involvement in Bosnia and the first case in U.S. history of the president of one party and the speaker of the other party both facing special investigative counsel. In fact, tomorrow could begin the year of coming unglued.

Voters could become so contemptuous of both parties that, for the first time since the current two-party system was founded in the 1850s, the same independent presidential candidate--Ross Perot--may receive double-digit support twice in a row. Should all four of these economic, military, ethical and political circumstances converge--and they well could--any look ahead to 1997 could make this winter’s angst seem a day at the beach.

The partial shutdown of the federal government that has occurred so far this year hasn’t been so painful--the joke going around is, “Who needs the federal behemoth anyway?” Managerially, however, the health of the economy does. So far, the public has trusted President Bill Clinton far more than the Republican Congress in the budgetary, tax cut and Medicare jockeying that has been going on. But the real test comes if the economy starts to slide.

This business cycle is already developing wrinkles and liver spots, and in the two other times this century that a GOP Congress faced a Democratic president, the business cycle was shortened. Don’t assume bickering politicians will agree on postponing downturns to get through key elections. Both earlier times were during presidential election years--and both saw recessions begin.

The Republican Congress of 1920 ducked any blame for the economy because, by the time the election came around, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson’s policies of entangling the United States in European squabbles--including a Bosnia-like attempt to draw new ethnic boundaries in the Balkans--had the Democrats spread- eagled on a public-opinion anthill. In 1948, it worked the other way: the Republican 80th Congress collaborated with Democratic President Harry S. Truman on foreign policy, but tried to make its mark in economic, labor and health-care policy--and got nailed. The economic weakness in the fall of 1948 added to voter anxiety--and the GOP took a drubbing at the polls.

This year, Republicans seemed to be repeating their Truman-era miscalculation of trying to control budget, tax and health policy from Congress in an attempt to give some new tax cuts to their business and upper-bracket constituencies. This goes a long way to explain why GOP ratings have plummeted and preference for Clinton has grown. More to the point, according to several polls, pluralities or majorities of voters specifically say they’ll blame the GOP if a downturn comes between now and November.

In pure business-cycle terms, that’s a bit unfair. The recovery that began in 1991 will be starting its sixth year in 1996--about as long as most cycles run. But the GOP’s unpopular budget package puts Republicans in a position to pay for what may be a cyclical downturn, something they should have thought of when they approved the script. A 1996 recession, occurring while the Republicans have grabbed the economic-policy ball, could make the Democrats’ 1994 congressional election disaster one of the great forward fumbles of modern politics.

What the Democrats must watch out for, however, is that the GOP Congress, in turn, has declined to block the Democrats from setting up another one of their great foreign-policy self-entrapments--putting U.S. troops in a place where American voters don’t want them to go, and then bungling the geopolitical strategy and military tactics involved.

Excluding John F. Kennedy, the other three Democratic presidents since World War II were all brought down by some unpopular military involvement or conundrum in their reelection year. In 1952, Truman, running despite public unhappiness with his handling of the Korean War, lost the New Hampshire Democratic primary and decided to retire. In 1968, Lyndon B. Johnson’s unpopularity because of Vietnam gave him only a bare bones victory in that year’s New Hampshire primary. He, too, decided to retire. Then in 1980, Jimmy Carter flubbed the military rescue of the U.S. embassy hostages in Iran, adding to the perception of another weak foreign policy. He survived the 1980 Democratic primaries, but lost in November.

All three of these previous Democrats’ election-year military snafus helped produce GOP presidential victories. Sending troops overseas in the name of morality and then bungling the military involvement has been the Democrats’ 20th century Achilles’ heel, their own recurrent political equivalent of the GOP’s trickle-down economics.

Clinton could be just as vulnerable, or even more so, partly because U.S. military policing in Bosnia is beginning with less support than Truman or Johnson initially enjoyed in Korea and Vietnam. Moreover, Clinton has a personal exposure: voter concern that he is sending young Americans to take risks he himself sidestepped during Vietnam. For Clinton, and possibly even the Democratic Party, this doubles the political risk of a failed strategy and U.S. casualties.

But just as both parties seem to be moving their historic weaknesses center-stage, the 1996 national election also stands to have a new twin failure: the first simultaneous activities of special counsels looking into the dubious ethics of both the Democratic president and the Republican speaker of the House. Will the Whitewater Arkansas graft ring come unglued before the lid comes off Newt, Inc? Is there a Vincent W. Foster Jr. cover-up that will trump mere alleged financial sleaze?

Nobody knows. But the various scenarios of shared embarrassment or the devastating spotlight of a resignation-watch have to be caveats to election strategies on both sides. There’s also a chance that these allegations could make the day (or even the year) of the most serious independent presidential challenge in our lifetime.

That’s still hype, of course, and it will remain only that until some combination of the first three issues--the economy, Bosnia and bipartisan ethical problems--become more evident. Peace in the Balkans, prosperity in Mall City and a bipartisan ethical whitewash could mean Happy Days Are Here Again for national leaders who are now running neck-and-neck with used car dealers in public-opinion polls.

But if the two-party system produces another GOP economic greed-out, another Democratic military bungle and a double ethical wrist-slapping for the president and the speaker (or any combination), it’s hard to imagine the summer of 1996 ending without a giant televised “I-told-you-so” from America’s would-be national Roto-Rooterman: Perot.

He has got 20% in the polls, $3 billion in the bank, a new Reform Party ready to roll and an ego that must already be charged up. It’s fashionable to knock Perot--he does have an undeniable weird streak--but he’s in a position to carve out an extraordinary place in U.S. history. He got 19% in 1992--the strongest showing for an independent presidential candidate since 1912--and if he runs again and gets into double-digits, that will mark the first such feat in two successive presidential elections since the Republican-Democratic system began.

In addition, the big issues Perot spoke to back in 1992--the corruption of Washington by special interests, lobbyists and big-money political donations, the perils of the North American Free Trade Agreement and other fast-track international trade deals, the Republican-Democratic two-faced approach to deficit-reduction and tax-cuts and the civic need for new national political structures--have all been aggravated rather than reduced by the events of 1993-96.

But if Perot has a role to play, only 30% or so of Americans think he’s qualified to be president. A useful catalyst and reform advocate, yes; chief executive of the United States, no. If all goes well, of course, none of this will matter. Suppose, though, that multiple foul-ups give the major parties twin black eyes, and that 1996 turns out to be a confusing three-way or even four-way election. Earlier this month, polls in California gave Perot 20% as a third-party candidate, and Ralph Nader, who might also be on the ballot, drew 11% in a separate match-up with Bill Clinton and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R--Kan.). In a four-way race, Perot and Nader could push Clinton and Dole below 70% in the California vote.

So, if 1996 is difficult, 1997 will be, too. And instead of wondering what could or will go wrong in the economy and Bosnia, next December could see us pondering a larger ungluing: How on earth is this inadequate, unstable political arrangement we accepted in the 1996 election going to wrap itself around the escalating challenges of 1997?