Easing of Budget Fight Is Big Relief for Dole

As Republicans scramble to reverse the losses they have suffered from the three-week-long shutdown of the federal government, no party figure may have more cause for relief about a solution than Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole.

The extended stalemate, which has largely pitted President Clinton against conservative activists in the House, with Dole caught awkwardly in the middle, inflicted considerable damage on Dole, political analysts say. Dole’s position alienated GOP conservatives, who saw Dole trying to broker a deal even while they preferred to hang tough, reduced his claim for effective leadership and curtailed his campaign appearances as he remained tied to Washington.

“Presidents are supposed to be more ideological than members of Congress,” says James Pinkerton, deputy assistant for domestic policy planning under President Bush. “Dole’s not like that. He’s a deal-maker. Everybody says I can work with Bob Dole. That’s not what some Republicans want to hear.”

By trying to mediate the dispute between House Republicans and the White House, Dole has also helped Clinton accomplish something he has struggled to do throughout his presidency: define himself politically. With Dole acting as conciliator, Clinton has more cover to make a stand on principle and pay less heed himself to finding middle ground.

Dole’s rivals--notably Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander and Patrick J. Buchanan, the columnist and television commentator--have seized on his role in the budget talks as a reason voters in key primary states should not support him.

“Republican primary voters know Bob Dole and they understand that he’s never been as committed to the ‘contract with America’ as Newt Gingrich is, as the freshmen Republicans are, as I am,” Gramm told voters in New Hampshire this week. “Bob Dole can’t beat Bill Clinton and I can.”

Alexander is expected to argue in a major address today that if Dole wins the nomination, he not only will lose to Clinton, but may also very well turn off enough party activists to allow the Democrats to recapture Capitol Hill.

In a statement Thursday, Buchanan charged that Dole jeopardizes all the GOP has won since 1994 with his “addictive reversion to back-room deal-making as a first resort in political conflict. If this historic Republican year ends in a Clinton-Dole handshake, over the casket of the ‘contract with America,’ Bob Dole will be validly charged as an accessory.”

With at least a partial end to the shutdown possibly in sight, Dole has a chance to reap some advantages. He could be seen as a reasonable and effective leader who succeeded in winning an agreement to reopen government offices. And he is distancing himself from the slash-and-burn elements of his party--a position many analysts say is important to any eventual Republican nominee if he is to succeed against Clinton.

“We think once this contest becomes a battle between Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, the polls will be another story,” says Nelson Warfield, the Dole campaign’s senior spokesman.

But Dole’s critics, including many within his own party on Capitol Hill, believe that his eagerness to reach accommodation with the White House demonstrates that he may not have the stomach to direct the all-out, partisan war they want to wage against Clinton.

“I think like all politicians, myself included, you listen to your constituents,” says Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.), one of the freshman Republicans taking a tough line on the budget. “For him, he listens to future constituents. There are a lot of people in New Hampshire right now who don’t like the fact that subsidies on heating oil have not been paid because of the government shutdown.”

Among conservatives, Dole also risks being viewed by voters as wishy-washy--a label Clinton has fought throughout his presidency.

“Dole’s unwillingness to fight for the party issues does give a chance to some of his opponents to paint him as nothing less than Clinton himself,” says William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, a strongly pro-GOP magazine.

Despite his commanding lead in the field of nine GOP hopefuls, Dole trails Clinton in most public opinion surveys. Against his party rivals, Dole is the runaway favorite. A CBS News national poll of registered Republicans conducted Jan. 2-3 finds 45% supporting Dole. None of his rivals reach double figures.

Yet those numbers do not show that Dole’s support is soft among GOP conservatives, some analysts say.

“What people see in Dole’s poll numbers is acquiescence instead of enthusiasm, acceptance rather than passion,” says Ross K. Baker, professor of political science at Rutgers University. “Victories go to those who have the most intense support. Dole’s support is like the Platte River in Nebraska--a mile wide and an inch deep.”

For some party activists, Dole’s efforts to reach a budget deal appeared to be a hostile act of fratricide.

Dole, saying “enough is enough,” ushered a vote through the Senate on Tuesday proposing to reopen all federal offices through Jan. 12 as budget negotiations proceeded. The Senate move angered House Republicans, who quickly responded by rejecting the offer.

In the words of one senior Dole advisor, the Senate vote on reopening the government was “a miscalculation.” Rather than putting pressure on the White House to reach a compromise on the budget, the Senate vote fortified Clinton’s argument that the GOP-led House is blocking a budget deal, the advisor says.

Any deal with the White House is more than many conservative Republicans can tolerate.

“A pessimistic view is settling in,” says Richard Viguerie, a GOP political consultant. In contrast to the GOP’s heady optimism earlier this year about the prospects of gaining control of both the legislative and executive branches, “I’m hearing talk already of despair among conservatives and resignation among others that ’96 is not going to be a Republican year at the presidential elections.”