Is GOP Presidential Coalition Now Coughing Up Blood?

If elections were crossword puzzles, we could put the question this way: What has four letters and can’t cope with Patrick J. Buchanan, Ross Perot and Bill Clinton?

The trick is there are two answers: B-u-s-h, in 1992, and this year, maybe D-o-l-e. The four-letter word for what this analogy--as well as the talk among Dole strategists of giving up on California--could mean in November is also easy: l-o-s-e. Moreover, if two third-party candidates turn out to be Ross Perot and Ralph Nader, even President Bill Clinton will have to keep looking over his shoulder, because much of their support will be coming out of his coalition, too. It’s possible this could be the year when America goes from a two-party system to a two-and-half-party system.

For the Republicans, though, one such election could be coincidence, twice in a row could be big trouble. Between 1984 and 1992, the GOP share of the total vote for president dropped from 59%, for Ronald Reagan, to 37.5%, for George Bush, lowest since Alfred M. Landon in 1936. If the election of 1996 mirrors that race, it could have chaotic ramifications.

The possibilities that GOP leaders won’t discuss are these: that the GOP presidential coalition that controlled the White House for 20 out of 24 years between 1968 and 1992 started collapsing four years ago; that Congress went Republication in 1994 only because Clinton was so unpopular, and because the Democratic congressional coalition, basically in power since 1932, was worn out. Now the old GOP presidential coalition is coughing up blood, three or four presidential candidates are almost guaranteed for November and there’s even a 10% chance there could be five significant contenders--a great historic first, as Richard M. Nixon used to say.

Republicans are calling Buchanan and Perot “spoilers,” while Clinton strategists say the same of Nader. Perot and Nader even have roughly the same answer: You can’t be a spoiler running against the Republicans and Democrats; they’ve proved, by corruption or mismanagement, that they’re the spoilers. As for the question, “What do you want, Ross or Pat or Ralph? The answer is simple: “Just what the 60% of Americans who tell pollsters they’d like a third party want: parties that listen to voters instead of to big contributors and special interests.”

True, it’s not that simple. As Jay Leno joked recently, “Why are we talking about a third party when we can’t get rid of the two we already have?” On the other hand, the fact that Perot is launching one new party, Nader has just won the California presidential nomination of another and Buchanan has been asked to accept the nomination of a third, shows the public is figuring something out: When you want to get rid of A and don’t want to go back to B, it helps to have C, D and E available.

Four years ago, when Bush spent spring being kicked in the shins by Buchanan in the GOP primaries and being hamstrung by the unannounced independent, Perot, he wound up getting the lowest November vote share of any incumbent since 1912. That 37.5% in the record books is almost never talked about--probably because most observers think it was (a) a fluke, (b) the personal failure of Bush or (c) both of the above. Suppose, however, it was actually (d) the unraveling of the two-party system? House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said right after the 1994 congressional elections that if the GOP failed, there would be a new third party. Maybe that was a better prediction than those he made a few weeks later, about a Republican revolution stretching two decades into the 21st century.

There’s another little statistic left over from 1992 that observers also decided wasn’t relevant: how 29% of self-identified GOP voters told exit pollsters that they had voted for Clinton or Perot--confirming the largest rank-and-file Republican disaffection since Gallup invented polling in the 1930s.

Now that Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole is repeating the Bush three-step of 1992--being trod on by Buchanan, cut in on by Perot and maybe back-flipped by Clinton--it’s fair to ask how he’s doing with the rest of Bush’s 1992 dance program. Is he now watching the GOP presidential coalition run off with somebody else?

Indeed, the same farewell scenes could be in the script. Recent polls show 15%-18% of self-identified Republicans now plan to vote for Clinton against Dole. In a three-way race, 15%-17% say they’ll back Perot. And some 15%-20% of Republicans call themselves Buchanan supporters. In California, 2% of Republicans even chose Nader in a four-way race.

Under these circumstances, it’s easy to imagine a four-way race in which 15% of Republicans back Clinton, 17% vote for Perot and 2% support Nader. That would be 34% of Republicans bolting the ticket, worse than in 1992. Should “Pitchfork Pat” Buchanan decide that he, too, has had it with the Grand Old Plutocracy, it’s conceivable that up to 40% of Republicans could splinter off.

But why turn away from Dole, who has a long and broad intraparty appeal? The best analogy could be to Walter F. Mondale, the Democrat’s 1984 nominee, who had the same kind of long history in the relatively centrist farm and labor wing of his party that Dole has in the relatively centrist business/chamber of commerce mid-section of the GOP. Mondale lost badly in 1984--not because of any great personal failing but because his politics had become old hat, offering about as much zest as 3-day-old toast.

Dole has some of the same problems today. He has become Bush-like in the sense that he has few ideas, just a drive (“It’s my turn”) to complete his resume. His few program positions are the GOP equivalent of Mondale: cliches about balanced budgets, deregulation and such. When the GOP took over Congress in 1994, Dole lacked enough of an internal compass that he started imitating Texas conservative Sen. Phil Gramm--playing up to the Christian Coalition with outraged movie reviews and helping Gingrich flip the pages of his budget charts at news conferences. This stuff must now embarrass him. And, a few days before he lost to Buchanan in the New Hampshire primary, he confessed, with some bewilderment, that he didn’t realize jobs and trade had become an issue.

This is probably not a function of Dole’s age--though he’ll be 73 by the inauguration. It’s more a matter of his no longer being in tune with the times--in part because the times, as the new century approaches, are swirling. As far back as the 1490s, when Spain sent Christopher Columbus to the new world, the last decades of centuries have been tumultuous periods, when countries, citizens and leaders started getting caught up in a politics and culture of change. The French Revolution in the 1790s was probably the most conspicuous example.

The 1990s, however, are about to close in on an even bigger catalyst for tumult: the millennium. The next administration will be caught up in this pre-millennial hubbub; the new-party support and broad receptivity to new ideas already reflect it. This is part of what Dole seems hard put to deal with; and for all his leadership qualities and strength--and personal integrity--he seems like the wrong president for the next four years. Clinton’s weaknesses, by comparison, might even emerge as strengths. His slogan could be: “Amoral Leadership for an Amoral Era.”

In a sense, it’s fitting that Dole strategists have been talking about giving up on California. The Golden State is not only the birthplace of Perot’s Reform Party and Nader’s Green Party presidential candidacy--as well as the place where the U.S. Taxpayers Party, anxious to nominate Buchanan, will convene in August--it has also been America’s “future land,” the predictor of things to come. National parties do not dismiss California and prosper.

This is especially true of the GOP. As its presidential majority came into being from 1968 to 1992, in four of the five winning elections, the successful nominees were Californians: Nixon and Reagan. If Dole has to give up on California, just as Bush did, the old Republican presidential coalition is already dead.