Campaign ‘96: Challenging Clinton from the Senate invites the Democrats’ sabotage.

If Bob Dole were not universally regarded as a legislative genius and parliamentary magician, we might better understand how easily he got ensnared in a trap that could have been detected by an astute 20-year-old political science major. Dole’s decision to fight for the presidency from the office of Senate majority leader may well prove to be the biggest tactical mistake of his political career, for now he is compelled to do battle on terrain in which the ground rules work against him.

To comprehend the enormity of Dole’s error, it is first necessary to understand what Congress does best and what it does least well. The framers of the Constitution feared, above all else, a runaway legislature that would pass oppressive laws, so they divided legislative power between two chambers and made the enactments of Congress subject to a presidential veto. What they fashioned was an institution designed to make things not happen. Efficiency and the leadership’s ability to deliver legislation on demand was the farthest thing from their minds.

So when Dole vows to get a vote on some bill or even bring it up for debate, it is more a hope than a promise. His ability to deliver is contingent not only on the cooperation of his own party in both the House and the Senate but also, in large measure, on the acquiescence of Democrats in his own chamber who possess some potent tools to gut Dole’s promises. When the president threatens a veto, however, he has the power to make good on it. He need consult no one; he need build no majorities.

Even if GOP control over both houses were materially stronger and party discipline tighter than it is now, Dole would still be at a serious disadvantage. Republicans have proved themselves less cohesive as the 104th Congress has progressed, and the differences between House and Senate Republicans have never been more pronounced.

Senate Republicans do not feel morally obliged to follow the game plan of House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his “contract with America.” Institutional conceit runs strong in the Senate, and not even the most sympathetic Senate conservative wants his chamber to bob along like a cockboat behind Gingrich’s man o’ war. This split has bedeviled the GOP from the very first days of this Congress.

GOP senators up for election this year are not very comfortable being associated in the public’s mind with Gingrich, whose unpopularity has plumbed new depths. And even though the speaker has graciously deferred to the senator, and, indeed, has been uncharacteristically restrained in recent weeks, he is a man always poised on the brink of blurting out something that astonishes. Although Dole may try to avoid the fallout from Gingrich’s pronouncements, as party standard-bearer, he becomes answerable for Gingrich’s shockers.

But even if Gingrich manages to hide his light under a bushel for the next six months and give Dole no grief, there is another potential ambush ahead on the road from the Hill to the White House. The Senate Democrats, although reduced in numbers since 1994, are still able to parry almost any Dole initiative with the upper chamber’s most feared weapon: the filibuster.

The Senate minority can deploy the filibuster to do the president’s dirty work. It had been part of Dole’s tactical plan to present Clinton with bills that are popular with the general public but contain provisions opposed by important Democratic constituencies or disliked by the president himself. Clinton would then be presented with a succession of no-win situations in which he must accede to flawed legislation or veto bills that are favored by a majority of voters. But a bill successfully filibustered in the Senate will not reach the president’s desk unless an almost unattainable majority of 60 senators votes to close off debate.

Dole’s decision to remain in the majority leader’s post while he campaigns for the presidency is usually defended on the ground that he alone could engineer the legislative reversals that would show up Bill Clinton as ineffectual, but it is Bob Dole whose deficiencies have been revealed. Last week, Dole was unable even to prevail upon his usually deferential junior colleague from Kansas, Nancy L. Kassebaum, to accept his medical savings account amendment on the health insurance bill she coauthored with Ted Kennedy.

A candidate for the presidency needs to be seen as someone who is master in his own house. Not only has Dole been unable to demonstrate this mastery, but he increasingly appears to be at the mercy of the household’s most junior members while Clinton sits at the head of the table and leads the family in grace.