Flirting With Disaster: Dole’s Negative Coattails

The “Dump Dole” movement is underway.

It started last week when conservative columnist Cal Thomas shocked the political world by calling on Bob Dole to pull out of the race and throw next month’s Republican convention open. “Such a course would be better than disaster,” Thomas wrote, “and a growing number of conservatives around the country think disaster is the destination of the Dole candidacy.”

He’s right. No candidate has ever come from this far behind to win. Dole’s ratings are going the wrong way--down six points since June. Tobacco may have claimed another victim.

Is there anything Dole can do to turn this around? Well, yes. He can get Colin L. Powell on the ticket. But that’s not going to happen. Is there anything else Dole can do? No. No strategic maneuver, no campaign tactic, no brilliant choice of running mate, no eloquent acceptance speech, nothing. Dole gave it his best shot when he left the Senate. It was bold, it was widely applauded. And it didn’t mean much. He’s still 17 points behind.

Does that mean the election is over? No. A lot could happen to destroy public confidence in President Bill Clinton. A Whitewater indictment. A foreign-policy crisis. A stock-market crash. None of them is likely. But any one could happen. The point is, events like that are not under the control of the GOP campaign.

What has conservatives in a panic is not the prospect of Dole’s losing. Many conservatives have already given up on him. Anti-abortion forces are planning to challenge even the weak tolerance language in the draft GOP platform. The National Rifle Assn. is threatening to withhold its endorsement because Dole no longer supports a repeal of the assault-weapons ban.

Conservatives are reacting with dismay to the line-up of “liberal” speakers on the first night of the convention: Powell, Gerald R. Ford, George Bush and Dole’s choice for keynote speaker, pro-choice Rep. Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.). Not a movement conservative among them. Patrick J. Buchanan? Right now, there is no plan for him to speak at all.

What panics conservatives is that Dole’s negative coattails may bring the whole party down. In Thomas’ view, Republicans have to ask themselves, “whether it is worth losing everything that conservatives have worked for since Barry Goldwater just so Bob Dole can go down in flames, taking other Republicans with him.”

Republicans stand a good chance of losing the crown jewel of 1994--the House of Representatives. Since 1960, three presidents have won landslide reelections: Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, Richard M. Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1984. Each landslide brought substantial gains in the House.

Democrats need a net gain of 20 seats to reclaim the House. If Clinton wins by a landslide--15 points or more--a 20-seat gain seems possible, given the large number of vulnerable seats the GOP will be defending because of its 1994 landslide.

Much depends on turnout. The big GOP victories of 1980 and 1994 were driven by huge turnouts of Republican voters.

The last time Republicans suffered a serious setback was in the “Watergate election” of 1974. That year, demoralized Republicans stayed home. If that happens again this year, GOP candidates across the country will be swept away.

The signs are not encouraging. The kinds of voters who came out in huge numbers in 1994--Christian conservatives, gun owners and Southern whites--are not enthralled by Dole. In one poll this month, almost half those planning to vote for Dole say they expect him to lose.

The GOP rank-and-file is demoralized. Demoralized voters tend to stay home. Only one thing can get them out: a resurgence of the Clinton hatred that drove them to the polls in such large numbers two years ago. Don’t expect a kinder, gentler GOP convention.

The convention may not be so kind or gentle to Dole, either. If he continues to look weak, you can expect an ideologically raucous meeting. Remember: Dole moved to the right in the GOP primaries--he had to compete with Buchanan for conservative support, and outflank Steve Forbes and Lamar Alexander.

It worked--but Dole may pay a price for that strategy at the convention. Many Dole delegates are conservatives first and Dole supporters second. If they see disaster looming, it may be hard for Dole forces to hold conservative delegates in line.

What kind of disaster is looming? Suppose Republicans lose the House. Then Newt Gingrich’s speakership will be judged a failure. That will end his national ambitions. Losing the House would also short-circuit the careers of some promising young Republicans--like John R. Kasich (R-Ohio), the budget committee chair.

A big Senate loss would be a damaging blow to the new majority leader, Trent Lott (R-Miss.), and to Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.), chief strategist of the GOP Senate campaign. It could also end the careers of such prominent conservatives as Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) and Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). Liberals will dance in the streets.

And a lot of Democrats will get a big career boost. Like Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), who would become speaker. Gephardt would then compete with the White House for control of the Democratic agenda. And with Al Gore for the Democratic nomination in 2000. Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), the Democrats’ Senate campaign chairman, would be heralded as the genius who won back the Senate. Thomas A. Daschle of South Dakota, the new Senate majority leader, would become a Democratic star.

It would be a liberal’s dream. And a conservative’s nightmare.

At best, conservatives are hoping that Dole will end up being another George Bush. Bush lost in 1992, but he had no negative coattails. The GOP suffered no net Republican losses in either the House or Senate. Actually, a lot of conservatives look at Bush’s defeat as the best thing that ever happened. If Bush had been reelected, 1994 would have been a tremendous setback for the GOP. Instead, with Clinton in the White House, their dream of taking over Congress came true.

Republicans may not be so lucky in 1996. They won’t have redistricting to help them, as it did in 1992. And they’ll be defending many more vulnerable GOP House seats. Bush’s loss was no big deal. Dole means doom. Possibly as serious as the great landslides of 1964 and 1972.

But with a difference. Barry M. Goldwater and George S. McGovern were movement politicians. But their parties were not movements. They were broad and diverse electoral coalitions. Today, Dole is trying to practice the art of coalition politics. His problem is that the GOP has become the party of the conservative movement.

Coalition politics means bringing together diverse constituencies that agree on one thing: getting Clinton out of the White House. If you want Clinton out, Dole says, welcome to the GOP. No further questions asked. Not about abortion, trade, gay rights, the United Nations or gun control. The only position you’re expected to take is anti-Clinton.

Movement leaders like Buchanan take divisive positions on everything. To be part of the Buchanan movement, you’re supposed to be anti-abortion, anti-free trade, anti-gay rights, anti-United Nations and anti-gun control. Not just anti-Clinton. If you don’t agree on everything, you’re not part of the movement. You’re suspect. Like Dole.

Coalition politics is the art of addition. Convince voters to oppose Clinton, then add them to the coalition. Movement politics is the art of subtraction. Exclude everybody who’s not politically correct. Then rally the faithful.

Reagan spoke the language of movement politics. He took politically correct conservative positions on everything. But he practiced coalition politics. He never denounced or excluded any Republican who disagreed with him. He had an expansive, buoyant vision of the GOP--not the harsh, constricted vision that dominated the 1992 convention.

Right now, the pressure is on Dole to choose a movement conservative as his running mate, to prove his faithfulness. But Reagan never picked a movement conservative as his running mate. In 1980, he made overtures to Ford and finally picked Bush--two extremely establishment Republicans.

Movements do not thrive in American politics. They’re too divisive and exclusionary. It took the Democrats 20 years, and many bitter losses, to cast off the movement mentality of 1972. The Republicans never did that. And they’re paying a price. A Congress far too radical for the American people. And a party far too radical for its nominee.

Can movement conservatives dump Dole? No. Who are they going to nominate? Buchanan? Gingrich? You can’t beat somebody with nobody. But will they learn a lesson if Dole loses? No. They’ll say he lost because he wasn’t a true conservative. They’ll take it as proof that coalition politics is futile. When in fact, it’s the only chance Dole’s got.*