The Double-Edged Mandate

Here’s the conventional wisdom on the 1996 presidential race: It’s over.

No candidate this far behind this late in the campaign has ever turned things around and won. For GOP nominee Bob Dole to win, something dramatic would have to happen to destroy public confidence in President Bill Clinton. A stock-market crash. U.S. pilots taken hostage in Iraq. The first lady indicted by the Whitewater special prosecutor. Or the president named an unindicted co-conspirator.

Those are all dire scenarios, maybe dire enough to turn the election around. But remember two things: (1) A crisis tends to produce an initial surge of support for the president. Back in 1979, the hostage-takings in Iran initially boosted President Jimmy Carter’s support enough for him to beat Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) in the primaries. (2) Any move against the Clintons by the Whitewater special prosecutor now would be seen as highly political--and could backfire.

Pat Robertson told the Christian Coalition last week it would take “a miracle from almighty God” for Dole to win. For a guy in Robertson’s business, that’s a sign of optimism. Don’t believe in miracles? Look at Clinton in 1994 and in 1996.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, the miracle happens. Dole wins. Would he come in with a mandate?

And how. Dole will have won the greatest turnaround in modern electoral history, surpassing even Harry S. Truman’s in 1948. Republicans would almost certainly retain their majority in Congress, which would give them wall-to-wall control of government for the first time in more than 40 years--the presidency, the House, the Senate, most state governments, even the U.S. Supreme Court. The repudiation of the Democrats would be complete.

The pressure to pass the “contract with America” and the platform would be immense. That’s why it’s unlikely.

A more likely scenario? Clinton wins reelection and the Republicans retain control of Congress--most important, the House of Representatives, which has been the vanguard of the GOP revolution.

That outcome would be easy to interpret. It means 1996 is a status-quo election. People are basically satisfied with the way things are going, so they’re voting to reelect incumbents. It’s what they did in the 1980s, when voters regularly reelected a Republican president and a Democratic Congress. Only now its a Democratic president and a Republican Congress. Same difference.

It would mean that the voters really do prefer divided government. After their distressing experiences with health-care reform and the “contract with America,” voters don’t want to give either party complete control. No big agendas, please. Would it be a mandate for gridlock? No. It would be a mandate for both parties to stick to the center and turn out compromise legislation--like last month’s highly popular welfare reform, minimum wage and health-insurance reforms. See? Divided government works.

Suppose Clinton wins and Democrats regain control of Congress. Clinton in, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) out--what a triumph for the Democrats! That outcome is beginning to look like a serious possibility. When voters are asked how they will vote for Congress, Democrats are now 10 points ahead of Republicans. A blowout. If the situation doesn’t get any better for Republicans, Gingrich may announce he will not run for another term as Speaker. He will sacrifice himself to save the GOP majority.

Suppose the Democrats win a wall-to-wall victory. The sense of mandate would be powerful. Congressional Democrats would claim their own mandate, separate from Clinton’s--especially if most of them run ahead of Clinton in their districts. A three-way presidential race makes that more likely. In 1992, most congressional Democrats ran ahead of Clinton. That’s why they felt they could lead the new president along--to his doom.

One Democrat in particular would be looking for a mandate--Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), the new Speaker of the House. Gephardt is likely to challenge Vice President Al Gore for the Democratic nomination in 2000. To do that, he’ll want to use his speakership to build support in the party’s liberal-labor base.

Liberals would assume key positions in the new House. African American Democrats would control important committees: Ways and Means (Charles B. Rangel. N.Y.), National Security (Ronald V. Dellums, Calif.), Judiciary (John Conyers Jr., Mich.), Economics and Educational Opportunities (William Clay Sr., Mo.).

Liberals and labor Democrats would take over other key committees: Appropriations (David R. Obey, Wis.), Commerce (John D. Dingell, Mich.), Resources (George Miller, Calif.), Government Reform and Oversight (Henry Waxman, Calif.). Not to mention Gephardt and Majority Leader David E. Bonior (D-Mich.).

After interviewing a number of these Democratic chairmen-in-waiting, David Broder wrote last week that their agendas “could spell a resumption of activist government.” According to Broder, “They not only reject the tax-cutting, program-trimming priorities of this Republican Congress but . . . their sights are set on broader and costlier goals than the rhetoric of the recent Democratic National Convention would imply.”

Expect the GOP to run ads next month warning voters what will happen if the Democrats retake the House. But the Republicans had better be careful. If they try to scare voters with pictures of black committee chairmen, it’ll look like an appeal to racism.

Do voters want to go back to 1993-94, the only time the Democrats controlled everything since the 1970s? Evidence suggests they do not. The 1994 election should be a caution. Less than two years ago, the voters repudiated the Democratic Congress for its arrogance and its liberal excesses.

Distrust of government is still strong. In a poll taken this month, many more voters described the federal government as more a part of the problem (62%) than a part of the solution (24%).

And how can Democrats claim a mandate after their own convention disavowed the party’s big government tradition? The Democrats are running a small agenda campaign. Their big idea for 1996 is--ta da!--”a bridge to the 21st century.” The future lies before us! How bold.

Consider the landslide elections of this century. Some came with big mandates. Some didn’t. The landslides of 1920, 1936, 1964 and 1980 all came with mandates: isolationism, the New Deal, civil rights and the Great Society, Reaganomics and the defense build-up.

The 1972 and 1984 landslides came with far weaker mandates. Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan ran personal campaigns, separate from their party. Their agenda was the status quo (“peace is at hand,” “morning in America”). They had weak coattails.

What defines a big mandate election? A big campaign agenda. Coattails. And a crisis: the Red Scare and the League of Nations crisis in 1920, the Great Depression in 1936, civil rights in 1964, inflation and “America held hostage” in 1980.

There’s no comparable crisis this year. And no big Democratic agenda. But if the Democrats hold the White House and reclaim both houses of Congress, they won’t be able to resist the conclusion that there’s a mandate in there somewhere.

What will it be?

Two things: Long live New Democrats! And down with New Republicans! A sweeping Democratic victory would not be a sign that voters want to return to the discredited Democratic past. More likely, it would be a sign that they approve of the party’s repudiation of its past. They believe Clinton when he says, “The era of big government is over.” It’s now safe to vote Democratic.

A sweeping Democratic victory would also mean a repudiation of the GOP. It would be a negative mandate to Republicans, just as clearly as 1994 was a negative mandate to Democrats. The message to the GOP would be: Stop threatening the safety net. And keep your distance from the gun lobby and the religious right.

It would mean the voters feel they have accomplished one goal: Getting the Democrats to move to the center, away from the excesses of big government. What convinced them to do that? Simple--they got their brains beaten out by the voters. But the Republicans have still not learned. So voters have to teach them the same lesson. 1996 looks like a good opportunity to beat the GOP’s brains out.

But would voters risk giving so much power to the Democrats just to teach the GOP a lesson? Has their faith in the Democrats been restored? The voters will have to give careful thought to those questions. They’ll be prodded to do so by GOP ads likely to start running soon if their polls don’t improve.

On the other hand, if the voters are persuaded to hold back from turning Congress over to the Democrats, Republicans will fail to get the right message. They’ll say there’s nothing wrong with the GOP or their revolution. Dole lost because he wasn’t a real conservative. Just like George Bush.

For conservatives, losing Bush was no big deal. In fact, it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to them. If Bush had been reelected, they would never have won Congress in 1994. If Republicans keep control of Congress this year, they’ll take the mandate to be: We’re OK. Dole’s not. To hell with him.

And they will have learned nothing.