Dole Defeat Could Make GOP Face World of Change

Assuming Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole goes down to the defeat that every national poll--including a new survey by The Times--forecasts for him, his party will face a harsh new world in which it will be forced to promote fresh faces and develop fresh ideas, according to several GOP strategists and independent analysts.

Indeed, even if the GOP retains control of one or both houses of Congress while absorbing a Dole loss, the political professionals see these major changes looming:

* A shift in influence from House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and other ranking senators. “As we’ve seen by the Democratic campaign against the ‘Gingrich Congress’ all over the country, the speaker’s political currency has been devalued,” said Richard Williamson, a former Reagan White House aide and the GOP’s 1992 Senate candidate in Illinois.

* An elevated role in defining the party’s agenda for the nation’s Republican governors, especially those serving as chief executives in large states. “Whatever else happens to them, the Republicans are alive and well in the states,” said Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institute senior fellow and a White House aide in the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations. “They are overrun with bright young governors.”

* A broadening and mellowing of the party’s traditional anti-government thrust. “Our message has been restricted to where we look like a bunch of people with green eyeshades on,” said Don Sipple, a onetime senior advisor to the Dole campaign. “All [the message] has are fiscal implications, and we need to broaden it out into cultural issues--like drugs, crime and education--where we are problem-solvers.”

* In the year 2000, the most freewheeling race for the party’s presidential nomination in recent history. A Dole defeat would bring to an end an informal and unbroken line of succession within the party in which each presidential nominee has been followed by the man who was his chief rival.

With Dole running mate Jack Kemp facing criticism from some conservatives that he failed to effectively rebut Vice President Al Gore in their debate earlier this month, many party insiders agree no one on the scene now possesses the breadth of support required to establish a preeminent claim on the next nomination. “This election sure as hell opens things up,” said University of Wisconsin political scientist Charles Jones.

Dole and his campaign staff, of course, continue to pursue their bid for an upset victory, arguing that the polls exaggerate the commitment voters have to President Clinton. And the race for Congress, meanwhile, remains too close to give an edge to either party.

And even as many GOP leaders now contemplate a Dole defeat, they take solace in the hopes of future victories.

“I think 1998 is going to be a pretty good Republican year,” said Williamson, citing the past record of the opposition party making significant gains in midterm elections during presidential second terms. Also, Republicans note that Clinton could reap a damaging harvest of ethical troubles, growing out of the inquiries into the Whitewater land deal and more recently the White House’s apparent misappropriation of FBI files.

Still, such Republican optimism is dampened by the question of how the party responds if Dole is unable to overcome Clinton’s large lead in the polls. “Clinton learned from his defeats,” said Emory University political scientist Merle Black. “We’ll see if the Republicans can learn something so that they present themselves as a party the Americans would trust to govern again.”

Indeed, deciding on the lessons of the 1996 campaign is likely to produce bitter intraparty debate, with tensions exacerbated by Dole’s anticipated departure from the scene after his years in the Senate as a conciliator among various GOP factions.

Already, the outlines of the likely post-mortem are taking shape.

“If Dole wins, we supply-siders will take credit for it,” said consultant Jude Wanniski, an ardent advocate for the economic theory that emphasizes cutting taxes to spur economic growth. “If Dole loses, we will blame the economic conservatives for hanging Newt Gingrich around our necks and shutting down the government.”

On the other hand, some in the party are losing no time sniping at Kemp, a longtime champion of supply-side theory, for not living up to the high expectations for his candidacy. Such a verdict would loom as an obstacle to the hopes of Kemp’s admirers that he would emerge from the campaign as next in line for the presidency.

“Jack Kemp has a great future behind him,” said John Pitney, political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. Citing Kemp’s performance in the recent debate, Pitney said: “It’s not that he didn’t get down and dirty, it’s that he didn’t engage the Democrats on the issues.”

The party’s social conservatives, represented by the religious right, can be expected to forcefully argue--should Dole lose--that he erred in not paying more attention to their agenda. Party sources say that Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, fired off memos during the campaign to Dole’s high command, urging the nominee to put more stress on so-called family values and cultural issues. For the most part, that advice has been ignored, and Reed has let it be known he was not satisfied with that response.

But as the religious right vies for influence in defining the GOP’s future direction, it faces plenty of competition. Former Dole aide Sipple sees an opportunity for rebuilding the party by fusing the pragmatism of Republican governors with the ideological fervor of the GOP’s congressional wing.

“It opens the way for the Republican governors who best represent the real world to have an impact on the congressional party to produce one message--a new message,” he said. Among those Sipple may have in mind for this task is one of his clients, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the son of the former president and a prospective presidential candidate in 2000.

One aspect of the GOP unlikely to change is the ideological stance of the Republican House leadership. Even if the Democrats take control of the House and Gingrich keeps his promise to step down as party leader, his likely successor, current House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, is no less conservative--and no less confrontational. “Gingrich is more pugnacious, Armey is more bullheaded,” said veteran GOP consultant David Keene.

But regardless of who commands the House Republicans--and even if they remain the majority--a Clinton reelection would almost assuredly wipe out the opportunity Gingrich had in 1995 to dominate the political agenda. Instead, it would be the triumphant Democratic president who would be calling the tune.

Moreover, some Republicans believe that a stronger role for their senators would help the public perception of the GOP because many of its members are less rigid in their conservatism than their House counterparts. Among the GOP’s rising Senate stars: Florida’s Connie Mack, grandson of the baseball legend and the new head of the Senate Republican conference, whose staffers describe him as “a big-tent guy” eager to expand the party’s base. He should get his chance post-election when he’ll preside over the first effort by GOP senators to draft their own policy agenda.