Successes of Republican Governors Stand as Guidepost for National GOP

On Capitol Hill, the Republican revolution seems to be grinding its gears.

Just two years ago, young conservatives led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich were mobilizing to storm the gates of the welfare state. Now, GOP congressional leaders appear uncertain how to regain the initiative from President Clinton.

“They lack confidence in their next move,” said William Miller, a Republican consultant based in Austin, Texas.

But in the states, Republicans continue to drive the debate, in no small part because of their success at winning governorships. At the National Governors’ Assn.’s winter meeting in Washington this week, Republicans will fill most of the seats. Of the 50 governors, 32 are Republicans--the most since 1970. And among the nine most populous states, only Florida remains in Democratic hands.

As they delivered their state of the state addresses in recent weeks, these Republican chief executives swaggered the way congressional Republicans once did.

* “The Connecticut comeback is underway because we . . . have decided to reject the free-spending, high-tax formulas of the 1980s,” declared Connecticut Gov. John Rowland.

* “The state of our great state is healthy and vibrant,” insisted Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

* “Today, our state leads the nation in areas where--just two short years ago--we were dead last,” crowed New York’s George Pataki.

With only a few exceptions (like California’s Pete Wilson), almost all the big-state GOP governors--Jim Edgar in Illinois, John Engler in Michigan, Christine Todd Whitman in New Jersey and especially Bush in Texas--can back up their attitude with solid approval ratings. Although several might yet face tough races, none of the most prominent Republican governors would now be considered underdogs for reelection.

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The strength of the Republican governors underscores both the continuing power of the small-government argument that defines the modern GOP, and the failure of the national party to convert that sentiment into a majority agenda after its breakthrough in 1994. For Republicans in Washington, the success of the GOP governors should be as much reproach as inspiration.

Indeed, the GOP’s dominance at the gubernatorial level--particularly in the high-population states--raises a stark question: Why are Republicans winning these states in gubernatorial elections but not presidential contests? Last year, Bob Dole carried only Texas among the eight largest states where Republicans now sit in the governor’s chair.

To some extent the answer is self-evident: State and national politics run along distinct and not always parallel tracks. But the two tracks are not entirely independent. During the 1970s and 1980s, the inability of Democratic presidential nominees to carry states that routinely elected Democratic governors signaled the national party’s dangerous tilt away from the center. Likewise, the experience of the Republican governors offers some significant lessons for the national GOP today.

Consider social issues. In the national party platform and the selection of its presidential ticket, the GOP has been unable to demonstrate any meaningful flexibility on such litmus-test social issues as abortion and gun control. Last fall, Clinton exploited that rigidity in his breakthroughs among suburban moderates, particularly women.

The Republican governors have proved much more supple in adapting themselves to local conditions on these polarizing issues.

Those from socially conservative states--such as Bush, David Beasley in South Carolina and Engler--clearly identify themselves as antiabortion. But across the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast states that form the heart of Clinton’s new electoral college majority, many GOP governors--including Whitman, Pataki, Wilson, Edgar, William F. Weld in Massachusetts and Thomas J. Ridge in Pennsylvania--support abortion rights; most of them also back the assault-weapons ban that Dole initially pledged to repeal.

In contrast to the national party, says GOP consultant Dan Schnur, “Republican governors, by and large, have been smart enough not to get bogged down in ideological firefights over issues like abortion and guns.”

On economic issues, the governors and Republicans in Congress strike more similar themes. But even on this front, the governors have mostly closed the doors that the congressional GOP and Dole left open for Clinton.

The difference in strategy on this front is subtle but telling. All the leading Republican governors qualify as fiscal conservatives. Tellingly, the 50 states this year will increase their spending by an average of only 4%, according to the National Assn. of State Budget Officers; that’s only half the 8% average annual increase during the 1980s, when Democrats held most governorships. Although many of the reductions are small, 27 states are cutting taxes in the current fiscal year; Rowland, Pataki, Bush and Terry E. Branstad in Iowa, among others, are proposing further tax cuts this year.

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But while the Republican governors identify with small government, almost all take pains to avoid being seen as anti-government. In contrast to a congressional party that defined itself in 1995 almost entirely by eliminating programs, the governors balance their calls for spending restraint with high-profile support for popular government activities.

Particularly in the Northeast, many emphasize measures to protect the environment. Conscious of the gender gap, even more are pursuing initiatives targeted specifically at women. In Illinois, Edgar is convening a summit to hatch new plans for improving women’s health; in New York, Pataki has called for legislation to prevent insurance companies from forcing women from the hospital too quickly after a mastectomy.

Eyeing another pivotal constituency, this year several have broken from the congressional GOP to call for restoring welfare benefits to legal immigrants. Whitman and George Voinovich in Ohio want to expand health care coverage for uninsured children.

Most important, all of the leading GOP governors emphasize education. In their state of the state addresses, Republican governors from Pataki to Bush to Wilson embraced the same educational priorities Clinton cited in his news conference last week: ensuring that all third-graders can read, expanding charter schools, strengthening academic standards, increasing access to computers and the Internet. In a vivid counterpoint to Dole’s jab at the teachers’ unions in his acceptance speech last summer, Whitman, Beasley and Voinovich all praised teachers in their state of the state addresses. Several bragged about increasing education spending.

“Every one of these governors talk about education in a way that attracts people to our side, rather than drives them away, as they do at the national level,” said Karl Rove, the chief strategist for Bush. “It is very hard to convince anybody you are pro-education if all you are talking about is eliminating the Department of Education.”

In many ways, the GOP governors are playing on an easier course than their congressional colleagues. Few face opponents as agile and dogged as Clinton. All are benefiting from swelling state treasuries that have made it easier to cut taxes. The third rail of American politics--the public’s resistance to cuts in Social Security and Medicare--crackles only at the national level.

The real question for the GOP--just as for Democrats in the 1980s--is whether one of these state executives can adapt his or her model into a formula for winning the party’s presidential nomination and the White House. The great mentioners scoping out potential GOP candidates for the year 2000 already have their eyes on at least half a dozen governors. Everyone’s list starts with Bush, but the roster of conceivable contenders extends from Pataki (“He’s the sleeper,” said one ranking GOP strategist), Whitman and Ridge to Engler, Wisconsin’s Tommy G. Thompson and even Wilson, who’s still showing signs of the bug.

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If they grabbed the ring, many of these Republican governors might have difficulty establishing clear contrasts in a presidential campaign with a centrist Democrat like Vice President Al Gore, who’s entirely comfortable with almost all the themes they stress. That’s a problem they would be happy to face. First they have to convince a Republican Party now centered on Congress that a detour to Austin or Albany offers the quickest route back to the White House.

Ronald Brownstein’s column appears in this space each Monday.