GOP Congressional Leaders Wrestle With Rebels Spoiling for a Fight

On one side of Capitol Hill, Republicans are recovering from the aborted conservative coup against House Speaker Newt Gingrich. On the other, House Democratic leader Richard A. Gephardt is systematically cutting himself loose from President Clinton. That’s no coincidence. This turmoil shares the same fuel--the enormous unease that the enforced cohabitation in Washington is generating among the true believers in both parties.

In each of these sandbox revolutions, more than ideology is involved. Gephardt’s serial dissents from the administration on the budget, welfare, China, free trade and reforming Medicare derive partly from the Missourian’s need to create contrasts against Vice President Al Gore for 2000. Meanwhile, Gingrich’s ethical problems, his low public approval rating and his tendency to shoot from the lip all encouraged the plotting against him.

But on each side the unrest has at its core an ideological grudge. The edges of both parties are simultaneously rebelling against Clinton’s success at narrowing the policy choices to a slim space around the center. Gephardt and his allies on the Democratic left think that Clinton is conceding too much to the Republicans. The conservatives think that Gingrich--and for that matter, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.)--are conceding too much to Clinton. “The problem stems from a decision to not engage the president on any fundamental issues,” said Rep. David M. McIntosh (R-Ind.), a leading House dissident.

If anything, the palace intrigue of the past few weeks suggests that this tension is now greater among Republicans than Democrats. However much they dislike Clinton’s direction, most congressional Democrats will grudgingly acknowledge that he has carried the party to a stronger position than appeared possible after the GOP sweep in 1994.

Gingrich, by contrast, is confronting the classic revolution of rising expectations. Many Republicans believed that 1994 was the pivot to a new era of conservative dominance. But since the budget showdown in 1995, the GOP has been forced into an unsatisfying series of compromises.

With an agreement in place to balance the budget and cut taxes, it is difficult to argue that Republicans are losing ground. But they are not advancing nearly as far or as fast as they once hoped, and they have been repeatedly forced to accept Clinton priorities--such as raising the minimum wage--that are anathema to most conservatives. For both parties today, the balance sheet is an ambiguous mixture of gains and losses.

At the root of the discontent over Gingrich is the rebels’ hunger for a more adversarial strategy. They want the GOP to force confrontations with Clinton on issues that will sharpen the differences between the parties. McIntosh has his own list of candidates: taxes, reforming the tort law and regulatory systems, rolling back racial preferences. Others would add school choice and school prayer.

That fists-forward approach has broad appeal among younger House conservatives. But with the GOP holding just a 10-seat majority in the House, the conservatives can’t pass many ideas unacceptable to GOP moderates. And many of the moderates have reason to be cautious about a strategy of sustained head-banging with Clinton.

Most of those counseling confrontation come from safely Republican districts. But 91 House Republicans, many of them from the East and Midwest, are sitting in districts that Clinton carried in the presidential race last year. Clinton’s demonstrated appeal in their own backyards may make many of them think twice about flat-out warfare with him.

The advocates of confrontation face one other major problem: The public likes cooperation. The deals Lott engineered with Clinton last summer over welfare reform, the minimum wage and health care raised Congress’ standing in the polls and probably saved the GOP’s majority. Likewise, private surveys in both parties showed Congress’ approval rating spiking up after the GOP reached the budget deal with Clinton--and then slipping down during the battle over disaster relief. “The numbers offer a very strong reinforcement that consensual government has a lot of appeal to the American electorate,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff.

Despite all this, the pressure inside the Republican Party for more confrontation is becoming irresistible. The challenge will be choosing the right fights. Even with Clinton crowding the center, the Republicans can always open a distinction by moving to his right. The hard part is to hold a majority of public support while doing so.

Congressional Republicans, after all, established a clear contrast when they shut down the government in 1995 to push their budget plan; but Clinton rallied most Americans to his side in the showdown and revived his presidency. Likewise, Republicans have been taking a hard line on taxes in this year’s budget talks; but they may be softening as even GOP strategists such as Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition, worry that they are playing a losing hand by trying to deny the children’s tax credit to working-poor families.

With public opinion and government power both divided, politicians in both parties are making these calculations in an environment short on familiar landmarks. Those who have prospered--such as Clinton, Lott and Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.)--have been flexible in building new coalitions and disciplined in picking their fights. Those who have struggled--like Gephardt--have stubbornly attempted to apply old formulas to new circumstances.

Gingrich falls somewhere in between. At times, the Georgian pushed for a more tempered approach to dealing with Clinton; at others, he’s displayed a profligate combativeness; at still others, a lack of any direction. He could easily show more engagement. But the dirty secret may be that there’s nothing he can do to entirely end the frustration of House Republicans who have watched their revolution grind down into trench warfare with a president who has outmaneuvered them more often than not.

“Only two things will end this Republican fratricide,” said Reed: major congressional gains in 1998 or winning the White House in 2000. Until reinforcements arrive, Gingrich should probably keep his parachute close at hand.

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