Next President Will Be Traffic Cop Confronting Domestic Policy Pileup

Ever since George W. Bush flunked a pop geography quiz from a Boston television reporter last month, the leading presidential candidates have faced pointed questions about their readiness to conduct foreign affairs. That’s a legitimate issue, but it’s overshadowing an equally pertinent question: Who is best equipped to break the stalemate over domestic policy?

No challenge may be more critical for the next president. President Clinton and the Republican Congress have been able to agree on so little in the past three years that gridlock no longer adequately describes the problem. Southern Californians would recognize the dysfunctional deadlock between the parties as a SigAlert--a pileup that has all lanes blocked.

Maybe the 2000 election will untangle the mess by providing one party a free hand to implement its agenda. But don’t count on it. Even if one side wins unified control of the White House and Congress, the odds are slim that it will amass a commanding majority in either the House or the Senate. Most analysts consider it far more likely that the election will leave control of the next Congress too narrowly divided for either party to simply force its ideas on the other.

That means that, to advance his agenda, the next president will need to reconstruct the sort of bipartisan coalition that’s virtually vanished in Washington. That won’t be easy in a Congress riven by partisan, ideological and, increasingly, personal divisions. “Abraham Lincoln used to liken himself to Blondin, the [French] acrobat who strung the cable across the Niagara gorge and walked across,” says political scientist Ross Baker of Rutgers University. “That would not be an inappropriate metaphor for the next president.”

Which of the leading candidates has the skill to walk that line and make progress in an environment where power is precariously balanced between the two parties? The answer isn’t black and white; all bring different assets to the table.

Many believe the two Democratic contenders would approach the problem from opposite directions. After solidifying his ties with congressional Democrats during this campaign, Vice President Al Gore might rely heavily on an “inside game” of pragmatic negotiation with Congress. Bill Bradley, who sometimes displayed a Jimmy Carter-like aversion to legislative horse-trading during his Senate career, seems more likely to emphasize an “outside game” of pressuring Congress by mobilizing the public behind his ideas.

Bradley would be helped by good relations with Republican moderates, who see him as a kindred soul, not so much in ideology as in temperament. His problem is that his agenda--bedecked with such liberal priorities as registering handguns and spending (at least) $65 billion a year on health care for the uninsured--doesn’t offer much that Republican moderates, or even centrist Democrats, can easily embrace. “Bradley would carry ideological baggage, not personal baggage,” notes Marshall Wittmann of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Gore’s problem could be the opposite. On health care, the budget and personal responsibility for absent fathers, his agenda might offer a more plausible basis for compromise with Republicans. Gore, for instance, has already endorsed a modest tax cut and an increase in defense spending, while Bradley isn’t supporting either; that could make it easier for Gore than Bradley to meet Republicans halfway. Yet Gore’s own sharp-edged partisan style--and the legacy of conservative antagonism toward President Clinton--would probably make it much harder for Gore to deal with Republicans on a personal basis.

In contrast to Gore and Bradley, the leading Republicans might have the most trouble managing their own party. That prospect is most apparent with Sen. John McCain of Arizona. In his Senate career, McCain has been a throwback to an earlier generation of Republican centrists who prided themselves on reaching across party lines. His relations with fellow Republicans have been more problematic.

On some issues, including this year’s legislation limiting lawsuits against computer companies over the Y2K problem, McCain has built coalitions with broad support in both parties. But on the recent disputes where he’s taken the most visible stands, he has persuaded few in his own party to follow. Just 13 Republican senators voted with him in 1998 to break a conservative filibuster against his plan to combat teen smoking; only six GOP senators voted to end a filibuster against his campaign finance bill this fall. In each instance, virtually all Democratic senators supported McCain.

Against that backdrop, it’s not surprising that McCain in a recent interview with the Washington Post’s David Broder suggested the model for his presidency would be Theodore Roosevelt--a Republican who used the bully pulpit to force reforms on a reluctant GOP. “If the Republican Party nominates me, I am the leader, and I would expect [GOP legislators] to do certain things,” McCain insists. But to reform the campaign finance system, McCain, like Bradley, would need to mobilize massive public pressure on Congress.

Of the four top contenders, Texas Gov. Bush might have the easiest time moving Washington forward--at least initially. His emphasis on encouraging more state testing in education and his promise of tax cuts for the working poor could attract some centrist Democrats to his key proposals. And in Texas, where Democrats hold a six-seat majority in the state House and Republicans a one-seat advantage in the state Senate, Bush has displayed a knack for assembling bipartisan compromises to advance his ideas. “To the extent that people want to work together . . . he can build consensus,” says Democratic Rep. Paul Sadler, the shrewd chairman of the Texas House Committee on Public Education.

Yet Bush wouldn’t be immune to the ideological crosscurrents that have made Washington so treacherous in Clinton’s second term. Even if affably presented, his agenda is built primarily around conservative ideas (such as cutting the top income tax rates) that few Democrats are likely to support. He might have even more trouble restraining congressional conservatives eager to advance polarizing ideas he’d rather suppress. Keeping his own troops in line, while reaching out to the other side, will test the agility of whoever walks the tightrope into the Oval Office after bitter years in which warfare has become Washington’s way of life.

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See current and past Brownstein columns on The Times’ Web site at: https://www.latimes.com/brownstein