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GOP Doesn’t Want Voters Asking: Are We Better Off Than 4 Years Ago?

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Ronald Brownstein's column appears in this space every Monday

In all things, Republicans these days revere Ronald Reagan.

Except one.

In the final days of the 1980 presidential campaign, Reagan drove the last stake into Jimmy Carter by asking the voters a memorably pointed question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Much as they love the Gipper, the contenders for his party’s next presidential nomination are already working overtime to convince the country that isn’t the right question to ask in 2000.

Listen to what former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander said last week when he formally opened his second bid for the presidency: “Today my question is, ‘Will our country be better off four years from now . . . ?’ ”

Or this from Elizabeth Hanford Dole: “It isn’t enough to ask ourselves, ‘Are we better off?’ What we should be asking is: ‘Are we better?’ ”

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And this from Arizona Sen. John McCain: “Even amid today’s peace and prosperity, the people know that something is wrong with the country. Ask any American one question: ‘Are you proud?’ ”

When politicians try to discourage voters from asking an obvious question, it’s usually because they wouldn’t like the answer. And that’s what’s happening here.

Presidential elections turn partly on how the country evaluates the contenders as individuals. But history suggests the first question Americans ask themselves is whether they are satisfied with the country’s direction. When about half the country or more answers yes--as it did in 1984, 1988 and 1996--the president or his party usually holds the White House. When a clear majority of Americans answer no, the incumbent or his party is usually swept away--as were Carter in 1980 and George Bush in 1992.

Today, the level of satisfaction with the country’s direction is as high as it’s been in years. More than half of Americans say the country is on the right track--and have said so for the longest period that many pollsters can recall. In a recent Gallup poll, 7 Americans in 10 said the economy was the best in their lifetime; 52% said even on noneconomic measures, conditions in the country were the best they could remember.

All that is a powerful head wind confronting Republicans arguing for change in 2000. Even shrewd GOP strategists understand that, if it lasts, this broad contentment will make Vice President Al Gore (should he win the Democratic nomination) much harder to beat than it now looks from polls showing him trailing Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the GOP front-runner.

“The enormous factor that a Republican trying to take away the White House will have to deal with is that people are satisfied more or less with the conditions that the Clinton-Gore years in the White House have produced,” says Jeff Bell, a senior advisor to GOP hopeful Gary Bauer.

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In those circumstances, the first task for the challengers is to change the subject. “You focus on something that nobody has really thought about and say: ‘That is the real problem,’ ” says GOP pollster Bill McInturff. That’s what Democrat John F. Kennedy did in 1960 when he alarmed a basically content country about a Russian “missile gap.” The Republican contenders are trying to do the same thing now.

One way to look at the Republican candidates’ early speeches is as a series of casting calls for the “missile gap” of 2000. Almost universally, the Republican hopefuls are suggesting that the Democrats should be ousted from the White House next year because taxes are too high, school performance too low, America’s defenses too weak and foreign policy too unsteady.

But Republicans are placing their heaviest bets on the concerns inherent in the questions from Dole (“Are we better?”) and McCain (“Are we proud?”). Despite the economic prosperity, they’re all arguing that America has lost its way morally--a case that also allows them (with varying specificity) to tap into the rage among GOP primary voters about Clinton’s affair with Monica S. Lewinsky. “What they are trying to do is create a moral right track/wrong track for voters to consider,” says GOP strategist Mike Murphy.

Those arguments may well be the GOP’s strongest next year. But as McInturff notes, they will require candidates whose own personal lives can withstand the media microscope. And the moral dissolution case will face its own set of head winds from the improving trends in crime, welfare dependency and even teen pregnancy.

With so much going right, the challenge facing the GOP in 2000 looks much like the Democratic situation in 1988. Democrats began that year with enormous optimism. Like Gore today, then-Vice President Bush was initially an indistinct figure regarded by few Americans as a strong leader. And just as Gore trails today, so too did Bush trail the leading Democrats for months.

But Bush eventually raised doubts about his opponent, Democrat Michael S. Dukakis. And perhaps even more important, Republicans reminded the country how much conditions had improved since Carter had left office. That process culminated in a memorable speech from Reagan at the 1988 GOP convention, when he trumped Dukakis’ call for change by invoking a litany of economic and social trends that had brightened since 1980. “We are the change,” Reagan declared in a triumphant thrust that helped propel Bush to victory.

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Unless the economy collapses, Clinton will be able to deliver the same speech in 2000, pointing to an even broader list of positive trends that have accumulated since he replaced Bush in 1993. From all those favorable numbers, Clinton could easily fashion the same powerful argument Reagan did in 1988: Do you really want to risk going back?

In 1960, Kennedy showed it was possible to evict the incumbent party from the White House in good times. But even Kennedy, one of the most charismatic candidates of the century, barely squeaked by Nixon, one of the least. And in 1988, Reagan and Bush proved that when the country is content, even a successor of limited skills can sell continuity.

Perhaps Clinton’s misbehavior will create a hunger for change next year. But as long as the country’s table is full, the risk to the GOP is that Reagan’s simple question--”Are you better off?”--will still loom largest when Americans pick their next president.

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