Can (And Should) This Marriage Be Saved?

A Democrat in the White House with Republicans in Congress usually means trouble for the country

By Kevin Phillips

(TIME, November 21) -- In the catalog of conventional wisdom, the most hopeful outcome of the 1996 election is a scenario in which the Democratic President and the Republican Congress actually work together to govern in a spirit of comity and bipartisanship, thereby fulfilling the mandate of the voters.

Don't bet on it. Not if history is any guide.

Set aside the ethics crises nipping at the heels of both the President and the Speaker of the House, plus the possibility of an imminent recession--each of which in its own right would be enough to shred this idyllic scenario. The division between a Democratic President and a Republican Congress has been, since the current party system began in the 1850s, the country's least productive political arrangement. Splits may work for champagne, or maybe bananas, but they often don't make for good government in Washington.

Prior to the 104th Congress of 1995-96, the three Republican Congresses that squared off against Democratic Presidents came in 1895-96, 1919-20 and 1947-48. In each case the squabbling prompted voters two years later to pick one party to control both branches. The sad part is that this year the electorate felt compelled to continue the split in the apparent belief that it was as plausible as any other solution offered by our aging, even decrepit two-party system. Indeed, growing disillusionment with the two main political parties over the past three decades has been pointing toward exactly what came to pass on Election Day 1996. Our predicament raises several serious questions:

Is a new Democratic presidential majority emerging? Not really. The winning presidential coalition that Bill Clinton nurtured in 1992 and '96 had begun to suggest its potential even in 1988, evolving from the three regional pillars of losing 1968-88 liberalism: the Northeast, the upper Midwest and the Pacific. In 1992 and again this year, these became the core of a Democratic plurality that, with the support of independents and moderate Republicans, was able to capture the White House. But this coalition, united largely by a concern that the current brand of G.O.P. conservatism is too extreme to control more than one branch of government, is not likely to hold.

Sure, Democrats could win the presidency again in 2000, particularly if the Republicans hold Congress in 1998 and, by attacking popular government programs, re-create the 1996 fear that a Democratic President is needed to block the run-amuck right. But this coalition looks weaker and more transient than the 1968-92 majority by which the Republicans controlled the White House for 20 out of 24 years.

Did the old Republican presidential coalition crack up in 1996? No, it was already unraveling in 1992, after hinting at weakness earlier. Republican strategists simply didn't understand what was occurring. They insisted their coalition was still young--born on Election Day 1980, when Reagan came to power. In fact, its birth certificate dates back to Nixon's election in 1968, when the South tilted Republican and rescripted presidential politics. By the late 1980s, this coalition, wedded to old ideas, attack strategies and issues, was wearing out. If Michael Dukakis, a caricature of ineffective, low-blood-count Northeastern liberalism, had not allowed himself to be photographed in that tank hatch looking like Mickey Mouse, George Bush might well have lost in 1988.

Four years later, the Republican coalition crumbled in two directions: moderate Southern Democrat Bill Clinton tore off one chunk, and ex-Republican turned populist Ross Perot ripped off another. Much the same circumstance prevailed in 1996. With another Reform Party effort likely in 2000 and with a Republican Congress a good bet to undercut any G.O.P. presidential candidate, the Republicans will be hard-pressed to build a new national coalition to replace their old one.

The G.O.P. "coalition" that captured Congress in 1994 is not enduring material either. The midterm landslide that captured Congress for the Republicans, the fifth of its kind since World War II, was little more than a strong reaction against the unpopular President and his party. Until President Clinton handed his opponents a windfall of October campaign-finance scandals, the Democrats seemed headed toward recapturing the House. The presidency, as usual, was the primary force; the congressional elections were reactive, and this brings us to the central question for 1997:

Can a Federal Government split between a Democratic President and a Republican Congress work? Probably not, given its poor record and today's party polarization. From the 1950s to the '80s, to be sure, Democratic Congresses and Republican Presidents worked well together. Moderate conservative Republican Chief Executives like Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon actually preferred Democratic Congresses, with a strong Southern conservative faction, to outright Republican Congresses that they distrusted as too right-wing.

It's the pairing of a G.O.P. Congress with a Democrat in the White House that has been a failure historically. Even now, far from representing political strength, this matching represents two unusual weaknesses: on one side, a G.O.P. Congress, untrusted except as a roadblock to Clinton; and on the other, a Democratic President and his wife under heavy scrutiny for half a dozen alleged ethical or financial transgressions.

Such ingrown animosities all but guarantee that this split government will not be just another flash in the pan like the 54th Congress, which faced Grover Cleveland in 1895-96; the 66th, which confronted Woodrow Wilson in 1919-20; or the 80th, which harassed Harry S Truman in 1947-48. This divide presents something more serious. The G.O.P. Congresses facing Cleveland, Wilson and Truman were one-term transitions back to coherent government. On Nov. 5, for the first time ever, a Republican Congress facing a Democratic President got re-elected to a second term. This happened even though the Congress had become a symbol of harsh policies that Bill Clinton was re-elected to block.

Thus a large part of this Republican-Democratic mandate is to guard, investigate and stymie each other. And to that extent, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that people are disgusted with both sides. Instead of a zenith of bipartisanship, we may be moving into the nadir of the Republican-Democratic party system.

But didn't Ross Perot fail too? Yes, in the personal sense. By suppressing his rivals for the Reform nomination, Perot earned an authoritarian image that helped the Republican and Democratic parties squeeze him out of the debates, which he might otherwise have used to get 15% to 20% of the vote.

Institutionally, however, Perot succeeded. None of the other major third-party candidates of the 20th century--Teddy Roosevelt, Robert LaFollette, George Wallace and John Anderson--came back to run again four years after their first race. The task is too challenging. But Perot did come back, did get on ballots in all 50 states and even renewed some personal credibility late in October, when the sad state of campaign finances and evidence of two-party corruption made him prophetic on yet another issue. More important, the 8% of the national vote Perot drew on Nov. 5 qualifies his Reform Party and its presidential nominee in 2000 for multimillion-dollar federal funding.

For the first time since the 19th century, the U.S. has a potential 2 1/2-party system and a new national vehicle available to future presidential candidates. This could be a boon in the millennial year 2000, especially if the face-off between the Republican Congress and the Democratic President leads only to bipartisan scandals, bipartisan economic mismanagement and further public contempt. Reform will be in the wings--literally--and it is even conceivable that the coming confrontation between Bill Clinton and the 105th Congress could provide the catalyst for America's next crisis--which in turn might produce its next great leader.

Kevin Phillips is an author and the publisher of the American Political Report. His most recent book is Arrogant Capital.

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