The Political Interest

By Michael Kramer

At this time four years ago, the Democratic presidential contenders were roundly derided as "the seven dwarfs." Ten months later, Michael Dukakis began the general election campaign with a double-digit lead and George Bush seemed doomed. "It is always volatile," says Roger Ailes, the media magician who helped guide Bush's comeback in 1988, "and it is sure to be volatile again. If 75 years of communism can collapse in three days, anything is possible, anywhere."

Ailes' caution is not surprising. Overconfidence is congenitally avoided so far in advance of an election. But G.O.P. strategists privately point to eight potential pitfalls capable of crippling the President next year, either singly or in combination:

1. Iran-contra disclosures suggesting that Bush knew more than he has admitted.

2. Proof that the late CIA director William Casey conspired to have U.S. hostages held by Iran until after the 1980 election.

3. A Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the abortion-rights decision, or some other court or Administration actions that cause large numbers of female Republicans to defect to the Democrats.

4. A foreign policy tangle that negates the high marks Bush has won for his handling of the gulf war and the Soviet Union's failed coup. (Upheaval in China is No. 1 on the watch list.)

5. Renewed concerns about the President's health that accentuate qualms about Dan Quayle.

6. A combative Democratic candidate who wages an "in your face" campaign that ties Bush closely to his patrician roots. After New York's Mario Cuomo, who still appears disinclined to run, Bush's advisers most fear Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa. Their public glee at the prospect of an old-fashioned liberal leading the Democrats is tempered by Harkin's populist rhetoric and slashing stump style.

7. A halting, flustered debate performance that diminishes Bush's strongest suit, his image of competence.

8. A sagging economy. This trumps every other fear. Administration officials admit they don't have a clue as to where the economy will be in the fall of '92 and that it won't matter what the economic indicators really prove. "If the polls continue to show that almost 60% of the electorate thinks the country is on the wrong track," says a G.O.P. aide, "we could be on the track out of here."

To some degree, these scenarios prove that political aides are paid to worry; most Bush advisers are confident about the outcome of next year's election. "Even with bumps in the road," says Rich Bond, the Republican consultant who engineered Bush's startling upset of Ronald Reagan in the 1980 Iowa caucuses, "at some point the President will stare straight into the camera and remind people that the world is still a very messy place and that he, rather than the other guy, has proved he can manage America's role in it. When all is said and done, that should be enough."

It is this underlying optimism that accounts for the quiet debate now consuming Bush's strategists: What kind of campaign should the President wage? There are two choices. Either Bush can ape Reagan and seek a first-ever 50- state landslide or he can run a serious coattail campaign designed to wrest effective control of Congress from the Democrats by devoting considerable time and money to helping specific congressional candidates. Past G.O.P. candidates have hoped for a trickle-down effect -- a huge presidential victory that pulls in enough Republican legislators, who then join with conservative Democrats to fashion a working majority on major congressional initiatives. Trouble is, trickle down rarely works.

In political terms, a coattail campaign could be a twofer. Until now, Bush has testily sought to deflect his obvious lack of interest in domestic affairs by claiming he does indeed have a domestic policy -- while at the same time saying that those who think otherwise should blame obstructionist congressional Democrats, not him. "If you run against the 'Do Nothing' Congress, as Truman did in 1948," says Bond, "you can both lower expectations of your own plurality so you're not called a loser even if you win, and you can put the Democrats on the defensive. A non-coattail campaign becomes a referendum on the President's first four years. It's hard to derive a working mandate from that."

Which is exactly why a coattail strategy should be pursued. "A serious President does everything he can to secure a meaningful mandate," says Ed Rollins, who directed Reagan's 1984 campaign. "And that means doing your best to elect a Congress of your own party. If you don't even try, then you deserve to be hit when you moan about how everything would just be fine if it weren't for those lousy Democrats on the Hill."

Traditional presidential re-election campaigns allocate resources to areas won or lost marginally the first time around. A coattail strategy would operate in reverse. In 1988, for example, Bush carried Georgia with 60% of the vote while Democrat Wyche Fowler won his 1986 Senate race by only 2 points. With Fowler facing re-election this year, a coattail campaign would target an even greater effort in Georgia -- not to raise the President's already ample victory margin but to drag in Fowler's Republican challenger.

That's the theory, and on paper it can be applied to a large number of Senate and House races. The question is, Will Bush go for it? The coattailers are up against two obstacles: the President's innate prudence, which makes him understandably leery of any strategy that could conceivably jeopardize his own re-election; and the vanity he shares with all politicians, which feeds his dream of besting the modern record shared by Reagan and Richard Nixon -- a 49- state sweep. Those two hurdles alone may prove impossible to overcome, with predictable results: a normal "me first" campaign that produces a Bush victory and a Democratic Congress. Or, to put it another way, four more years of governmental paralysis.