behaving like a majority party

...Of course, Republicans have investigated Clinton, and so far the political value of these inquiries has been pretty hard to discern...

...Members of the Coalition are searching instead for small items to extract from Congress that will please their membership, because they know they will get nowhere with a more ambitious legislative agenda...

...Running Congress requires an entirely different set of habits and assumptions than Republicans have ever used before...

...In the GOP universe, "spoils" means "tax cuts...

...It would also mean explaining the shift in tactics to loyal members of individual constituency groups, chief among them the Christian Coalition...

...But important members of the Coalition, particularly the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Restaurant Association, have come to fear the bill...

...Democrats such as John Dingell of Michigan, Henry Waxman of California, Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio, and Kennedy used the committee system to conduct scalding oversight hearings into the conduct of entire industries or selected companies...

...With this in mind, a cut in capital-gains taxes is the one that makes the most sense in 1997...

...Theirs was a politics of purity, and it bound them together with backbenchers and conservative thinkers in a hermetic alliance...

...Term Limits...

...Republicans now seem to assume as a matter of course that the Democratic party line has mystical power to sway the public and that there's little or nothing the leadership in either chamber can do to counter the demagoguery...

...Together they rewrote the Washington catechism on nearly a dozen important domestic issues: balancing the budget (from whether to when), discretionary spending (from how much more to how much less), taxes (from which to raise to which to cut), entitlement reform (from never by any amount to when and how much), defense spending (from how much to cut to how much to keep), welfare reform (from Washington to the states), crime (from root causes to jail cells), tort reform (from trial lawyers to those they sue), and even term limits (from blanket censorship to raucous debate...

...And it has also infected, and paralyzed, the outside groups whose relationship to the RepubliMajor Garrett's cover story, "Newt Melts," ran in our March 31 issue...

...Who could be against shrinking the size of congressional staffs and saving some taxpayer money...

...There was unity and sophistication about power," says Peter Fenn, a Democratic consultant...

...They had not come to Washington in pursuit of power or spoils (there were none to be dispensed, after all), but solely in pursuit of the truth...

...And this in turn has meant there are fewer hearings to spotlight regulatory abuses—the sort of hearing that could prevent further regulatory abuses in the future...

...In 1996, more than 90 House Republicans won in districts carried by Clinton...

...For this to work, of course, other members of the GOP coalition would have to lick their wounds and fight for the capital-gains tax cut as if it were their own tax cut...

...The cohesion of the GOP leadership and the Coalition in 1994 and 1995 helped produce seismic changes in American politics...

...Instead, the GOP has succeeded in the very same way Democrats did when they kept control of Congress—through ticket-splitting...

...The banner encapsulated the admittedly corny enthusiasm that Phil Gramm, the committee's chairman at the time, sought to instill in Republicans...

...At the top, the Republican House leadership blames the party's political and ideological base for being so touchy when things don't go perfectly...

...But fewer than 20 House Democrats won in districts carried by Bob Dole...

...Through grass-roots work by phone and direct mail, advertising, letters to the editor, and soft-money fund-raising, the so-called Coalition tries to function cohesively even though many of its members do not always share the same cultural, economic, or ideological pedigree...

...You can visualize the political fear sweeping over the place," says a Republican lobbyist who has worked the comp-time bill for months...

...Right now, the party's defensive," says one lobbyist, and this preemptive defeatism dominates the Republican psyche on virtually every important issue from tax cuts to affirmative action to school choice...

...But everyone more or less understood that the key was power and how to hold onto it...

...Republicans whose legislation had no chance of passage in the House and Senate drafted amendments in exactly the language the constituent groups wanted...

...But these laudable instincts have diminished the majority party's ability to intimidate its enemies and reward its friends...

...The spoils included but were not limited to: pork-barrel projects, new regulations, new bureaucracies, and high-profile investigations of enemies in one industry or another...

...The leadership did what it could to sabotage the Democrats on the floor...

...Big business and pro-growth conservatives don't share the social-conservative enthusiasm for a family tax credit, and social conservatives don't particularly care about capital-gains tax cuts...

...can party is now almost symbiotic...

...The Coalition especially dreads the upcoming debates over capital-gains tax cuts, education tax credits, and revisions of the Clean Air Act...

...Second, the conservative groups, ranging from the Family Research Council and the Christian Coalition to the National Rifle Association and U.S...

...The party will have to convince its troops that today's battles are over not purity but power...

...But this is not the kind of investigation Democrats used so effectively in their years of power...

...Well-orchestrated hearings could (and did) intimidate Democratic opponents...

...Republican presidential candidates in 1992 and 1996 attracted 37.4 percent and 40.7 percent of the vote respectively...

...All Republicans favor tax cuts...

...They also inspired loyalty among Democratic constituency groups that saw them as a key perk of the party's power...

...The problem is that the majority party in Congress still clings to the habits and assumptions that governed its behavior as a minority party...

...With so many spoils to dispense, it was perfectly logical for members of the Democratic constituency to wait their turn...

...Still, shrewd leaders in these constituent groups understood some unpleasant bills had to be swallowed to keep Republicans in charge of Congress...

...And it has set in motion an atomization of the alliance that proved so productive just two years ago...

...First are the business groups—the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Federation of Independent Business, and the like...

...Numerous interviews with Republican lobbyists (virtually all of whom demanded anonymity for fear of incurring the wrath of GOP leaders, their clients, or their memberships) reveal that confidence in the leadership among constituent groups has plummeted...

...Everyone is looking for someone or something...

...But the contract came with an unanticipated, and very steep, price tag...

...It's a humble bill, and it ought to attract feverish support across the spectrum of Republican constituency groups...

...The GOP was so drained, in fact, that the constituent groups couldn't even muster much outrage when the Republican leadership drowned them in a flood of political accommodations to the Democrats in the summer of 1996...

...The Republican party has not come to grips with two fundamental changes in its role in American politics...

...We've been afraid of this from Day One...

...Gramm wanted his political operatives to think in a new way about the minority party's prospects in the House and Senate...

...I'm talking about investigations of a different kind...

...Now, compare the Democrats' behavior to the way Republicans have conducted themselves since 1994...

...Even though only a few of the contract's provisions have become law, its very existence forced the American political system to the right in a way few would have imagined possible in 1993...

...Rank-and-file Republicans blame the ideologues for not falling into line with the leadership and defending the GOP against Democrats and the media...

...In pursuit of this goal, it will be easier to use a tax cut that creates some economic growth without adding appreciably to the deficit...

...Third, the nonprofit ideologues, like the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Tax Reform...

...Newt Gingrich had vowed votes on each of its ten planks in a hundred days...

...The GOP's "constituent groups" mobilize activists outside Washington in order to help the party advance its agenda and to defend it against attacks from Democrats and the media...

...The GOP leadership is trying to find a way to cut taxes and balance the budget this year...

...The Coalition can be divided into three camps...

...And without a persuasive rhetorical campaign against the Democratic amendments, constituent groups believe the bill will return to the House larded with regulations far more onerous than the benefits of the original legislation...

...Such a tax cut would likely attract the support of conservative Democrats in the House and Senate, thus providing the GOP a budget with a patina of bipartisanship (more than Clinton's budget will ever have...

...But the practical effect has been that there are fewer investigators to conduct oversight of federal regulatory agencies...

...They did this to save money and decrease congressional bloat, which are certainly noble causes...

...Now, about investigations...

...There is the feeling that the Democrats have the upper hand in demagoguery," says Kerrigan...

...most economists believe it will increase economic growth...

...Many came to the party long before it had any power in Congress, and through the wilderness years of Republican minority status they shouted until they were hoarse on behalf of conservative issues...

...But they also blame the elected officials because they are not providing a legislative road map complete with sure-fire talking points and reassuring polling data...

...Neither is especially interested in cutting estate taxes, which is important to small-business groups...

...That would mean deferring their own gratification and fighting for legislation in which they have no pride of authorship...

...It's a free-for-all in a sense...

...Rather, they would work just as hard in the trenches for the party, confident that, in time, rewards would come their way...

...The politicians and the "constituent groups" had never worked so hard, or been under as much pressure, as during the hundred days...

...Senate Democrats, led by Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, will surely add amendments that will expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to allow employees to take time off for PTA meetings, doctor's appointments, and other such measures...

...In New York, Dole didn't carry a single congressional district, but 13 of 14 Republican congressmen won reelection...

...The lack of cohesion between the leadership and the Coalition has left all concerned unsure of how to rank or even discuss the party's irreducible principles...

...It requires adopting the methods Democrats used during their 40 years of congressional power, even though their goals were, and remain, repugnant to Republicans...

...The activists who have brought this change about are, by and large, very conservative, very aggressive, and very impatient...

...How does a party hostile to the old spoils system that made Congress the well-oiled machine of the Democratic coalition forge the discipline and cohesion among its coalition groups it needs to survive...

...What Republicans did was not wrong...

...The Congressional Budget Office says such a cut brings in surplus revenue in the early years...

...This success is a direct result of the rise of the constituent groups and their grass-roots activists and members across the country who have joined the party in growing numbers since the mid-1980s...

...With capital-gains tax cuts in a credible balanced-budget package, the majority party might be in a stronger political position to argue for family tax credits and estate tax cuts later—say, in 1998...

...It will relieve some of the difficulties in balancing the budget while keeping the faith on tax cuts...

...Democrats held their disparate constituencies— industrial labor, government-employee labor, minorities, southern conservatives, environmentalists, and later feminists and homosexuals—together by dispensing the perks of power that flowed from an evergrowing federal bureaucracy...

...This was a deal most were willing to accept as long as the party proved its commitment to the unfinished business of the 104th Congress early in the 105th Congress...

...And by the time Congress had completed that Bataan-like march, it was only April 1995, and the Republicans were completely exhausted with more than 18 months to go before the 1996 election...

...There doesn't seem to be any rhythm...

...Members of the Democratic coalition who did not get what they wanted in one session of Congress would not revolt or sit on their hands in the next election...

...That has not happened...

...The mood has infected the elected politicians still in shell-shock from the pounding they took during the 1996 elections...

...And that might require a new Republican definition of the term "spoils...

...And everyone was in on the fun...

...The dread is so deep that it now threatens the Working Families Flexibility Act, which would give employees the right to choose compensation time instead of overtime...

...Many of these changes took place in the battles over the Contract with America...

...They are saying 'Let's get what we can for our membership.'" The blame game for the Republican crack-up is being played out on three levels...

...Nor are they in Washington to use one of the most formidable tools developed by the Democrats: investigations of their enemies...

...In the cutthroat world of legislative politics, however, it's also true that some tax cuts are more equal than others...

...The party's strength in presidential elections, secure for half a century, has eroded, while its strength on a district-by-district basis in congressional voting has increased...

...As a result, Democrats internalized a behavior that Republicans regard as one of the keys to success in the private sector: deferred gratification...

...Patience, deferred gratification, and a focus on power: These are the habits the majority party might want to develop as it tries to act like a majority party worthy of the name...

...Now, in the spring of 1997, everything about Republican Washington reeks of stupefied self-doubt—the very attitude Gramm sought to banish in the years when Republicans were still in the minority...

...We are all in a lethargic type of stupor...

...At the same time, members of the party's base— social conservatives, small-business owners, gun owners, libertarians, economic conservatives, budget hawks—blame the leadership for failing to devise a coherent agenda and a powerful communications strategy to back it up...

...The key for them was not the order in which they received the spoils, but the maintenance of the power that kept the spoils system in place...

...Perhaps in an election year the majority party might find a debate over the family tax credit more to its liking...

...Other tax cuts either do not have an immediate and measurable impact on economic growth (estate tax cuts, expanded IRAs) or require nearly impossible spending cuts to fill the revenue hole they leave behind (the $500-per-child tax credit...

...It was entertaining and unifying...

...That's the risk a party takes with any political investigation...

...They believed that, in their commitment to principle, they stood above rank politics...

...It's good for pro-family conservatives because it offers more time for parents to spend at home, it's good for small businesses because it provides flexibility, and it's good for anti-labor Republicans because Big Labor opposes it...

...Its members don't trust the leadership to withstand another class-warfare debate over capital gains, or to keep faith with laissez-faire economics in a tussle over education tax cuts that will make Republicans look like they oppose helping upper-middle-class kids with college tuition...

...But Republicans (for the most part) do not come to Washington to increase the size of government, dispense pork-barrel projects, draft new regulations, or create new bureaucracies...

...These accommodations led to an increase in the minimum wage, which is anathema to the National Restaurant Association...

...They have no problem with its substance...

...The first is that it is becoming a congressional party and is losing its status as a presidential party...

...Each group that did not get its way would have to pull together and support the first tax cut in order to build support and maintain the power necessary to draft the next tax cut...

...instead, they are worried about the regulatory baggage it could bring with it after the Senate votes...

...The leadership also blames conservative backbenchers for rebelling too readily in the face of some unpleasant but (they protest) necessary political compromises...

...This state of affairs tells us a great deal about the current cast of mind...

...If the GOP brings about a budget on its way to balance that also features tax cuts consistent with party doctrine, it can devote the better part of 1998 to considering which taxes to cut next...

...And they assume that go-down-with-the-ship unity cannot be forged between the leadership and the constituency groups to beat back the Democratic onslaught...

...There don't seem to be any bottom-line principles that are guiding what we're doing the next two years on the budget or a larger Republican agenda, says Karen Kerrigan, head of the Small Business Survival Committee...

...Many members of the Coalition have decided not to involve themselves in big issues that require cohesion and instead are after incremental tidbits," Kerrigan says...

...And there was a burst of 11th-hour pork-barrel spending that Citizens Against Government Waste concluded rivaled that of many previous Democratic Congresses...

...Nor do they expect the leadership to stand firm against extensions of the Clean Air Act, since that would open Republicans to the charge that they are plutocrats for pollution...

...The Republican party has deeper roots now than it has ever had in local and state politics...

...And now the constituent groups are stirring...

...But Republicans weaned on the politics of purity have had a hard time digesting the politics of power...

...Don't get me wrong, there were lots of fights, and we weren't as unified as we sometimes appeared in public...

...They featured a new layer of health-insurance regulations promulgated in the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill, which left the National Federation of Independent Business fit to be tied...

...When Republicans took control of Congress, they decided to cut the budgets of their committees...

...They tired out just as Bill Clinton recovered from his post-1994 funk and never again had the strength to engage the president or the Democrats effectively during the remainder of the 104th Congress...

...hat Republicans are really searching for they cannot achieve until the party adopts a different set of political habits and assumptions about its methods and objectives...