The Coming GOP Landslide
Morris, Dick
The Coming GOP Landslide by Dick Morris It happened to Woodrow Wilson in 1918, to FDR in 1936, to Harry Truman in 1950, to Dwight Eisenhower in 1958, to Lyndon Johnson in 1966, to Nixon-Ford in...
...Then there are the scandals...
...If the Republicans run moderates and keep their mouths reasonably shut, they will win big in 1998—a filibuster-proof Senate majority and a working House majority...
...It will surely happen to Bill Clinton in 1998: the sixth-year rejection of the party that controls the White House...
...His agenda as he entered the '86 race included warmed-over proposals to restrict abortion, allow school prayer, and amend the Constitution to make his deficits illegal...
...So it turned against the GOP, and Republicans lost the Senate...
...The Clinton debacle of 1994 and the comeback of 1996 were, in part, due to these natural fluctuations in turnout...
...His tours of Africa, South America, China, Southeast Asia, Russia, and Western Europe may emphasize his "presidentiality," as his advisers intend, but they will also make the absence of any domestic agenda all too plain...
...They understand the need for the two parties to check and balance each other...
...It can start by nominating candidates who can be elected...
...America knew he didn't have much left to do...
...Popularity is no antidote...
...The temptation to vote for nice clean Republicans is likely to be significant to a nation that has tired of hearing about oral sex...
...Lose seats in Congress...
...In 1986, Reagan faced this vacuum...
...As much as they reject the Luddites, they embrace the moderates—of both parties...
...Dick Morris, a political strategist and columnist, was President Clinton's chief political adviser in 1995 and '96...
...Unwisely, Clinton seems determined to emphasize that there is nothing to do by planning to spend about one-third of the days between now and the election either abroad or on vacation...
...The Illinois primary victory of right-winger Peter Fitzgerald over moderate Loleta Didrickson reminds one of Al Salvi's upset of moderate lieutenant governor Bob Kustra in the GOP primary of 1996...
...The economically downscale vote drops off disproportionately, and most of that vote is Democratic...
...The public has also learned to distinguish the Neolithic, monolithic House and Senate Democrats from the White House Clinton-Gore wing of the party...
...In this session, he is likely to win much of his child-care package and anti-tobacco program...
...The GOP can also get out of the way...
...Having seen the GOP try to slash Medicaid and the Democrats try to raise taxes, they understand that competition improves and disciplines politicians...
...Most presidents run out of steam by their sixth year in office...
...Al Gore will win handily in 2000...
...The big stuff is already law...
...By waging a negative campaign against Clinton over sex issues, it will force voters who don't want such topics discussed in public (a group I call the silent plurality) to rally behind the president...
...Off-year turnout is always about 10 points lower than for presidential elections...
...His second term was over six months after it began...
...While Clinton's job rating remains high, the public ennui with scandal, which protects the president from impeachment, will likely lead to a sense of the need for change in the '98 elections...
...Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Reagan were extremely popular when the sixth-year jinx hit...
...The Coming GOP Landslide by Dick Morris It happened to Woodrow Wilson in 1918, to FDR in 1936, to Harry Truman in 1950, to Dwight Eisenhower in 1958, to Lyndon Johnson in 1966, to Nixon-Ford in 1974, and to Ronald Reagan in 1986...
...What can the GOP do...
...So: A GOP landslide in 1998 (as in 1994), followed by a Democratic presidential victory in 2000 (as in 1996...
...Their very success earlier in their administration strips them of an agenda...
...He had no more worlds to conquer...
...Why the jinx...
...Just as Clinton will be when it hits him...
...They must dine on a meal of leftovers and recycled proposals...
...What is left for him to do...
...The nation does not want right-wingers or left-wingers, it wants moderates...
...Sometimes history does repeat itself...
...He balanced the budget, cut taxes, reformed welfare, controlled guns, cut crime, expanded family leave, handled the crisis in Bosnia, kept communism at bay in Russia, put a pro-choice majority on the court, and is even becoming successful at expanding the coverage of health insurance...
...Good news for me...
...Voters want split government...
...He had already checked spending, cut taxes, reformed the tax code, rearmed America, defeated communism, and led a national swing to the right...
...Now for the bad news...
...Turnout will drop again in 1998, all the more because there is no looming threat to bring Democrats out to vote...
...Clinton has already done all the important things he wanted to do...
Vol. 3 • March 1998 • No. 28
