Saturday, July 28, 2001

The Candid Cavalier

After observing a heated House debate where each member taking a passionate stand against any and all cloning appeared to be wearing the same blue suit jacket, white shirt and TV-friendly red tie, I was more than ready to spend two hours listening to the informed political candor of Rep. Tom Davis, R- Va.

In just his fourth House term representing the growing and upscale Washington suburbs of Fairfax County, Davis is already in his second term as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee -- the political creation of the House GOP that has but one mission: to maintain and increase in 2002 the GOP's six-seat House majority.

Davis is as smart as he is political. He knew every member of the House by sight before he took the oath of office. He is able to discuss the history, sights, smells and culture of nearly any of the 435 congressional districts. He will tell you that Republicans might have a long-shot chance in the October special election for the Ninth District of Massachusetts (long represented by the late Democrat Rep. Joe Moakley) if the Democrats nominate their front-runner, South Boston State Sen. Stephen Lynch, who is pro-life and a favorite of the National Rifle Association.

"If you put Mr. Lynch anywhere else in the country, he would be a Republican," exaggerates Davis, "but that district is now two-thirds suburban, including towns like Braintree and Taunton. Both President Reagan and (former GOP Gov.) Paul Cellucci carried it, and we will have a pro-choice Republican woman state senator, Jo Ann Sprague."

On Arizona Sen. John McCain -- whose very existence seems to give the Bush White House apoplexy but who, at Chairman Davis' importuning, campaigned tirelessly for GOP House candidates in the fall of 2000 -- he is direct: "But for John McCain's efforts in the closing days of the last election, we would not be in the (majority) position in the House today."

What sets Tom Davis apart from most party leaders is his irrepressible candor. He admits that with the enactment of the president's tax-cut and the passage of time, the economy now belongs to George W Bush and the Republicans. "If the economy should deteriorate, there is a political price to pay," says Davis. "Yes, we (Republicans) will pick up 10 House seats net from (congressional) redistricting, but big things matter. And a bad economy trumps everything else."

History is not on Davis' side. In the last 140 years, the party of only one newly elected president -- Franklin Roosevelt in 1934 -- has picked up House seats in the first midterm election. Ike lost 18; Nixon lost 12; LBJ lost 47; Jimmy Carter lost 15; Ronald Reagan lost 26; and Bill Clinton lost 53.

Only JFK, with a loss of four House seats in 1962, and George H. W. Bush, with a loss of nine seats in 1990, were able to keep it in single digits.

What terrifies Republican professionals maybe even more than the prospect of a sluggish economy in 2002 is the growing negative public perception that the Bush administration is determined to comfort the already economically comfortable. Allan Rivlin, vice president of Peter D. Hart Research Associates, a Democratic polling firm, works on The Wall Street Journal-NBC News national survey. Rivlin observed on NationalJournal.com, after analyzing national polls, that "the public is starting to believe that the Bush administration consistently asks not what the nation can do for them, but instead asks what the nation can do for the very wealthy and the corporate special interests."

For example, the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll asked whether big business has too much influence over decisions made by the Bush administration .By a lopsided 67 percent to 26 percent, the answer was, "Yes." The CBS/New York Times survey asked if Bush's policies favored all classes the same, the rich, the middle-class or the poor. A solid majority -- 57 percent -- said it thought Bush's policies favored the rich. A much smaller 27 percent thought Bush favored all classes, while just 8 percent saw Bush policies favoring the middle class.

In 1996, the economy was booming and both the incumbent Democratic president and the incumbent Republican House majority were rewarded by voters on Election Day. Last year, a still robust economy meant, in Tom Davis's judgment, that "the 2000 election was largely a cultural, not an economic election." Voters were understandably concerned about the moral direction of the nation.

If the economy is bad and 2002 is an economic election, that campaign could be a fierce battle between the Haves and the Have-Nots, with an electorate convinced that the GOP's sympathies are overwhelmingly with the Haves. That is fight even the Democrats could not lose, and one even the endlessly deep pockets of Bush Republicans could not win.

A year from today, Tom Davis could be fighting a lot more than history.

CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

© 2001 MARK SHIELDS