The summer of Republican discontent.

• Author: Bresler, Robert J.

POLITICS is a vexing science because human beings are so maddeningly complex, fickle, and unpredictable. In 1994, the Republican Party leadership and its supporters in the intellectual community were proclaiming a new era. The 1996 presidential election would end political gridlock and usher in a period of Republican domination, as had the election of 1896, when William McKinley defeated William Jennings Bryan. All this still may happen; the sky could fall on Bill Clinton, while Bob Dole and the Republicans could find new life this fall.

Nonetheless, the summer of 1996 appears to be the summer of Republican discontent. Every opportunity evaporated in their hands. Although the American public had little regard for Clinton's integrity, he continued riding high in the polls. Many dismissed the White House scandals and the Whitewater convictions with a hohum as politics as usual. The Republican Congress, with its ambitious Contract With America, gained no more regard from the American people than had its discredited Democratic predecessors. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the most articulate voice of the new Republican agenda, had disapproval ratings rivaling those of former presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter on their worst days. There are several theories as to what happened:

The Republicans engaged in political overreach, reading into their 1994 election victory a broad mandate the voters never intended. This is too simple an explanation. Admittedly, the Republican victories in the Senate and House elections hinged upon the shift of a small percentage of voters. In the House elections during the period 1984-92, Republicans received between 46 and 49% of the vote. In 1994, they garnered slightly more than 50%, a gain of just one to four percentage points. Despite the attention given to the Contract With America, less than 20% of the public even had heard of the Contract before the 1994 election.

Yet, it is difficult to imagine that the Republican agenda of a balanced budget, a return to traditional values, less government, fewer regulations, and lower taxes did not (and does not) have popular support. Clinton understands that point all too well, much to the Republicans' consternation. Over the past year, he has accepted the concept of a balanced budget by 2002, offered his own version of tax cuts, announced that "The era of big government is over," and found every opportunity he could to sound like Dan Quayle on the social issues...