Persuading the President

By Hugh Sidey

One of the members of Congress who goes down to the White House regularly to see the President has been fascinated these past few days, watching the struggle between the two men who live inside the durable body of Ronald Reagan. There is the after-dinner rouser with his cue-card homilies, still struggling to assert himself in a profligate world. Then there is this other fellow, who, when he at last stirs himself, can recognize reality: like 12 million unemployed and a possible $200 billion deficit.

Right now, this Congressman sees a President who is a little stunned by the rush of events and almost ready to heed his advisers and friends. Ronald Reagan may rescue his presidency by a deft and pragmatic turn. But it is going to be a close thing at the very best.

All the catcalls from big Democrats, the lofty sniffs by editorial writers and the fulminations of academics during the past two years have been quite normal and not lethal. The familiar fusillade is from the individual and institutionalized opposition. As long as Reagan's broad center held the faith, he could exercise power and did. But something changed in the past few weeks. Patience ran out in the middle. A lot of people who live out there on their wits and energy began to take matters into their hands. It is a phenomenon as old as the Republic and one of its greatest strengths.

"Government is not the system," says the wise and amiable G.O.P. Congressman from New York Barber Conable. "We keep forgetting that in Washington. Government can help. But for the most part Government is behind the curve. It responds to the people." The people now are moving away from Reagan in blocs, weakening his base of power. If there is no change soon, his presidency will be largely ceremonial for the next two years.

Peter G. Peterson, chairman of New York's Lehman Bros. Kuhn Loeb and a former Secretary of Commerce, is not exactly one of those plain people, despite his Nebraska heritage. But when he formed a coalition urging both the President and Congress to face this economic crisis with a realistic program to reduce the huge deficits, he tapped the frustrations of millions of small and big businessmen, bankers, teachers, accountants, lawyers and editors. Peterson, who never really intended it that way, has taken a sizable chunk of presidential authority through an impulse that was inspired last spring by the native American realization that "something needs to be done."

What has always saved this country, and will again in some fashion, is that sort of natural concern and the freedom to indulge it. Ronald Reagan's presidency can come along or not, but the rest of the country is moving. In the Senate, which is crucial to Reagan's success, the same kind of thing has happened. Republican Senators, under the guidance of Majority Leader Howard Baker, are going to go on trying to persuade the President that he must search for new revenue from the middle and upper classes and seek savings in defense and entitlement programs. If he does not, Senators like Kansas' Robert Dole will take over the job that their constituencies are telling them should be done. A thousand other small actions in state government and city councils echo this refrain.

The President's plummeting standing with top businessmen (down 31% in a year), farmers, women and a lot of others, is a kind of message to Reagan to drop the tedious technical arguments about what is and what is not Reaganism. Since when was a $200 billion deficit more of a Reagan program than a delay in a tax cut? That makes no sense, as Peterson suggested, and things that make no sense are not things that Americans like.

Johnson, Nixon and Carter were all outrun by events and brushed aside within the past 20 years. Each time, the decline began when friends and supporters in the center found their appeals ignored and went off on their own because something needed to be done. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.