The Republicans The Torch Is Passed

By Laurence I. Barrett/Washington

Twenty years ago, as part of a revolt against an era of Big Government, the name of Ronald Reagan was first put in nomination at a Republican Convention. Richard Nixon won top billing that year, but it was the favorite-son Governor of California who would prove to be the party's most enduring inspiration. First in graceful defeat, then in glorious triumph, and finally as a reassuring symbol of the presidency itself, Reagan became the conservative constant through two decades of Republican resurgence. This Monday in New Orleans, the era's most successful Republican politician will take the podium to thunderous applause and, as part of his final bow, urge Americans to continue his legacy by supporting George Herbert Walker Bush, the dutiful deputy who has been tapped as his heir.

There is an inherent uneasiness in all dynastic succession. Bush embraced the true conservative faith late in life, and purists still question his ideological pedigree. He fully understands that he must woo the national electorate as a man of the future rather than the past, which is why he declared in one major speech, "I do not hate government."

But for all the talk about Bush's asserting his political independence, the Vice President cannot hope to defeat Michael Dukakis without standing on the shoulders of the President. Bush appears, on present form at least, overmatched as a candidate, offering the voters little more than a resume without a rationale. Yet as the crown prince, the authorized inheritor of the Reaganite mantle, Bush may still be able to rally the faithful behind the implicit message of "Four More Years."

In its narrowest terms, the Reagan record allows Bush to run as the candidate of peace and prosperity. Whether it is Soviet troops withdrawing in disarray from Afghanistan or a leader in the Kremlin who wants, in Reaganite fashion, to get the commissars off the backs of productive enterprise, the world appears to be fulfilling the President's boldest dreams. At home, most Americans have enjoyed the longest peacetime economic expansion in modern history. The "misery index" -- that combination of inflation and unemployment rates that the Democrats invoked to bedevil Gerald Ford in 1976 -- now stands at less than 10, roughly half what it was when Jimmy Carter left office. Reagan has also fulfilled his antigovernment pledge to drastically slash income-tax rates.

That might be enough if the Constitution allowed the President to run, for a third term, instead of Bush. But the very orchestration of the New Orleans convention, with Reagan leading off and the Vice President batting cleanup, emphasizes the philosophic legacy that Bush will formally accept Thursday night. The Republican nominee is inescapably cast in the role of the grateful inheritor. But what precisely is Reagan's bequest?

Even though the Administration has been exhausted -- intellectually and politically -- for nearly two years, Reagan has been able, in the words of his former domestic-policy planner, Martin Anderson, to sculpt "America's policy agenda well into the 21st century." At the very least, he has defined the political debate. Opinion polls show some vague unease about the economy's future, along with renewed interest in federal solutions for a variety of domestic ills. Still, Reagan's preachments about the evils of Big Government and high progressive tax rates continue to dominate the political landscape. Even his failures, the most monumental being the nation's mounting debt, have served to constrain the discussion. Recalling Reagan's record as Governor of California in a lead editorial recently, the Los Angeles Times noted that "in subtle ways, Reagan made it acceptable to resent assistance to poor people. No longer was there emphasis on the citizens fulfilling their collective responsibility to society through the vehicle of government."

The Reagan persona, as well as his policies, is an important aspect of his legacy, changing the way Americans view leadership. He bestrides this election as an almost metaphysical force in the nation's political consciousness. Just as Jimmy Carter gave a bad name to intellect and hands-on attention to detail, Reagan has helped exalt the importance of a clear philosophical vision, even if the clarity is partly the result of his refusal to face unpleasant facts. Though cruelly diminished by scandal, Reagan is still widely perceived as the model of a strong President. In fact, for many voters under 30, he has become almost synonymous with the job itself; since World War II, only Dwight Eisenhower, that other benign patriarch, served as long a tenure in the White House. It is no mystery why a conventional politician like Bush seems so wan in comparison and why an unfettered challenger like Dukakis remains so cautious in attacking the incumbent. Reagan has molded public attitudes too much in his own cheerful, nostalgic image to permit otherwise.

Reagan's ability to overfly troubles of his own making on a magic carpet woven of his own illusions remains a wonderment. He has helped banish bad news from the political lexicon. "There are no bitter pills among Ronald Reagan's jelly beans," explains a durable adviser. But eight years of smile-button politics leave a heavy burden for those who would follow, Democrat or Republican. No matter how intractable the problems, the American people have come to expect can-do homilies from their President. Any honest talk about sacrifice or yielding self-interest to the common interest is as politically dubious as repeating Jimmy Carter's malaise speech. During the primaries, candidates of both parties who tried cold candor encountered glacial resistance. Reagan has redefined the presidency into a cheerful con game that works best when the man in the Oval Office believes his own upbeat patter.

He created the Free Lunch illusion, a permissive fantasy in which America could indulge: less taxes, more defense spending, unlimited imported gewgaws and privatization of the obligations of community. Even as the nation's economy retreated in the face of the Japanese challenge, Reaganite gospel clung to the illusion that the cavalry would ride to the rescue in the last reel in the form of painless economic growth. "Maybe," muses a former White House adviser, "it is impossible in our time for a President to be both inspirational and candid with the people."

That Reagan failed even to try is perhaps the most tragic part of the legacy. By the beginning of his second term, Reagan had enough credibility to use his inspirational skill to talk straight to the American people. He could at least have attempted to confront the inequities and flaws of Reaganomics by investing some of his capital as the Great Communicator. But he passed up the chance, making it even harder for any successor to bear bad tidings.

As Bush struggles mightily this week to create an inspiring vision of Reaganism as he would adapt it for the 1990s, he will have to confront the limits of living on borrowed ideology. The militant conservatism that helped propel Reagan to power in 1980 was a philosophy born of frustration. Even when Nixon and Ford held the White House, conservatives felt disenfranchised. That is why it was so easy for Reagan to articulate their resentments over high taxes and meddlesome federal bureaucrats. But because of the very success of Reaganism, Republicans can no longer stoke themselves up with anti- Establishment resentment.

That helps explain why Bush, rather than a right-wing populist of the original Reagan mold, will be making the acceptance speech on Thursday. By breeding and association, he is part of the Establishment that Reagan challenged in 1976 and defeated in 1980. But enough of Reagan's original agenda has been adopted to slake the most urgent thirsts of the right wing. The income-tax monster has been shrunk, the Democratic Congress is leery of huge new programs, the Viet Nam syndrome no longer paralyzes American foreign policy, and the federal judiciary has been Reaganized. "In this environment," says Burton Pines of the Heritage Foundation, "it's harder than it was eight, ten years ago to find conservatives with real fire in their bellies."

One measure of Reaganism's continued impact can be seen in Bush's evolution. A practical man who can read a balance sheet, Bush knew in 1980 that supply- side math could not add up for very long. He had the guts, as Reagan's rival for the nomination, to name it "voodoo economics." Today, like Dukakis, Bush knows there is a long list of public needs that cannot be met without some difficult choices, including a revenue increase (none dare call it taxes). But in the Balkanized G.O.P. of 1988, Bush had to get a large share of Reagan loyalists to win the nomination. And he had to reassure other voters still mesmerized by the Free Lunch illusion that he would not be presenting a large bill for the meal. Hence his early and oft-made pledge: "I am not going to raise your taxes -- period."

This aspect of Reagan's shadow would constrain options significantly, no matter who the next President is. Should a recession occur during the period of crushing national debt, there would be little room for maneuver. That is why commentators as diverse as Republican Analyst Kevin Phillips and Democratic Senator William Proxmire have suggested that November's victorious party may turn out to be history's loser. That would be the final irony of Reagan's legacy: a Bush presidency destroyed by the very ideology that allowed him to fill in the final line of his resume.