Right Makes Might

By Dan Goodgame/Washington

The rumbling started in the East, where the polls opened first. Within hours the political seismologists at Voter News Service in Manhattan were getting off-the-chart readings from their exit polls. Tapping at rented computers in a windowless warren 30 floors up in the World Trade Center, analysts spent Election Day sifting the results of more than 10,000 field interviews by exit pollers who questioned voters as they emerged from 1,039 polling places across the country. By 11:45 a.m., Murray Edelman, the veteran director of the operation, expressed astonishment that for the first time in the 12-year history of exit polling, a clear majority of voters said they had cast ballots for a Republican candidate for Congress. Distrusting their data, Edelman and his colleagues double-checked individual precincts for glitches, but the rumbling only grew louder and spread westward. By 1 p.m., when Edelman placed a conference call to his clients at the four major TV networks, he could state with confidence that "the Republicans will have a big win," taking control of the Senate and perhaps even the House.

The networks did not share this news with their viewers for hours, until the polls closed, on the theory that the Great Unwashed must be protected from information that might discourage them from casting ballots -- and perhaps also to attract more viewers later, in prime time. But the news leaked out. Network employees felt no qualms about immediately phoning this scoop to their friends among top operatives for both political parties, who called their big campaign contributors, who called their brokers and whispered, "Buy!" By 3 p.m. the Dow Jones average was up 30 points on what TV business reporters coyly described as "rumors" of Republican gains in the elections. The irony seemed lost on most of the players that even amid a populist revolt, as voters angrily revoked the Democrats' 40-year lease on the Congress, the elites of both parties and the press indulged in a bit of insider trading.

The breadth and depth of the Republican victory -- a 52-seat pickup in the House, eight in the Senate, 11 in the Governors' mansions -- stunned Republicans as well as Democrats. Said David Wilhelm, departing chairman of the Democratic National Committee: "We got our butts kicked." Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon had predicted that his party would pick up only 35 seats in the House, but he won his office pool because everyone else bet lower. Leigh Ann Metzger, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, saw 3 p.m. exit-poll results cadged from one of the networks and furtively circulated. Fearing that the projections were "too good to be true," she downed two mint Maalox tablets. At least one Republican, however, looked genuinely unfazed: Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who more than anyone else led the ) G.O.P. in tapping voter anger. "Newtron," as Democrats now call him, weeks ago drafted detailed plans to assume office as Speaker of the House, not only plotting a blitz of new bills but also hiring moving companies to help the Democrats clean out their desks and preparing the walking papers for more than 3,000 Democratic staffers. Like some kindly Scrooge, Gingrich explained that he wanted to let the staff members know where they stood as soon as possible, what with Christmas coming.

By week's end Democratic resumes clogged printshops on Capitol Hill, where real estate agents predicted a buyers' market in brick town houses. Some Democrats, however, were slow to accept the news. An incumbent committee chairman, informed by a Democratic party elder that the House was falling to the Republicans, began to prattle on about how he would adjust his agenda to accommodate the newcomers. "Don't you understand?" the party elder interrupted. "You're not the chairman anymore."

For both parties, observed Representative Toby Roth, a Wisconsin Republican, "this was more than an election. It was a revolution." Already wheezing before last Tuesday, the New Deal coalition that had kept Democrats in power for most of the past six decades collapsed and will have to be replaced. Meanwhile, Republicans have achieved a pregnant moment when their 25-year realignment of party power seems on the verge of success. They have managed to discredit the Democrats, root and branch. What they have not done, however -- and must accomplish over the next two years -- is convince voters that Republicans in Congress can move beyond heckling and obstructing to meet the public demand for leaner, more effective, more accountable government; that they can emulate pragmatic Republican success stories in the statehouses and mayors' offices. If not, the 1994 election will be remembered as just another blip, like the 1946 vote that won them only fleeting control of Congress. To paraphrase Victor Hugo: A great army can capture an enemy city, but to rule it requires a great idea.

The G.O.P.'s attempt to consolidate its hold on Congress and win the White House in 1996 will be determined in the struggle between the party's bomb- throwing congressional wing and its governing faction in the statehouses and mayor's offices -- both of which showed remarkable success in Tuesday's voting. To be sure, Republican conservatives will also clash with Republican moderates in Congress, like Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island and Representative Jim Leach of Iowa. But there the conservatives will win, because the moderates' numbers in both parties in Congress have been decimated by retirements and by last Tuesday's election. But if one faith unites and encourages both wings of the G.O.P., it is the evidence from the election -- and from Clinton's reaction to it -- that they have the President and his party on the ropes.

In the White House, no one was ready to hear that message. Last Tuesday afternoon, chief of staff Leon Panetta gathered his downcast political team to plot how to put spin control on various election outcomes: a modest loss, a big loss and what he called "a blowout scenario." At one point, aide George Stephanopoulos pushed himself back from the mahogany table in Panetta's office and left. When he returned -- stone-faced, exit-poll results in hand -- he told the group, "We're in deep trouble."

Panetta walked into the Oval Office and handed the exit-poll notes, with state-by-state breakdowns, to President Clinton. He studied them carefully, without much comment. He had concluded the day before that he was up against something bigger than he had previously understood. On election eve, returning from eight days on the road campaigning, Clinton had told Panetta about a man who had stopped him in Minnesota after hearing the President's pitch about the economy's improvement and the 4 million new jobs the Democratic Administration had helped create. Unpersuaded, the man told Clinton, "The problem is that every time ((Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan)) Greenspan raises interest rates, he takes money out of my pocket." In other words, Clinton complained to his chief of staff, "His message was, 'Every time you produce more jobs, interest rates go up and I get hurt!' "

Throughout Tuesday evening and the rest of the week, Clinton vacillated between self-pity, rationalization and blaming others, and a clear, self- distanced reading of the voters' rejection of his party and many of his policies. Clinton followed the returns into the small hours of Wednesday morning, studying them by state and by district. He found some solace in North Dakota, a state he had lost by a wide margin in 1992, but where Democratic Senator Kent Conrad and Representative Earl Pomeroy managed to win re-election despite having supported Clinton's economic program.

Clinton found another bit of encouragement in the re-election of Colorado Governor Roy Romer, a genuine New Democrat. When Clinton phoned to congratulate him, Romer urged the President to return to New Democrat themes. "People had expectations that he didn't deliver on," Romer told TIME in recounting the 15-minute talk. "They voted for change two years ago, and they don't see it happening." Romer also advised Clinton to "get out with the people more" and address "one of the anxieties that people have, that they're not being listened to." In typical fashion, Clinton, aides say, took this to mean he should hold more town meetings -- where he, of course, does most of the talking.

Clinton had called a postelection press conference for Wednesday afternoon, and as he prepared for it -- all morning and into the afternoon, requiring an hour delay -- he was bombarded with what a White House aide called "a thousand ideas," with conflicting analysis and advice and poll data. That helps explain Clinton's comment, when he finally entered the East Room and addressed the nation, about the message from voters: "I think they were saying two things to me. Or maybe three. They were saying -- let me -- maybe 300." For weeks, right through Wednesday morning, Stephanopoulos and some of Clinton's other leftish aides tried to spin the Republican onslaught as good news because "the voters still want change" -- ever the vague mantra of Clintonites -- just as the voters wanted change in 1992. Some aides tried to keep Clinton on that line, despite its obvious pitfall: the officeholders that voters cashiered were all Democrats. During his press conference, Clinton seemed by turns contrite and defiant. He held that voters agreed with him. Then, on specific issues, he conceded they did not. He kept trying out different analyses of what had befallen him and his party, piling one explanation upon another without pausing for breath until, out of the fog of words, it was clear that what Clinton said of Bush now was true of Clinton: he just didn't get it.

This was most evident on the front-burner issue of the growth and intrusiveness of government. Clinton claimed that he is already delivering a smaller government by cutting 70,000 federal jobs through his program of "Reinventing Government." One of his centrist advisers says Clinton "thought we were doing just fine by just downsizing government" through work-force reductions and regulatory reforms and "did not understand until this election" that the public is demanding more radical reductions that would lighten the tax burden. Another official added that even now, few White House officials understand how their overreaching on health reform has undermined Clinton's other accomplishments and tarred him as a Big Government liberal.

The Republicans promise to make smaller government a reality. But so far their promises don't add up. Gingrich vows that in the first 100 days of the Congress that takes office in January, he will ram through votes on the central tenets of the "Contract with America" that he and his House candidates signed last September on the Capitol steps. The document is heavy on popular goodies like tax cuts and new defense spending. It is light on specific cuts in federal spending that would finance these apple pies without swelling the budget deficit, pushing up interest rates and leaving the bill for America's grandchildren. The Republican answer to this quandary is a device called the Balanced Budget Amendment: a proposed constitutional amendment that purports to force across-the-board spending cuts. Despite its many practical problems, the amendment stands a decent chance of winning the two-thirds vote required for passage and transmittal to the states for ratification. Other key elements of the G.O.P. contract also look likely to pass: a measure that would let the President veto individual line items in the budget, a tax cut for capital gains on investments and some sort of tax cut for families with children.

Senator Mark Hatfield, the Oregon Republican in line to chair the Appropriations Committee, told TIME that "there will be a very early attempt to do the symbols -- the line-item veto, a Balanced Budget Amendment and term limitations. I call them symbols because none of them really address the concerns and underlying issues of deficits, fair taxation and overregulation that the people have about their central government."

Hatfield, who hails from what's left of the moderate wing of Republican lawmakers, advocates compromise with centrist Democrats and with Clinton to get legislation passed. But compromise is a dirty word to many of the fire breathers elected to Congress last week. That's why Gingrich felt obliged to declare that he would "cooperate" with Clinton and Democratic lawmakers, "but we will not compromise." Gingrich stumbled over another conservative taboo last week when he mused in an interview that he would "grow" into his new role as Speaker. Almost immediately, half a dozen conservatives jumped him, Gingrich told TIME, and explained that grow was "a code word for selling out."

/ That incident gives a hint of the intraparty spats that await Gingrich and incoming Senate majority leader Bob Dole. For starters, the two Republican leaders have never liked each other, especially since Gingrich called Dole "the tax collector for the welfare state." And soon the contest for the G.O.P. presidential nomination will begin to play out on the floors of the Senate and House. Already, Dole's rivals in the Senate are whispering that he should step down from his leadership post if, as expected, he launches his bid for the Republican nomination for President. Dole, however, thinks he could campaign while continuing to serve as majority leader. "There are certain advantages to the leadership, obviously," he said, "when it comes to raising money and getting people's attention."

Central elements of the G.O.P. legislative agenda will look far less appealing to Republicans running states and major cities. Some Republican Governors and mayors will probably oppose ratification of the Balanced Budget Amendment once they see how its mandated spending cuts would affect them. And some are likely to resist the House G.O.P. plan to cut $9.5 billion in job- training funds to states. "The Governors and the mayors, who have to implement the law, are going to tell the right-wingers, 'Wait a minute, we don't agree with you,' " predicted Tony Coehlo, the de facto head of the Democratic National Committee.

The Democrats, however, will be roiling with factional strife of their own in the wake of last week's humiliating defeat. Senate Democrats were already jockeying last week to see which among them could go toe to toe with Dole. The election defeat of Tennessee's Jim Sasser, considered the top contender for Democratic leader, left Thomas Daschle of South Dakota next in line. Yet many fear that Daschle lacks the stature and the grit for the job of leading a dispirited minority. By week's end at least two others, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, were sounding out fellow Democrats about their prospects.

Meanwhile, at the White House, the finger pointing has already started, with blame falling heaviest on the President's most liberal advisers, including Stephanopoulos, deputy White House chief of staff Harold Ickes and pollster Stan Greenberg. Trouble is, as an Administration centrist put it, "the liberal adviser who has got the President in the most trouble is the one he can't fire" -- Hillary Clinton. But a White House official argued that the focus on the politics of individual advisers was misguided. "Ours is not a management or a staff problem," he said. "It's a philosophical problem. It's about whether you listen to the American people or whether you listen to the special-interest groups in your own party." Several centrist officials held out hope that Tuesday's defeat will push Clinton back to the New Democrat themes that got him elected. Even Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican, predicted to TIME that the defeat will be "very good" for Clinton by liberating him from "catering to the far left" of his party.

The Republicans' victory gives them advantages that could be converted to achieve their goal of winning both the White House and Congress in 1996. Their sway over congressional committees allows them not only to initiate and block legislation, but also to block Administration appointees and regulatory actions and to tie the White House down in hearings and investigations.

One of Clinton's worst nightmares came to life last Tuesday when Senator Alfonse D'Amato, the New York Republican, became the next chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. D'Amato plans to reopen hearings into the Clintons' Whitewater investments as early as January. Meanwhile, Hatch will vet the President's judicial appointments as head of the Judiciary Committee. And paleoconservative Senator Jesse Helms will torment the striped-pants set as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Helms acknowledged as much in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher after the election results were in. He intended to work "in a spirit of mutual friendship and cooperation," he wrote. Helms, who already routinely blocks appointments of ambassadors he considers too liberal, added a proviso: "It would be less than candid of me to fail to acknowledge that there must necessarily be adjustments in the broad focus of the Administration's foreign policies."

Control of Congress also will flood Republican campaign treasuries with even more special-interest contributions, which will be useful in defending newly won seats and seeking to oust Clinton in 1996. But there is a danger of voter backlash if the G.O.P. panders too cravenly with legislation designed to enrich its traditional supporters in Big Business and finance. Already last week, Representative Thomas Bliley of Virginia, whose constituency is the heart of tobacco-growing country, reassured cigarette-company executives that + they need not fear any further embarrassing hearings or new antismoking laws when he takes over Energy and Commerce's health subcommittee. And at a postelection barbecue at a German beer garden in Austin, oil and gas producers were drooling in their steins at the prospect of Texas Representative Bill Archer's taking charge of the Ways and Means Committee, which writes tax laws for the petroleum industry. Barry Williamson, a Texas Republican official at the barbeque, exulted that since last Tuesday, "the air smells sweeter and the sky is bluer."

One of the first tests of Republican cooperation with President Clinton will come later this month, when Congress briefly reconvenes in a lame-duck session to attempt to pass the GATT global trade treaty. Though that measure promises to create thousands of new export jobs in the U.S., it is opposed by textile manufacturers, some unions and other influential interests. When the White House last week conducted an informal count of Senate votes, the tally came up two votes shy of the number needed to approve the measure. Welfare reform and GATT were the first two subjects Clinton wanted to discuss with Gingrich when he phoned the Georgian on Wednesday morning. Gingrich couldn't take that call immediately because he had just been wired up for an appearance on CNN.

Tell the President I'll call him back. The bumptious Gingrich likes the sound of that, and in other ways large and small is relishing his new role at the center of things. On Friday evening Gingrich rushed from his first postelection meeting with Representative Richard Gephardt -- the Missouri Democrat and outgoing majority leader -- into his own tiny, crowded office just off the House floor. Prominent just inside the heavy doors were a dozen red roses with a thank-you card signed by the National Right to Life Committee, the nation's most powerful opponent of abortion rights. All around were signs of change, but a small one was particularly telling. As his secretary leafed through the phone messages left for the Speaker in Waiting, she came across this one: "All you have to do is call them, and they will open the gym for you." Special hours at the House gym are the very least of the perks Gingrich can expect now that he runs the place.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett, Michael Duffy and Karen Tumulty/Washington, David S. Jackson/Portland and Richard Woodbury/Denver