Shellshocked From the Reagan Years, Democrats Lack Battle Plan for Bush Era : Politics: Working with Bush to pass laws now will help Democrats in this year’s elections, but hurt them when it’s time for the big spin in 1992.

In contrast to the high-profile gubernatorial races in Texas, California and Florida, this year’s battle for control of Congress has produced hardly a memorable sound bite. It won’t stay that quiet, but most political professionals expect the 1990 congressional elections to turn on local issues, without producing any clear national themes or trends.

That remains to be seen. But there is undeniably less anticipation of change in the political community than is common in off-year campaigns. Usually the party out of the White House expects substantial gains. In 1982, the Democrats won 26 new House seats; in 1986 they ousted seven Republican senators, picked up eight seats overall and regained control of the Senate. Historically the average gains have often been even greater.

This year, Democrats are just hoping to hold their own. Almost all the Senate races now considered most competitive involve Democratic incumbents; the Democrats could not recruit top challengers for any of the three open seats left by retirements of GOP senators.

That the Democrats should be entering a midterm election with such little enthusiasm suggests the depths of the party’s malaise. Eighteen months after Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis blew his commanding early lead in the 1988 presidential race, many Democrats still seem shellshocked and unsure of how to deal with George Bush.

By and large, the party’s congressional leadership has chosen a strategy that bends more toward working with Bush than confronting him. Though they have challenged Bush on such issues as a cut in the capital-gains tax, congressional Democrats have generally been anxious to find common ground. That strategy was most vividly symbolized by the deal Sen. Majority Leader George J. Mitchell cut with the Administration to pass a clean-air bill earlier this month. Determined to finally pass legislation after a decade of stalemate, Mitchell defended the deal against all liberal attempts to strengthen the law and draw contrasts with the Administration’s approach.

To a considerable degree, the leadership’s approach reflects awareness that Bush is a man members can do business with. After eight years of bruising conflict with Ronald Reagan, many Democratic legislators are aching to practice their craft and legislate again.

Mitchell and House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) are prominent in that group. Both men are smart, cautious, judicious--Mitchell was a judge--conveyors of policy. But though Mitchell is more partisan than the Speaker, neither has much inclination for sustained confrontation with Bush. Both seem to understand that, while Bush’s approval rating remains stratospheric, too much conflict with him could endanger their colleagues running in 1990. By lowering the pitch in Washington, they make it difficult for Bush to use his popularity against incumbents allegedly frustrating his designs.

But if the low-key approach on Capitol Hill strengthens the Democrats’ candidates in 1990, many activists fear it also diminishes the party’s prospects in 1992. From the Democratic perspective, the stiff price of low-intensity conflict is that it allows Bush to ride high in the polls, virtually free from systematic criticism.

It is difficult for any Democrat to argue with Mitchell’s enormous achievement in passing a clean-air bill, or his contention that he would rather pass laws than “make statements.” But a growing number worry that neither Mitchell nor Foley have made room in their vision for passing laws that highlight the differences between the parties. “There are some people trying to think in those terms,” said a prominent liberal representative. “(Majority Leader) Richard Gephardt is actively reaching for ways for us to be positioned. But I don’t think Foley is doing that, and I don’t think Mitchell has that mentality--the clean-air bill is an example.”

Even Gephardt’s camp is gloomy about the prospects of developing a sharper opposition. When Gephardt was assaulted by Republicans for criticizing Bush’s “lack of vision” in responding to changes in Eastern Europe, the other Democratic leaders stood around as sheepishly as a homeowner who draws the shades to avoid getting involved in a mugging. “We haven’t even debated any issues,” sighed one Gephardt aide. “At best, all we are going to do before 1992 is marginal positioning on a few selected issues.”

Mitchell and Foley have not been oblivious to positioning the party. Last year, the congressional Democrats forced Bush to veto four separate bills providing federal funding for abortion and family planning. This year, despite veto threats, they are moving toward sending him legislation on child care and the restoration of job-discrimination protection for minorities trimmed by recent Supreme Court decisions. And they have resisted enough Bush initiatives--on issues ranging from foreign policy to executive branch appointments--to saddle the President with the worst first-year record of passing his proposals through Congress in 40 years.

But on the issue where Bush’s public approval looks thinnest--his handling of the domestic economy--congressional Democrats have had little to offer. In one recent survey substantially more voters disapproved of Bush’s handling of the economy than approved.

In another survey, sponsored by the liberal group Democrats for the ‘90s, voters also indicated increasing anxiety about the direction of the economy, particularly their ability to keep up with the costs of major needs, such as health care and housing. These findings, the survey’s authors concluded, “provide the Democrats with an enormous opportunity to recapture (the issue of) the economy.”

But the same study found that almost two-thirds of voters--and more than 60% of Democrats--could volunteer “no response” when asked what issues the Democrats in Congress were handling well. In part, that’s because Washington’s activities are not of much interest now. But another explanation may be that the Democrats have had little to say about the economic concerns on voters’ minds.

Without any clear national leaders to inspire consensus, the Democrats drift. The problem isn’t only a shortage of leadership, but an absence of followship. The House leadership’s most determined attempt to make a stand against Bush last year ended in disaster, when they failed to hold enough Democrats to prevent the President’s proposal to cut capital gains from passing the chamber. Only parliamentary maneuvering stalled the bill in the Senate--though it is likely to resurface this year. “The level of confrontation is low only partly because Bush is popular,” said a prominent liberal House member. “It’s also low because the Democrats don’t know what they stand for.”

Nowhere is that dilemma more apparent than in the party’s bizarre silence on the huge savings-and-loan scandal, whose costs continue to explode. Even some White House aides are amazed the Democrats have not been able to bring more pressure on Bush for the scandal, not only for his uncertain handling of the bailout, but as a symbol of the flaws in the deregulatory policies he helped create in the Reagan Administration.

If the Democrats in Congress have been cautious about drawing lines with Bush, neither has the White House helped the GOP distance itself from the Democrats. Some Republican activists are unhappy with this pattern, too. Many worry that the quiescence in the capital substantially dampens the party’s ability to run the ideologically polarizing federal campaigns that were so successful in the 1980s.

That awareness rounds out Washington’s current curious symmetry: The Democrats have not forced Bush on the defensive, and the President has not created an environment where he can convincingly ask voters to send him a Congress he can work with. He has a Congress he can work with--even if he is working with it toward only modest goals.

Bush and the Democrats are pursuing defensive strategies--that suggests on both sides an indolent comfort with the status quo of divided government control and modest fine-tuning of public policy. “What we have is a system that works--for the people who are playing the game,” said one GOP observer close to the White House. “Everybody who is playing the game is winning. What is missing is a tide of people pushing at the gates, forcing the people who are comfortable to change the way they are doing things.”