POLITICS

WASHINGTON —  In 1992, Bill Clinton’s chief strategist, James Carville, kept saying, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Carville’s phrase has served Clinton well. He was elected, in large part, because of Americans’ insecurity after the 1990-91 recession. He won reelection and beat back impeachment because voters appreciated the economy’s recovery.

But what if, next year, it’s the economy, stumbling?

Sure, economic insecurity is far from people’s minds and from the public debate. Unemployment and inflation are at record lows, the stock market is at a record high and Clinton and Congress are debating what to do with some $400 billion in unexpected budget surpluses.

The Federal Reserve Board’s recent increase in interest rates, however, along with continuing Asian economic troubles and what some call a speculative bubble in stock prices, raise the prospect that the economy will cool some by the time voters focus on the 2000 elections. Few economists forecast an outright recession. But the economy could look more like the anxious upturn that marked much of Clinton’s first term: a jobless, then a joyless, then a regressive recovery that improved profit statements for corporate America and increased earnings for the well-to-do but laid off thousands of workers while doing nothing to boost their wages.

Even now, in an economy approaching full employment, anxieties stirred by such inequalities lurk below the surface.

Last year, corporate downsizings caused the largest layoffs since 1993, and an estimated 1 million workers, including many who kept their jobs, found themselves losing their health insurance.

Yes, workers can find new jobs. But it is harder to find secure and good-paying positions, with reliable health coverage. For most workers without college degrees, real wages are just a little above where they were nine years ago at the peak of the last business cycle.

Even before the Fed raised interest rates, economic uncertainties were contributing to an increasingly uneasy public mood, in part reflected in the 51% of likely voters who think the nation is on the wrong track, according to the recent Battleground 2000 survey, conducted by Republican pollster Ed Goeas and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. These persistent anxieties explain why a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 58% of Americans believe that trade is harmful to their jobs and wages.

So what would it mean for politicians to campaign in a cooling economy and an edgier America?

At first, there would be more policy debates within each party than a reshaping of the battlefield between the parties. Among Republicans, economic anxiety could offer a shot in the arm for fringe candidates already appealing to worry. Conservative Patrick J. Buchanan attacks imports and immigrants. Multimillionaire magazine publisher Steve Forbes calls for flattening the tax code and privatizing parts of Social Security.

Meanwhile, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the front-runner, and Elizabeth H. Dole are emphasizing their personal character, professional resumes and family values, not their economic prescriptions. Such strategies tripped up Republican candidates named George Bush and Bob Dole and could derail the newer versions if economic anxiety returns.

With Democrats, there still won’t be the kind of public debate that would have taken place if Vice President Al Gore had been challenged by an economic populist like House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.). But there could be an insiders’ argument similar to the one that took place in 1996 between populists, such as former Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich, and corporatists, such as departing Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin. The issue then was whether to do more to assist downsized workers by investing in retraining and jobs and insisting upon more socially conscious corporate behavior. While Rubin helped convince Clinton not to criticize corporate behavior or boost federal spending, the president did address economic anxieties indirectly, championing an increase in the minimum wage and defending Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and education programs against attacks by the Republican Congress.

This year, the Democratic debate will be even more subdued because there are no discordant voices within the administration, most labor liberals and centrist Democrats are lining up behind the heavily favored Gore, and his only opponent, former Sen. Bill Bradley, is also a free trader and fiscal moderate. In the general election, though, Gore, if nominated, would be well-advised to remember the hard-pressed, hard-working Americans whom Reich called the “anxious class” in the aftermath of the Democrats’ defeat in the 1994 elections.

As public-opinion analyst Ruy Teixeira and sociologist Joel Rogers argue in their forthcoming book, “The Forgotten Majority: The New White Working Class and America’s Future,” swing voters are folks without four-year college degrees who work for middling wages, mostly in low- and mid-level white-collar and service jobs. They’re not the angry Archie Bunkers whom Buchanan imagines still dominate downscale America, but they’re also not the affluent soccer moms and dads whom some of Gore’s advisors imagine are most concerned by urban sprawl. Instead, they’re most likely to support an agenda similar to what Clinton and Gore campaigned on in 1992: extending and defending health coverage, strengthening retirement security, expanding opportunities for education and training and preventing free trade from causing a free fall in workers’ wages by incorporating labor standards into trade agreements.

In the general campaign, likely Republican nominee Bush would probably join congressional Republicans in calling for across-the-board tax cuts similar to those that Ronald Reagan proposed during his successful presidential campaign in 1980 in the face of rising unemployment and inflation. But winning reelection in anxious but prosperous 1996, Clinton countered a similar proposal by challenger Dole by contending it would mostly benefit the wealthy while forcing cuts in popular programs from Social Security to schools.

Still, Gore would have a secret weapon: Bush is hardly a brand name for prosperity. When the elder Bush left the White House, unemployment was at 7.3%, the federal deficit was $250 billion and the stock market was stuck at about 3,300. Voters rejected that record in 1992, but, while Clinton and Gore have profited from the prosperity that has come on their watch, they haven’t offered a persuasive explanation of why it followed from their policies.

Now, it’s up to the leaders of both parties to make sure that, whether the economy surges or stumbles, they’ll have something convincing to say.