Cycle Races

A provocative new theory

James David Barber, 49, a tall, soft-spoken Duke professor who likes to psychoanalyze Presidents, has now attempted a more ambitious task: putting the entire American electorate on the couch. In what has been a year of rather cautious punditing, he proposes a provocative new theory of cyclical moods to explain why Presidents get elected. Woe to the candidate who is out of phase with the cycle; no matter what he does, he doesn't stand a chance.

In his much discussed book, The Presidential Character, published in 1972, Barber categorized Presidents according to whether they were active or passive and positive or negative toward their job. In his new book, The Pulse of Politics (Norton; $14.95), Barber divides presidential elections since 1900 into three phases: conflict, conscience and conciliation. First comes a tooth-and-claw struggle: a stand-pat William McKinley vs. fiery Populist William Jennings Bryan in 1900, or Richard Nixon vs. George Mc-Govern in 1972. Then all-out conflict gives way to a rivalry of conscience, lofty moralizing in place of mere politics: Woodrow Wilson vs. Charles Evans Hughes in 1916, or Jimmy Carter vs. Gerald Ford in 1976. Finally, exhausted by combat, the public seeks a conciliator: Harding in 1920, Eisenhower in 1956, and someone of similarly soothing qualities in 1980. Carter or Reagan? Whatever their drawbacks, both try to present themselves as reassuring figures who want to bring people together.

Barber knows how to start an argument. In an election of conscience, was Goldwater really any less combative than Truman in a year of conflict? Was Nixon the conciliator in 1968 all that different from Nixon the scrapper a mere four years later? Barber's categories are considerably too neat, but his basic point deserves attention: an election depends as much on the mood of the time as it does on the qualities of the successful candidate. Tom Dewey, Barber argues, came on too strong in 1944, when the public yearned for unity, but was too weak in 1948, when the mood was combative. Wrong both times, he lost both times.

F.D.R., on the other hand, smoothly adjusted to each change in the cycle. In 1932, in the depths of the Depression, he began as a conciliator. Four years later, after the electorate had divided over the New Deal, he turned more strident. In 1940 he appeared as a patriotic moralizer, preparing for war while keeping the nation out of it. Finally, in 1944, he began another cycle as the great wartime unifier.

One value of Barber's theory is that it puts new emphasis on the importance of conciliation in politics. The author feels that the press is overly disposed to treat a campaign as a battle. "The story of politics as conflict has distorted and diverted presidential politics repeatedly," he asserts. His view: conflict makes the best story and if there is none, the press starts looking for it. Barber is especially unhappy with coverage of so-called gaffes. A case in point: Jimmy Carter's remark in 1976 about maintaining "ethnic purity" in neighborhoods. While inept and illadvised, Barber argues, the phrase told nothing about the man, who never before or since could be accused of bigotry. Yet it became a serious campaign issue, as one press account fed on another.

Instead of relentlessly pursuing conflict, Barber says, the press should spend more time examining the candidate's vision of the good life that will motivate him in office. It should pay more attention to how the candidate works with others, to the views he shares with other national leaders. That will give some insight as to how he will build coalitions when he is elected and how effectively he will govern--which is what elections are supposed to be about.

With the decline of parties and the Establishment, says Barber, the media are today's true kingmakers, capable of savaging or salvaging a candidacy with a few well-chosen words. Such criticism of the press, not altogether new, is not altogether convincing either. Though the press has indisputably become part of the political process that it reports, it is no more than one element in that process.

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