Are The Democrats Cursed?

By WALTER SHAPIRO

The most appropriate Election Night parable for the demoralized Democrats comes from the comic strips, even though for the Dukakis camp it is no laughing matter that the party has now lost five of the past six presidential elections. In Peanuts there is a running joke that every time Charlie Brown races forward to kick a football, Lucy grabs it away at the last second and he takes a pratfall. The humor, of course, lies in Charlie Brown's earnest belief that despite the implacable evidence of history, this time will somehow be different, and the pigskin will finally go sailing through the uprights.

So, too, for the Democrats. They begin each presidential cycle convinced that they have at last redefined their ideology, risen above the folly of faction and rediscovered the magic formula to create a national majority. The jaunty confidence of the Atlanta convention and the euphoria that accompanied summer polls pointing to a Dukakis landslide are a potent illustration of how deeply self-deception is embedded in the party's soul. Each presidential pratfall comes as a stunning surprise, since the Democrats stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that around 1968 or 1972 they ceased to be the nation's natural governing party. The myth structure that surrounds the victories of Franklin Roosevelt dies hard, even though Democrats conveniently forget that only two of their candidates (Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter) have garnered the support of a majority of the electorate since 1944.

The meanness of George Bush's attacks coupled with the ineptitude of Michael Dukakis' campaign tends to obscure an important truth for the Democrats: the party is still doing penance for the 1960s. The code words like Willie Horton, the Pledge of Allegiance and the A.C.L.U., which the Republicans used to fuel the politics of resentment, all come out of Richard Nixon's playbook. In the minds of too many voters, the Democrats are still the party of militant blacks, meddlesome social workers, uppity feminists and draft-card-burning protesters. Such images not only are unfair but also reflect some of the nation's most deep-seated prejudices. Sad to say, they also provide a convincing explanation for the pattern inherent in the defeats of Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and now Dukakis.

There is, to be sure, the counterargument that Democratic blunders kicked away a race that otherwise would have marked the party's triumphant return to the White House. "We should not have lost this election," insists Texas agriculture commissioner Jim Hightower, one of the party's leading populists. "By God, it's awful we could not beat George Bush and Dan Quayle. They were perfect for us." This widespread view stems directly from the party's consistent strength at all other levels of government. As political scientist Nelson Polsby puts it, "The only thing wrong with the Democratic Party is that they can't elect a President. Everything else they're doing is right. The Senate, the House, party ID -- they're all fine."

Even if Bush's win is something of an accident, the Democrats have again ceded the power to determine their fate. For better or worse, the 1992 election promises to be a referendum on the record of the Bush Administration. Thus the Democrats, as they did throughout the Reagan years, are almost reduced to praying for an economic cataclysm. Political analyst Kevin Phillips, the author of the prophetic 1969 book The Emerging Republican Majority, sees parallels between Bush and Harry Truman. Phillips contends that just like the Democrats this year, the Republicans ought to have won the 1948 election. Truman managed to mount one last crusade against the memory of Herbert Hoover, but the Republican triumph in 1952 was all but inevitable. "I don't see how George can play the populist role for too long," Phillips says. "If we get an economic downturn, he can't get away with pork rinds and Loretta Lynn."

The nature of the Dukakis defeat virtually guarantees four years of Democratic doctrinal debate, since nearly all factions in the party can concoct self-serving rationales for the setback. The party's Southern moderates will point to the popularity of Lloyd Bentsen as evidence that the 1992 nominee must be tough on defense and immune to Republican attacks on social issues. Jesse Jackson and the left-leaning liberals will decry Dukakis' ideological blandness. Even the party centrists, whose position has been weakened by the twin failures of Mondale and Dukakis, can with some justice argue that a better candidate might win with the same strategy next time. Democratic pollster Peter Hart reflects this view when he says, "The steps that the party leadership took to position us for 1988 and the results of the congressional elections suggest that we were moving in the right direction."

Even before the Democrats select a new party chairman to succeed Paul Kirk in January, Jackson is almost certain to stake his claim as the spiritual leader of the party and its presidential nominee in 1992. He comes out of this campaign with an army of loyalists in every key state, a fund-raising list containing nearly 200,000 names that is the envy of his rivals and a peripatetic speaking schedule that will keep him highly visible. But to solidify his position, Jackson is keenly aware that he must quickly move away from the polarizing postures of the past. "He needs to reach out to the South, to the Democratic Leadership Council and to the party chairs," says a leading party insider. "And that's what he's going to do."

Democrats do not lack other potential 1992 candidates. Richard Gephardt and, to a lesser extent, Al Gore are strengthened by the perception that they would have run stronger races than Dukakis did. Bill Bradley remains as beguiling as ever, and Mario Cuomo stands ready to prove that not all Northeastern ethnic Governors are soulless technocrats. Maybe 1992 will be the year the Democrats shake off their presidential curse. Or maybe the party is just doomed to wander in the wilderness until President Dan Quayle runs for a second term.