The Election of 1982

In 1981 Republicans had thought that 1982 might be the year when they finally captured the House. The president's party normally lost seats in a midterm election, but, if a political realignment were in progress, 1982 could be, like 1934, the exception to the rule. After the 1980 census, redistricting would shift congressional seats from the declining Democratic Frostbelt to the booming Republican Sunbelt.

The Republicans had a further advantage in the Senate, where only 12 of their seats but 21 Democratic seats were at stake. Republicans had also developed a superior campaign apparatus: The GOP could raise more money than the Democrats. That did not ensure that Republican candidates would have more money than their opponents, for Democratic incumbents could generate substantial contributions. But it did mean that Republican challengers would be better funded than Democratic challengers. The Republican National Committee not only provided campaign assistance in each district, but it also helped to recruit attractive candidates, guaranteeing them money enough to make the race, and even training them in electioneering. The Democratic National Committee could not begin to match such efforts. All those Republican advantages only limited damage at the polls, exacerbated by an unemployment rate that hit 10.8 percent in November.

Republicans would complain that Democrats blunted the effect of population shifts to the sunbelt by the hoary political tactic of the gerrymander (named, not quite fairly, for Elbridge Gerry, governor of Massachusetts

in 1811). In states where they controlled both houses of the legislature and the governorship, Democrats drew new district lines that helped them stay in charge by concentrating Republican voters in as few districts as feasible. Republicans did the same where they could, but they controlled fewer (or smaller) states. Thus the GOP gerrymander in Indiana hardly compensated for the Democrats' plan in California.^[23] Nevertheless, Republican advantages in campaign resources and plain good luck enabled them to win more seats in the House and Senate than their smashing defeat in the popular vote would normally have allowed.

In 1982, as in 1980, most close Senate races—those decided by 2 percent or less—went to the GOP. The GOP held on to its 54 to 46 edge, although roughly 43,000 votes in five states (Virginia, Rhode Island, Missouri, Nevada, and Vermont) would have given the Senate to the Democrats. In the House, the public voted Democratic 57 to 40 percent, a margin that would normally create a landslide in the districts. Republicans escaped with a loss of "only" twenty-six seats—low given the poor economy, but double the norm and enough to restore Tip O'Neill's reliable majority. In the states, Democrats gained seven governorships for a 34 to 16 edge and gained full control of six more legislatures for a total of thirty-four.

The election gave Tip O'Neill control of the House; without shifting, the balance in the Senate was less secure. Columnist Mark Shields pointed out that the problem for Republicans was not their losers but their winners: winning senators such as Danforth, Durenberger, Chaffee, Stafford, and Weicker had run away from the president to save their skins. "In politics," Shields wrote, "which is the art of the imitative as well as of the possible, that lesson will not be lost on any of the 19 Republican Senators facing reelection campaigns in 1984."^[24]

Using his nautical storm theme yet again, Reagan and his party had tried to stave off disaster by urging voters to "stay the course." Sure, the ship of state had drifted into a gale, but that was the fault of the previous skipper and crew. If the ship were steered straight ahead, it would emerge into bright sunlight. On October 13 Ronald Reagan went on television to defend his record. He argued that the cure of economic problems caused by government spending required time. The administration's policies were working on everything except unemployment ("always a lagging indicator in times of recession"). The next recovery would be "built to last." Congress, of course, would have to help by such measures as honoring its "pledge" to save three dollars in outlays for every dollar in new taxes.

But it isn't an easy job, this challenge to rebuild America and renew the American dream…. It can be tempting, listening to some who would go

back to the old ways and the quick fix. But consider the choice. A return to the big spending and big taxing that left us with 21 ½ percent interest rates is no real alternative. A return to double-digit inflation is no alternative. A return to taxing and taxing the American people—that's no alternative. That's what destroyed millions of American jobs. Together we've chosen a new road for America.

In the Democrats' televised response, Senator Donald Riegle of Michigan declared:

The President says, "Stay the course." But Democrats feel that it's time to change the course…. Every month since the President and the Republicans got their program adopted a year and a half ago, unemployment has skyrocketed. Why would the Administration want to stay this course? Maybe because so many of the top officials in the Administration are millionaires who have no understanding of what life is like for most Americans.

Maybe it's because they have their eyes so fixed on the ticker tape on Wall Street that they don't see the growing pile of pink slips and foreclosure notices shutting down Main Street.

The truth is that this Administration has created two courses: one of them a very fast economic track for the few, the other filled with potholes and roadblocks for the rest of us.

That's why staying the course makes sense to them: because they're not paying the price. You are.^[25]

Riegle appealed to the traditional Democratic voter. In politics votes, not dollars, counted; for the Democrats the government rather than the economy had been the place of fairness. The party's long-term problem was that Democrats had grown suspicious of that government as well. In 1982, however, the Democrats reclaimed most of their old constituency. Reaganomics might be okay in the abstract, but unemployment in the concrete was terrible.

NBC's election day sample reported that 39 percent of 12,000 respondents believed that Reaganomics has "helped the country," and 40 percent said it had hurt. The president's job performance showed 52 percent disapproval and 48 percent approval. Reagan and Reaganomics did even this well because, another poll showed, 46 percent blamed the recession on "the situation Reagan inherited," while only 33 percent blamed "Reagan and his policies." In the NBC/AP poll, only 6 percent called Reagan's policies a success, but 50 percent declared that they "needed more time."^[26]

At the level of theory, voters were not so sure the president was wrong. They liked him personally. With unemployment over 10 percent, however, those closest to joblessness remembered that Democrats were their historic allies. Democrats once again were heavily favored over Republicans as the party to reduce unemployment. Democrats gained most

among Catholics, union members, and those with no college education, all of whom had deserted Jimmy Carter when he engineered a recession.^[27] They were mobilized by leaders of unions and civil rights movements; turnout increased for the first time in years as these voters protested the new turn in policy.

Although the depression (so, Louis Harris reported, most voters considered the state of the economy) brought voters back to Democrats, it did not create a groundswell for big new social programs. There was no mandate for an alternative Democratic program. Californian Democratic Senator Alan Cranston, his party's whip, concluded that "this election was a call for moderation and modification, not for a return to old-style liberalism."^[28]

Republicans agreed in their own way, seeing the message as not rejecting the premises of Reaganomics but showing their concern about unemployment. Minority Leader Bob Michel narrowly survived the election. "We've listened and learned, and we will take what we've learned back to Washington," Michel told his constituents. "There will have to be some adjustments, some modifications in the things we are doing. No question about it."^[29]

Politicians are a creative lot; and any situation, however bleak, is an opportunity for someone. The election of 1982 seemed mainly to guarantee stalemate, but Drew Lewis and James Howard had an answer for legislators who wanted to do something about jobs without rejecting Reaganomics.