GOPTIMISM

First, the shifts themselves. The most sudden was a striking change in the public’s attitude about whether the country is headed in the right direction. Pollsters ask this question frequently, and for months a majority or large minority in most surveys had said, yes, things are on the right track. Then came the killing of 13 students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, by two of their classmates. That occurred on April 20. Polls by Wirthlin Worldwide captured the near-instantaneous change: from 49-44 percent wrong direction on April 12 to 60-32 percent wrong track on April 26. Other polls caught the same change, though over a longer period. A survey by EPIC/MRA found the 51-37 percent right-direction majority last year had shifted to a 47-41 percent wrong-track majority by early May.

This poll question is especially significant because it often previews the outcome of the presidential election. If people feel the country has veered off on the wrong track, they’re more likely to vote for the candidate of the non-incumbent party, which in 2000 means a Republican. A second question frequently points to how House races will turn out. The question: If the election were held today, would you vote for a Republican or Democrat for Congress? Republicans had been trailing badly in most polls on this so-called generic ballot question. They were behind 49-39 percent in a Washington Post survey last January. But in the bipartisan Battleground 2000 survey in early June, they reached parity with Democrats at 39-39 percent. And in an internal GOP poll, the 46-39 percent Democratic lead in January had shrunk to 40-39 percent in May. Republicans believe that if they’re even with Democrats on the generic question, they’ll really be ahead. Why? Simply because, historically, they’ve under-polled on this question.

Clinton figures mightily in all this. When Republicans tried to drive him from office, they suffered. Clinton and his allies turned both congressional Republicans and independent counsel Kenneth Starr into villains. By the end of the impeachment process in February, Republicans were 4 to 8 points down on the generic question in most polls. Now, however, Clinton stands alone, with his favorite targets either gone (former House speaker Newt Gingrich) or about to leave (Starr). Even voters who opposed impeachment “will not forget” what the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment debate “said about his honesty and integrity,” said Republican pollster Ed Goeas. “Voter approval of Bill Clinton is as low today as it has ever been” — in Battleground 2000, 67 percent said they disapproved of Clinton as a person. In other words, impeachment ultimately didn’t hurt Republicans but helped.

The chief victim is Vice President Al Gore. The wrong-track verdict is a judgment on the incumbent party, which he represents. A breakdown of the tally on the country’s direction shows that most who say it’s on the wrong track are backing Texas governor George W. Bush and most who say it’s on the right track are backing Gore. Also, there’s a growing sense that Littleton could play the role in the 2000 election that the Oklahoma City bombing did in 1996. It was that bombing which allowed Clinton and the media to tie militias and anti-government extremism to Republicans, and propelled him to reelection. Now, in a less obvious way, Littleton has aided Republicans, notably in the resulting emphasis on values.

And it’s the values debate, not squabbles over gun control and new programs, that is paramount. In the Democratic commentary on the Battleground 2000 survey, Celinda Lake and Vicki Shabo noted that Democrats have an advantage on issues such as education, Social Security, and health care, but that “values wipes out most of those advantages.” Democratic hopes of taking control of the House “may rest on the ability of candidates to communicate with voters in value-based terms.” And this is something that Republicans do better.

One reason they do was suggested by the surprising finding of still another poll. This one, conducted for CNN and USA Today, found that a large majority of Americans are partial to religious faith, a facet of life Republicans tend to emphasize more than Democrats do. By better than 3 to 1, folks approved of hanging the Ten Commandments in schools, an idea that some Democrats and much of the media sneered at. Sixty-eight percent said creationism should be taught along with evolution. By nearly 4 to 1, Americans said public schools should be available for student religious groups after hours. By 5 to 1, they backed prayers at graduation ceremonies.

Despite the encouraging poll numbers for Republicans, Lake and Shabo cautioned against excessive GOP optimism. Republicans might wind up shattered, just as Democrats did in 1988 after the summer of 1987 when optimism ran high. That summer, Gary Hart was the Democratic front-runner; a strong majority wanted the next president to follow different policies from the last; the public felt by a small margin the country was going in the wrong direction; and the president, Ronald Reagan, hovered below 50 percent in job approval. Yet, in 1988, Republicans retained the White House. “In short,” Lake and Shabo said, “the summer before an election year is light years away from the election.”

True. But does anyone think it’s remotely possible that George W. could blow up the way Hart did? Bush may turn out to be boring and a weak debater, but he’s unlikely to self-destruct. True again, unless the economy falters, there may not be a solid majority demanding new policies, and the wrong-track majority may dissipate. Those trends would help Gore (or Bill Bradley). But there’s one type of help the Republican candidate — George Bush the father — got in 1988 that Gore probably won’t get in 2000. That’s help from the top. From the summer of 1987 on, Reagan’s rating rose, and Bush’s prospects rose with it. Bush was elected, in effect, to what amounted to a third Reagan term. Asked in a Pew Research poll if they wished Clinton could run for a third term, only 29 percent said yes. Sorry, Al.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.