Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Voters rejected Bush, not Reagan Revolution Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 17:01:12 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NEWS ANALYSIS \HD Voters rejected Bush, not Reagan Revolution \BY Ralph Z. Hallow \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES President Bush's electoral disaster Tuesday was not a rejection of conservatism or the principles Ronald Reagan brought to government 12 years ago, acccording to analysts and exit polling. Exit surveys taken for the four major television networks show that most voters support those principles. When asked by Voter Research & Surveys whether they prefer a government that provides "more services but costs more in taxes" or fewer services for lower taxes, voters went 2-to-1 for smaller government. And the VRS poll confirmed that most Americans are conservative on values: Sixty-eight percent said the government should promote traditional family values rather than "nontraditional" family values. The exit polls showed that voters didn't put values near the top of their priorities "because of the bumbling way Bush presented it," Don Eberle, president of the Commonwealth Foundation, a think tank in Harrisburg, Pa., said yesterday. Following the advice of people who cared about family values only as an election gimmick, Mr. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle seemed to bash single mothers indiscriminately rather than promote individual responsibility, Republican pollster John McLaughlin said. "Bush divided Americans when they wanted more than anything else to be a people united," he said. Mr. McLaughlin agreed with Mr. Eberle that Mr. Bush "was seen to be exploiting the values issue to serve himself." "When you have such a hollow vessel as we had in Bush, people reject what he says even if they basically agree with it," he said. Mr. Clinton and the Democrats succeeded in destroying the Republican coalition by separating the middle from the right. In Mr. Eberle's view, the GOP now must "reclaim the middle from the radical and cultural left." Former Education Secretary William Bennett said Mr. Reagan projected a concern with values that was positive but Mr. Bush seemed like a sanctimonious, judgmental bully. Mr. Reagan's concern forged alliances with people who didn't think of themselves as conservatives. Mr. Reagan spoke to the broad middle of politics, to the Americans who Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas said "pull the wagon instead of riding in it." Mr. Reagan told them he understood what they wanted: to get government off their backs. They elected him and re-elected him. Mr. Bush reversed what Mr. Reagan had done. Mr. Bush expanded government, nondefense spending and regulation, his conservative critics say. "Bush had the largest increase in the size of government of any president since World War II," said Donald J. Devine, who drastically cut the government payroll as head of the Office of Personnel Management in Mr. Reagan's first term. Lacking passionate beliefs on economics, crime, family values and even the defeat of communism, the president and his advisers floundered for three years like bureaucrats in a fog of ideas. They never quite explained why they were different from Democrats in general and liberals in particular. And critics say that when Mr. Bush and his advisers tried to mouth what they dimly perceived as conservative ideas, what came out was a grotesque caricature of onservatism that frightened or offended many voters. "Bush and his advisers attempted an 11th-hour conversion to conservative policies on the economy and family values only when their voter research showed irrefutable signs of impending disaster in the elections," said William Myers, president of the South Carolina Public Policy Foundation. But, Mr. Myers said, they came off looking like cartoon characters in an anti-conservative satire, presenting an image of conservatism so distorted that it begged to be laughed off the stage - and was. Mr. Bush consistently blurred the differences between Republican conservatism and Democratic liberalism, between no-nonsense law and order and a bribe-the-looters mentality, and between equal opportunity and racial-ethnic-gender quotas. The economy was the issue because the president taxed it to death in the name of saving it. He didn't believe deeply in anti-tax or pro-tax theories, in government activism or nonactivism toward the economy. When taxes didn't work and the economy slid into recession, Mr. Bush became inactive, ignoring the growth formulas of lawmakers in his own party. The price: Bill Clinton, who got 2 million fewer votes than Michael Dukakis got in 1988, is being hailed as the man bringing America together and giving it hope again. Mr. Bush ignored runaway illegitimacy and crime - and the welfare dependency that Mr. Reagan said fostered them - until someone told him he needed an issue other than the economy to save his presidency. Mr. Bush's costliest mistake for himself and his party was his handling of the Los Angeles riots. "I think the election was decided right there. From Nixon through Reagan, many former loyal Democrats swallowed hard and voted Republican in the belief that when the thugs came out, the Republican Party would be tougher on them than the Democrats," Free Congress Foundation President Paul M. Weyrich said. Critics say the turning point was when people saw the Republicans and Democrats reacting the same way to the Los Angeles riot. "The subject changed at that point," Mr. Bennett said. "It wasn't about the economy. It was about right and wrong. Most people in south-central Los Angeles were not rioters, but victims." But Mr. Bush seemed to say that although the rioters behaved badly, they had a point. Mr. Bennett's recommendation at the time: "We go in, with the cooperation of the local government, and go door to door, asking people, 'Who do you want running your streets, the Bloods and the Crips or the federal state and local task force?' " Savvy Democrats were stunned by Mr. Bush's reaction to the riot. Adam Walinsky, a Democratic activist and former aide to Sen. Robert Kennedy, said, "Here Bush had an electorate more worried about race and crime than ever," but he seemed almost to coddle the rioters. Mr. Walinsky said polls taken in the spring reveal what national polls and exit polls don't. "When you ask people in a big urban setting what is the most important issue in their city or neighborhood, it's crime by enormous margins," he said. "In New York, crime and drugs placed over 55 percent, with the economy ranking next at 20 percent." "Los Angeles was a major blunder. It reinforced the impression that Bush doesn't really believe in anything, that he would rather flow with the ebb," said Matthew J. Glavin, president of Georgia Public Policy Foundation Inc. "He should have been out there in south-central Los Angeles a little more quickly and ordered the troops . . . [to take] the streets back," independent pollster Brad Coker said. ****MAP (COLOR)/BOX (COLOR) VOTING TOTALS ELECTORIAL VOTE 370 - Clinton 168 - Bush 0 - Perot POPULAR VOTE 43% - Clinton 38% - Bush 19% - Perot This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. 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