In 1976, Democrats followed an historic congressional victory with a firm trifecta. Not only did Jimmy Carter win the White House but Democrats controlled the House by a 292-143 margin and the Senate by a 61-38-1 edge. The victory was done well before it “required” 60 Senate votes to move everyday legislation. This was a working majority fully equivalent to the early days of FDR (1933-39) and the one golden term of LBJ (1965-67) but in retrospect little or nothing got done. Why?
The most obvious answer was the “war” between Tip O’Neill and Jimmy Carter. Carter ran against Washington and nobody represented Washington and its ways more than O’Neill. Rather than working with O’Neill at the outset, Carter made the unusual move of trying to take him on. As Tip said to Jimmy, we elected 289 members running against Nixon and we can elect 289 members running against you. Democrats in Congress were used to batling against an imperial Presidency. Carter may have looked non-threatening to many but to Congress he was a direct challenge. Congress, as an institution, won. (Cultural differences between the Irish Catholic and the waspy Protestant/ born again sure didn’t help either).
Carter went to war on procedural issues and items that sounded big to him but didn’t really matter to the public. Civil service reform and cutting government spending by eliminating a carrier and a mere $2 billion in public works were really arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We were facing an obvious energy crisis and with a solid majority what happened? Nothing. The one big move made by the feds was by Jerry Ford: raising the mileage required from US car makers for future models. Carter could have made long term changes that would have pretty much solved the problem by 30 years later. He didn’t even though the public was ready for it and best sellers of the time like the conventional wisdom “Energy Future” assumed solar would be as much as 20% of energy by now.
So what are the lessons? A Republican can get change by running against washington. A Democrat needs to work with Washington to implement a specific set of policy prescriptions. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid or their successors need to be the President’s best friends and not cultural and political enemies.
Institutional changes in areas like civil service, contracting, earmarks, etc. are an expensive and needless distraction. Health care, energy, the environment, and civillian control of the military matter. Social Security and Medicare and labor laws meant a lot to a lot of people. Do you really think reforming ear marks will have the same bang? And it could potentially piss off a lot of legislators. Funny how Republican pork was OK and now Democrats are supposed to get rid of it all.
Many successful administrations have come in with a generation full of wish lists and enacted a lot of them into law. Lincoln, for example, was about a lot of things besides the civil war and slavery. The Homestead Act, the Land Grant colleges, and the transcontinental railroad all got the go ahead under Honest Abe. The value of this approach is that these items come pre-sold to the public and are less likely to be swept away by a vague Harry and Louise PR campaign. FDR’s plans, at least many of them, had been tested at the state level. Clinton’s ambitious health plan, otoh, was invented and had to be sold. Congress insisted on this and so we got a lot of ads and no progress.
Where are we headed? Towards a pre-packaged success or towards institutional “reform.” Give me the LBJ/FDR/Lincoln blitz any time.