AVOIDING A PYRRHIC NOVEMBER

The backlash against President Barack Obama’s radical policies has grown so large even the New York Times has noticed.

"The fight for the midterm elections is not confined to traditional battlegrounds," wrote Jeff Zeleny and Adam Nagourney in a lengthy analysis Monday (4/26).  "Republicans have expanded their sights to places where political challenges seldom develop."

One race highlighted by the Times is in Wisconsin, where House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, who’s been in Congress for forty years (since 1969).  That’s longer than his likely Republican opponent, Ashland County District Attorney Sean Duffy (born in 1971), has been alive.

If nothing much changes between now and November, Republicans are likely to have their greatest victory since 1994, when they won 54 seats in the House to take control of that body for the first time since 1952, and 8 seats in the Senate, to win control there for the first time since 1986.

Republicans could have their best midterm elections since 1946, when they gained 55 seats in the House and 13 in the Senate.

Recent polls tell me the Democratic Party is in the worst shape I have seen during my 50 years of following politics closely," said Michael Barone, editor of the Almanac of American Politics.

The 1946 victory was all the more impressive, Mr. Barone said, because in those days Democrats still had a lock on the "solid South."

"In the 11 states that had been part of the Confederacy, Democrats won 103 of 105 seats," he said.  "In the 37 non-Confederate states, in contrast, Republicans won 246 of 330 seats."

"A 1994-style scenario is probably the most likely outcome at this point," said Sean Trende of RealClear Politics.  "Moreover, it is well within the realm of possibility — not merely a far-fetched scenario — that Democratic losses could climb into the 80 or 90 seat range."

That would equal or better the greatest House gain for the GOP in over 100 years:  81 seats in 1938 (which still left them 49 seats short of the majority in those FDR years).

I write this column not to belabor the giddy Republican prospects in 2010, but to point out that the GOP landslides in 1994 and 1946 were followed by Democratic victories in the presidential races two years later.  In 1948, Democrats also retook control of the House and Senate.

If a 2010 victory isn’t to be Pyrrhic, Republicans had better figure out what went wrong in 1948 and 1996.

Harry Truman won a come from behind victory in 1948 in large part because the Republican candidate, Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of New York, confident of victory, coasted after Labor Day, speaking nothing but bromides while "Give ‘em Hell Harry" belabored a "do nothing" Congress on the hustings.

Bill Clinton’s presidency was hanging by a thread after 1994, but he recovered by racing toward the center, and because new House Speaker Newt Gingrich overreached – by engineering a brief, but deeply unpopular, government shutdown over the budget. 

And it didn’t hurt Mr. Clinton’s prospects in 1996 that Republicans nominated Sen. Bob Dole for president, not because he was a strong candidate, but because it was "his turn," and because Ross Perot siphoned off conservative votes. 

Mr. Obama lacks the inclination — and perhaps the ability — to "triangulate" as Bill Clinton did.  Rather than move toward the center, he’s pushing other hot button left wing issues: immigration reform and cap and trade.  And while Bill Clinton and Harry Truman were excellent campaigners who connected with "Joe Sixpack," Mr. Obama has a tendency to talk down to him.

Foreign policy wasn’t an issue in 1996.  The Soviet Union had collapsed, Saddam Hussein had been driven out of Kuwait, and it wasn’t just liberals who were looking forward to a "peace dividend."

Foreign policy was an issue in 1948, but Harry Truman was on the right side of it.  The man who dropped the atomic bomb on the Japanese, stopped the Communists in Greece, formed NATO and stood up the Berlin Airlift couldn’t be accused of weakness, or of failing to protect America‘s interests or allies.

If, as seems likely, foreign policy is an issue in 2012, it is unlikely to work to Mr. Obama’s advantage.

But — especially if they win a big victory in 2010 — Republicans would be wise not to overpromise, to keep the promises they make, to take nothing for granted, and not to make the big mistake they made in 1996:

They let Bill Clinton take credit for the economic recovery their pro-free market policies made possible.  Once the economy improves after Republican majorities start removing Mr. Obama’s impediments to it, you can be sure he and the media will claim it’s all his doing.  The Republicans can’t let him get away with that.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.