And now?

THE 1984 ELECTION should have been a realigning election. It wasn't. The Republicans wasted--thanks in large measure to White House "pragmatism"--a chance to convert a presidential landslide into big congressional gains.

But Tip O'Neill is whistling past the graveyard when he says Ronald Reagan got "no mandate" while winning nearly every single electoral vote. Against the consoling notion that the President won only a personal victory, set the fact that since 1968 only one Democratic presidential candidate has scored more than 43 per cent of the vote. That was Jimmy Carter in 1976. And Reagan's 1984 victory demolishes the 1980 alibis (that he owed his victory to Carter's incompetence, the hostage crisis, etc.). "Historic" Republican victories are getting to be routine.

The Democrats are out of fresh ideas. What they do have is stubborn resident strength. The Census Bureau reports that 30 per cent of the population now gets some form of financial aid from Washington. That 30 per cent will do as an approximation of the Democratic base. Walter Mondale, a devout redistributionist, launched his campaign by announcing straight-forwardly that he would attack the deficit by raising the taxes of the other 70 per cent. He was virtually stating a political tautology, but he thereby turned the campaign into a referendum on redistribution. Nobody can say he didn't get his message across. His main problem was that he did.

Other Democratic candidates, however, succeeded in creating the illusion of distance between themselves and the most typical Democrat of this generation. This prevented large Republican gains in Congress. Even so, the Democrats as currently constituted have nowhere to go but down. They are overcommitted to special interests that are either economically parasitic or morally repellent to much of the country. They have managed to hold their black and Jewish followings, but they have alienated many Catholics and white males. It is hard to imagine them expanding their base significantly in the future. The most that can be said for them is that they have proved tough to dislodge.

The real Republican gains have been qualitative. The terms of national debate have changed. Jesse Helms will return to the Senate, his stature enhanced, and if Chuck Percy is out, Phil Gramm is in--a huge net plus, from the standpoint of intelligence and principle. There will be no new boondoggles, no more trashing of America, and, assuming Reagan's mandate means anything, no new taxes. Both Reagan and Mondale campaigned on the explosive issues of religion and abortion, and again Reagan showed that his "personal" popularity owes much to his frank embrace of principle. He too got his message across.

If the election wasn't all that it could have been, it was still plenty, and the situation remains fluid. It is now up to Mr. Reagan to implement the conservative agenda aggressively. It will help if he surrounds himself with advisors who believe in the aspirations he represents. The pragmatists are fine for maintaining the status quo, but it would be a pity if history were to look back on the Reagan years as an extension of the Nixon and Ford Administrations, when the Republican achievement was limited to stewardship of liberal programs.