REPUBLICANS NEED TO SHOW PARTY HAS A HEART; VOTERS REJECT UNCARING TONE.

Byline: MATTHEW N. KLINK Local View

EVEN with the Republican Party's leadership change from Newt Gingrich to Bob Livingston, the GOP is ignoring the fundamental reason why it lost the Nov. 3 election.

Personalities didn't lose the elections for the Republicans. The party lost its philosophical way, its core principles, and unless the GOP again finds itself, it will once more sink into the doldrums of the minority.

The public airing of Republican dissension, while enjoyable for the evening news, only further alienates moderates from the Republican Party and makes Democrats that much more optimistic about the 2000 elections.

The GOP's losses, while bad, could have been much worse because many Republican candidates failed Campaign 101.

Contrary to what some political pundits and talk show hosts claim, the Republicans did not lose seats in the House of Representatives or forfeit California's governorship because of their positions on ``the issues,'' that amorphous-sounding term so frequently used by television personalities. Issues do not win elections. Themes and messages win elections. Themes and messages provide candidates with a foundation or a bridge with which to discuss voter concerns in ways that resonate with broad sectors of the population.

Republican candidates at all levels of government were unable to generate themes or messages that resonated with the voting public. GOP candidates convinced no one that they had solutions to people's problems.

Democratic candidates did, and that's why they picked up five seats in the House; re-elected a vulnerable incumbent senator, Barbara Boxer, despite extremely high negative ratings; picked up five seats in the state Assembly and two in the state Senate; and retook the California governorship for the first time in 16 years.

The GOP, led by Speaker Newt Gingrich, artfully captured the Congress in 1994 with a bold, different vision, one that stressed a reduced federal government, individual accountability and tax cuts. The 105th Congress lost sight of these core beliefs. It's almost as if Republicans became drunk listening to their own anti-Clinton rhetoric and felt they could cast aside their proactive agenda with no repercussions. They appeared supremely confident that the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal would lead them to victory.

As evidence of this strategy, in the election's closing weeks, the GOP aired a series of issue advertisements highlighting the fact that Clinton lied to the American public. These ads ran in 30 swing congressional districts throughout the United States. A post-election review indicates that the GOP lost 18 races and won 12 in districts where these ads ran.

Republicans overwhelmingly failed on Nov. 3 because they had no positive accomplishments to trumpet. Elected with a mandate to move decision-making away from Washington, to transfer power to local communities and to cut taxes, Republicans suddenly lost their courage and failed to pass any components of their agenda.

With time running out in the 105th Congress and fearing the calamities caused by a government shutdown before an election, the GOP caved in to the Clinton White House and congressional Democrats, and Republicans passed an omnibus spending bill loaded up with Democratic priorities.

To make matters worse, when any political party pins its hope of electoral success on the belief that the other side's core constituencies won't vote, neon warning signs should go off in your head. Republicans, especially in California, based their campaigns on the premise that key Democratic voters, sickened by the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, would stay home.

This false premise ignored two key facts. First, the population at large was angered by what appeared to be an unfair Republican witch hunt. Angry people vote. Second, Republicans underestimated well-financed Democratic candidates like Gray Davis and Barbara Boxer who sank millions of dollars into programs to get out the vote. Davis and Boxer both picked up overwhelming majorities of California's Latino and African-American voters, the very voters who were supposed to stay home. Union leaders throughout the state mobilized workers as never before.

Further illustrating the fallacy of the GOP's supposition, key GOP constituencies stayed home and didn't vote. The Republican Party, like the Tin Man in ``The Wizard of Oz,'' appeared unable to find a heart. GOP candidates proved incapable of demonstrating compassion for average people.

Dan Lungren came across as angry and spiteful in campaign debates with Gray Davis. GOP Majority Leader Dick Armey and Majority Whip Tom DeLay might as well have been the poster children for angry white men with an ax to grind against everyone.

In sum, the Republican Party came across as mean-spirited and uncaring.

How can the GOP extricate itself from this conundrum? The answer requires the Republicans to return to the philosophies that got them elected in the first place. Opposition to abortion, fighting reasonable gun-control legislation and impeaching the president didn't get them elected in the first place. Advocacy of reforming government, cutting taxes and returning powers to states and localities did.

People want government that is less intrusive and more effective. Average families want and need tax cuts. Parents want good schools for their children. Republicans throughout the United States, particularly Republican governors, are delivering on all these promises. That's why the GOP controls the governorships in nine of America's 10 largest states.

If congressional Republicans can find a heart and regain their philosophical groundings, 2000 could be a banner year for Republican candidates. If not, the GOP had better get used to being in the minority.