The Reagan detour.

The Reagan Detour.

The Reagan Detour. Richard Reeves. Simon & Schuster, $14.95. In this blessedly short book Richard Reeves, the respected political journalist (and--full disclosure--advisory board member of this magazine), distills his insights about politics and the American condition derived from covering the 1984 presidential campaign. There are no previously undisclosed memoranda or exclusive interviews or "inside' details of the events leading up to the tumultuous New Mexico straw poll. Instead, he presents a series of nugget-ladden mini-essays, all building up to a heartening prescription for the salvation of the Democratic Party.

The Reagan Detour pursue two somewhat contradictory themes about the nature of American politics. One is that "politics is about ideas' and that Ronald Reagan was merely the spokesman for "a conservative ideas industry' as he had been spokesman for General Electric in the 1950s. The other theme is that there is actually a consensus among the citizenry about the great questions of government and that people vote mainly on the basis of narrow economic interest. Reeves notes that in their presidential debates, Reagan and Walter Mondale could have been "standing at the wrong lecterns and reading from each other's briefing books,' as the conservative president bragged about subsidized housing and the liberal challenger promised "no new programs.' Meanwhile, election day exit polls showed that even among those who thought that Reagan's policies were unfair or economically disastrous, the subgroup who nevertheless felt that they themselves were better off voted almost three-to-one for Reagan anyway.

Reeves observes that conservatives have been far more effective than liberals in marketing their ideas. While Brookings ground out lengthy theoretical tomes, the American Enterprise Institute was "getting out pointed pamphlets on the issues . . . of the day,' and even zippier outfits such as the Heritage Foundation were producing briefing memos for politicians and journalists within 24 hours of breaking news. I know from experience that if you call Brookings in search of information on some issue, you're invited to peruse in their bookstore and show them the color of your cash. If you call Heritage, a messenger arrives within hours, loaded with goodies. It helps.

Reeves thinks things are changing. "The intellectual ferment has begun on the left now,' he says. If he means there are some new liberal think tanks, eager and reasonably well funded to do battle with Heritage et al., he's correct. But a mere laundry list of "new ideas' plus a good graphics designer for producing pamphlets are not enough. You need a framework-- dare one say, an ideology--for those ideas, and it ought to be something a bit more challenging than the notion of "moving toward the center.' I don't see much evidence yet of a genuinely new vision among the Democrats. Indeed, their most widely publicized new idea is the idea of "new ideas,' which doesn't take you far.

Reeves distinguishes among "themes,' "policy ideas,' and "slogans.' Slogans are campaign rhetoric; policy ideas are what too many Democrats are in futile pursuit of, while themes are what they really need. Themes are what "win campaigns . . . [a]nd move the nation.' Reagan's winning theme, Reeves says, is populism, a concept he essentially accuses the president of stealing and perverting. Traditional populism was anti-business and pro-government. "Reagan built a voting majority . . . by uniting traditional enemies, the capitalists and a lot of populists, through stressing old values of God, nationalism, and family' and by inventing "a new enemy, big government.'

While Reagan "reached individuals in every region and imaginable demographic category with themes of American nationhood,' the Democrats failed with "the political tactics of dividing the nation into narrow constituencies.' Everyone says this, of course. But unlike many things everyone says, it's true. Reeves's special gloss on this cliche concerns the futility of constituency politics based on ethnicity. It doesn't work, he says, because, despite a decade and a half of chatter about ethnic identity and roots, Americans are still fundamentally assimilationist. Mario Cuomo may have married another Italian-American, but 70 percent of his ethnic brothers and sisters don't. "National socialization' --an unfortunate term, perhaps --explains why white-bread Republicanism can succeed even as the WASP share of the population shrinks.

In light of all this, why does Reeves predict, daringly, that "ideas and issues . . . will inevitably bring liberalism and the Democrats back into fashion and power--sooner rather than later'? To begin with, he sees three kinds of trouble ahead for the Republicans. First, he likens that party to an atom: a series of different groups--the old right, the new right, a tiny collection of old-time GOP moderates, the religious right--all spinning around and held together by a nucleus called Reagan. "Pull out the center . . . and the whole thing might implode'--a view he says was shared by almost everyone at the Dallas convention. Second, the bills for the economic party Reagan has been throwing are bound to come due. The combination of desperation and glee with which many Democrats await some kind of economic catastrophe is not appealing. But Democrats are not alone in their anticipation. This is another matter on which Reeves says most Republicans at the 1984 convention were in private and nervous agreement.

Third, and most interesting, Reeves, like some others, predicts a social issues backlash among people who voted Republican in 1980 and 1984, but not because they cared for the agenda of the moral majority. The activist core of the Republican Party--the people it needs for fundraising and volunteer work--feels strongly about abortion, prayer in schools, and so on. The mass of Republican voters do not. If anything, they want the government out of their hair just as President Reagan promised.

Reeves's positive program for the Democrats has three elements, all at the level of themes, but with policies trailing behind. First, a Democratic version of nationalism, in competition with Reagan's, that emphasizes American exceptionalism and is even frankly a bit isolationist. Fear of "foreign entanglements,' he notes, has strong historical roots and continuing appeal, especially in contrast to the overheated, aggressive flavor of Republican nationalism. Second, "a little class warfare--called "Populism,' of course--wouldn't hurt the Democrats.' He notes that the issue of tax reform provides a perfect opportunity to revive "the question of "Who pays?'' (The House Ways and Means Committee, probably unaware, has taken Reeves's advice here by producing a bill that dramatically shifts the burden of taxation back toward the affluent, without any sacrifice of economic efficiency.)

Third, Reeves notes "the emergence of a range of "workplace /leisure' issues' as a promising area for the Democrats. International competition will require changes in American society that only the government can direct, he says. If Reeves means by this things like improved education for everyone and retraining programs for workers caught in the gears of economic change, fine. Too often already, though, this kind of chatter boils down to either cockamamie government capital allocation schemes under the label of "industrial policy' or--worse-- simple protectionism. I'm not sure today's Democrats can be trusted with anything as vague as "workplace/leisure issues.'

This review may have lent Reeves's book a bit more order than it contains. The book is actually a series of insights--some of them wise, most of them interesting-- rather than a coherent argument. But many's the political book that's full of detailed arguments, with nary a genuine insight among them.