NIXON AND THE END OF PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS Gerald M. Pomper After George McGovern's massive defeat, I am reminded of the apocryphal question asked of Mrs. Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, "But aside from that, Madam, how did you enjoy the show?" Is there any cause for Democrats to cheer after the historic burial of the erstwhile leader of a "new coalition"? In fact, if they can forget the inconvenient reality of Richard Nixon in the White House, there is cause for long-term cheer by the Democrats. Although Nixon even surpassed Franklin Roosevelt's 1936 performance, his party actually fell back. Democrats gained Senate seats, lost only a handful in the House (the same handful they had gained in 1970), and now hold 31 statehouses. By contrast, F.D.R. reduced the Republicans in 1936 to a small band of 17 senators and 89 representatives. There are other indications of deep Democratic strength in the na14

tion. The party continues to hold a wide edge in voter identifications, and this edge has been increased by the large influx of young voters. When the new voters have selected a party, they have preferred the Democrats by margins of over 2-1, and the under-25s actually gave a majority of their vote to McGovern. Through the reforms of the past four years, the party has revitalized itself, becoming a semi-mass party, open to the emerging politically conscious groups of feminists, blacks, Chicanos and other nonwhites, as well as youth. By contrast, the Republicans have remained stagnant and have explicitly rejected internal reforms. And, yet, there is the overwhelming fact of the Nixon triumph. Can anyone but a partisan Dr. Pangloss speak of basic Democratic strength when the party nominee carries but one state in the electoral college? Perhaps we are actually witnessing

the coming of a major new alignment of the political parties, comparable to that of the New Deal period. Perhaps, as Mr. Nixon and publicists such as Kevin Phillips hope, there is a "new majority" under construction, conservative in ideology, socially composed of suburbanites, white ethnics and middle-income workers, and regionally centered in the South and West. The first data available on the election do not support this interpretation (or hope). In fact, the astonishing fact is the great stability in voting patterns which is revealed. The areas and groups of relative party strength remain the same as in the past. The Democratic core remains the cities, union workers, minorities, the East and the Midwest. Across all socioeconomic divisions, ethnic groups and geographical areas, there is a close correspondence between the 1968 vote for Humphrey and the 1972 vote for McGovern. Of course, the latter did far worse, but the relative position of groups remains quite similar. For example, Italians are reported to have given Humphrey 50 percent of their vote, and McGovern 33 percent, a 17 percent decline, while Jews declined from 84 percent Democratic to 69 percent, a 15 percent drop. Nixon gained 17 percent between the two elections, and this is approximately the margin he gained universally. Nor can we find basic conservatism among the voters in the nationwide approval of strong government action on behalf of ecology measures, such as the passage of bond issues in New York and Florida, the imposition of controls on seashore use in California, and the rejection of the winter Olympics in Colorado and a highway bond issue in New Jersey. Conservatism does exist on such issues as law and order and life styles, but not on basic spending questions. An incipient realignment, then, does not appear to explain the unusual combination of presidential Society

and other election results. I believe this disjunction is part of a larger fission in which the presidency is being separated effectively from partisan politics. Nixon can win re-election as president while his party continues to de~Iine because voters no longer consider the office in partisan terms. This perception goes beyond the act of splitting the ticket. Rather, in the voter's mind, there is no ticket. He has one ballot for president and another ballot for everything else--as is literally true in Georgia and some other states. Party is relevant only to his latter choice, while the presidency is becoming a plebiscitary ofrice. Parties serve mechanically to fill the office, but they have little organic connection with it. The isolation of the presidential office has been the subject of complaint by professional politicians. President Nixon was noticeably absent from this year's campaign, much to the chagrin of Republicans hoping to be carried into office on his alleged coattails. Nixon took almost no action to help such ideological colleagues as Tower in Texas or Powell in New Hampshire, and appears unaffected by the lost opportunity to win control of Congress. These actions cannot be dismissed Simply as a short-term strategy to win the 1972 campaign, because complaints about Nixon's ineffective party leadership have been heard since he first entered the White House. Moreover, the same complaints were heard earlier in regard to Lyndon Johnson. Yet Nixon and Johnson were both partisan figures, who owed their prominence to their party histories. Not personality, but office, accounts for their neglect of party duties. The causes of this development can be located first in the evolution of campaign techniques. Political parties developed as organizations to elect a president. When Madison and Jefferson began their partisan correspondence, when Jackson initiated the first national convention, March/April 1973

when the spoils system was expanded, the purpose was always the same--capture of the White House. In periods of indirect communication between presidential nominees and the voter and when individual canvassing was the major campaign method, parties were organizationally suited to this electoral goal. They registered voters, persuaded or bribed them, and brought them to the polls. It was therefore in a president's self-interest to lead and strengthen his party. In turn, the electorate relied primarily on party loyalty in making its decisions. In the moderp period, a presidential candidate does not need much more than a party label as a means of securing access to the ballot (and George Wallace even did without that). He appeals directly to the voters through the mass media, prerecorded telephone messages, direct mail and so forth. Individual canvassers cannot, and do not try, to reach 140 million voters sprawled across a continent. Instead, the candidate himself presents his personality, style and issue positions to an electorate conditioned to choose "the best man," not the best party. It is no longer in the self-interest of the president to identify himself with other persons sharing his Republican or Democratic label. As George Reedy has observed, the result is the increasing isolation of the chief executive. O r g a n i z a t i o n a l developments strengthen this trend. Little direct patronage is left to the president, with the severing of the post office and other extensions of civil service. Revenue sharing will probably reduce the discretionary spending power of the national executive, even as it increases the opportunities for local boodle. Of course, there is still much discretion left in the granting of such favors as defense contracts, but these matters promote direct contributions to a president's individual campaign, not to a party. Rather little of the Nixon "secret

funds" was distributed to the senatorial, congressional and gubernatorial candidates. Even the nomination of a president may soon become a non-party matter, at least among Democrats. The import of the McGovern-Fraser reforms and of the proposed party charter is that the mass base of the party (or its enthusiastic members, at least) should choose the national ticket without intervention by the organized party leaders. In fact, one of the 1972 guidelines specifically prohibited ex officio delegates at the convention. This is the pure plebiscitary ideal--the direct choice of a presidential candidate by self-styled party members and the exclusion of the "machine." Nominees chosen in this manner will have only a random relationship with the organized party. Indeed, when McGovern attempted to strengthen that relationship after his nomination, many of his supporters became suspicious that he was somehow violating the mandate of the convention. More than any other factor, the isolation of the presidency is being forced by the predominance of foreign affairs in the conduct of the office. Not only are foreign policy decisions more obviously critical than those of domestic policy, they are also more glamorous to a president. The ritual of foreign visits or the thrill of disposing of megatons is more attractive than filling the pork barrel. And it is easier, in the sense that the president can make his decisions with less opposition from competing politicians and less need to win domestic consent from Congress or the mass public. But foreign policy is not well suited to partisan debate. Until recently, these issues have not been organized along party lines, and the tradition of bipartisanship is likely to be reinstituted after Vietnam. Even when such questions do become partisan, they cannot be easily argued and subject to the constant tests of domestic issues. The inability of 15

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Congress effectively to direct an end to the Vietnam war underscored this difficulty. Ultimately, foreign policy questions become, for the electorate, questions of personality. Which man can be trusted with the nuclear trigger? Which candidate can negotiate better or stand up to the Russians? The nature o f the issues therefore furthers the movement toward making presidential elections a choice o f individuals, not a choice o f parties. They thereby bring us closer to an end to true politics in the choice and conduct o f the presidency. This development o f the presidency bodes ill for the future of American society. If not in c a m paigns for president, where will Americans hear and debate the domestic problems of their nation? If not from the president, where will the energy and leadership come for resolution of problems of race, poverty and the quality o f life? There is no present alternative in the American system. The accumulation of domestic ills over the past 20 years is not because there wasn't enough money for both guns and butter or because a definite priority was given to guns, but because presidents could not devote effort to both foreign and domestic programs. The limited re, sources are not taxes or will, but the president's time and political strength. Nixon's relative success in foreign policy and negligible domestic record is not a personal idiosyncracy, but of the essence of the foreign-oriented presidency in a government without alternative leadership. It is only the latest replication of the decline of J o h n s o n ' s Great Society with the escalation of Vietnam, and of F . D . R . ' s replacement of Dr. New Deal by Dr. Win-the-War. To deal with this problem will require more than a Democratic victory in 1976. Even if the Democrats re-establish themselves as the majority party, the institutional problems will remain. Party reconstruction is not enough. The presidency must be reconstructed if the nation is to be rebuilt. []