
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994                    TAG: 9406030024 
SECTION: COMMENTARY                     PAGE: C5    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: PERRY MORGAN 
DATELINE: 940605                                 LENGTH: Medium

MIDTERM: CLINTON LACKS COATTAILS

{LEAD} The headline in The New York Times was both startling and revealing. Referring to Democratic Party chairman David Wilhelm, it said: ``Party Leader Criticizes Four Democrats for Losing.'' The bizarre point of the criticism was that the four, including Mary Sue Terry of Virginia, could have won had they tied their candidacies to Bill Clinton and the national party.

Wilhelm must be frightened; he has reasons to be. Since Clinton's election, Republicans have won eight formerly Democratic seats in important contests. The latter have taken nothing from the Republicans. Meantime, mid-term elections loom in the fall, and several factors areworking to increase the traditional loss of seats by the party in power.

{REST} For one thing, more Democratic than Republican incumbents are retiring, giving advantage to challengers. For another, the Democrats, having far more incumbents, are more exposed to voter hostility toward the Congress. And then there's the fact that the once solidly Democratic South is still trending toward the Republicans, so much so that some analysts think a GOP congressional majority is in sight.

The trend is augmented by reapportionment that concentrated the dependably Democratic black vote into a few districts and diluted its influence in many others; by in-migration of conservative voters, and by traditional attitudes againstwhich the Clinton bow now scrapes. Wilhelm ought to remember that it is no new thing for southern Democrats to run away from the national party, and to accept the obvious fact that President Clinton has no coat-tails in the region.

Indeed, the president seems becalmed across the country. Compared with George Bush, he has had a stack of legislative successes but most voters likely could recite few of them. The big issues with emotional kick - like health care and welfare reform - are mired in conflicts, complexity and lack of money.

Even if passed, they offer no assurance of boosting popularity. Had they been easier issues with predictable benefits, these reforms would have passed long ago.The president won conservative voteswith a promise to ``end welfare as we know it,'' but any end will cost more money (for jobs and child-care for those required to work) and any decline in dependency will be slow and hard to measure. The political riskiness of health care is that a majority is satisfied enough with the status quo to make them skittish of Clinton's root-and-branch reform.

The thing going best for Clinton is the economy, but voter confidence in the recovery is not great and neither is the credit given him for the turnaround. An administration official quoted by Time magazine said the president is ``15 points behind (in the polls) where he should be when the economy is going well.''

The president is pursued relentlessly by his past, and not solely by questions of ethics and personalbehavior. There's also the harsh moralistic judgments made against George Bush for taking foreign policy positions which Clinton himself now takes for his own regarding Bosnia, China and Haiti. It is not surprising that Clinton has been unsure in foreign affairs, but waffling sometimes seems to be his policy.

In any event, his presidency is stalled and his party is steadily losing elections with mid-term elections approaching. And, David Wilhelm's advice to the contrary, candidates on the ground choose to move away from the president rather than toward him. That poses the prospect of a new chapter entitled ``Return to Gridlock.'' by CNB