Party hardly

Democratic gubernatorial candidates must combat a once-unthinkable reality: Republicans now have the psychological edge

by Dan Kennedy

This was supposed to be the Restoration. After the eight long years of the Republican interregnum, 1998 was to be when the natural order -- that is, a Democrat in the governor's office -- would reassert itself in this, the most liberal of states.

But it's a grumpy cadre of Democrats that's slouching toward Worcester this weekend for the party's quadrennial nominating convention (see "Life of the Party"). Rather than anointing a successor, Democrats will choose from among a trio of underdogs. And though it would be foolish to rule out a Democratic victory this November in a state where just one in eight voters is a Republican, virtually everyone acknowledges that beating Acting Governor Paul Cellucci -- the likely GOP nominee -- would rank as a major upset.

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Spin city
Mean and meaner
Life of the party

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Talk to most Democrats, and they'll acknowledge that the governor's race is going to be chancy -- perhaps unwinnable, barring a major stumble on Cellucci's part. But they're kidding themselves when they argue that 1998 is an exception to the Democratic rule. According to this line of thinking, with Joe Kennedy's taking himself out of the race and with the economy humming along, voters would be loath to throw out any incumbent, even an accidental one. "I think when the economy returns to earth, Cellucci will plummet back to earth, too," says Frank Connolly, of Kiley & Company, a Democratic consulting and polling group.

But the reality may be considerably more chilling for Democratic loyalists. The evidence strongly suggests that a new order has emerged that favors Republican candidates for governor just as it rewards Democrats with virtually every other office. Indeed, Massachusetts voters are finally emulating their ticket-splitting peers in other states, many of which have long favored warm, fuzzy, liberal Democratic legislatures held in check by big, mean, conservative Republican governors. It's a pattern that has persisted for a quarter of a century nationally, too: until Bill Clinton's election in 1992, Democrats had virtually no hope of winning the presidency, with the sole exception of Jimmy Carter's post-Watergate victory in 1976. And after two years of all-Democratic rule, ticket-splitting quickly reasserted itself, with both branches of Congress going Republican in 1994. Indeed, according to Harvard University scholar Morris Fiorina's Divided Government (1992), voters like ticket-splitting and tell pollsters they believe it's important that the two parties balance each other's excesses.

Thus, if the gubernatorial hopefuls competing for delegates in Worcester this weekend intend to go any further than the September primary, they will have to persuade a skeptical electorate that they can govern despite being Democrats, not because of it.

More than anything, the bitter tax wars of the 1980s explain why the Massachusetts political landscape has changed so drastically. Few people remember the tax cuts that then-governor Michael Dukakis, a Democrat, touted during his 1988 presidential campaign. Everyone, though, remembers the massive tax increases that he and the Democratic legislature rammed through in 1989 and '90 to offset the budget deficit created by the collapse of the Massachusetts Miracle.

Bill Weld, the governor who ushered in the Republican era with his 1990 election, got the credit when the economy recovered. Thus, Weld was able to build a reputation as a tough fiscal manager who balanced the budget without raising taxes. "If you look back at how bad things got in those last days of Dukakis, [it seems clear that] we have underestimated how much damage was done to the idea of Democrats holding the corner office," says Kevin Sowyrda, a Republican political consultant.

A second, related explanation for the new Republican ascendancy is a natural tendency on the part of Massachusetts voters to balance the Democratic liberal establishment with a strong opposition. Some observers might find that difficult to believe, given that Democrats held both the governor's office and the legislature between 1975 and 1990. But in fact, throughout those years voters did the best they could with the limited options they had to keep Democratic liberals in check.

Following the unprecedented tax increases of Dukakis's first term (1975-78), voters threw him out and elected Ed King, an anti-tax leader of the Democratic Party's conservative wing -- which, with the Republicans' having entered their wilderness years, was the closest thing available to an opposition party. Dukakis's 1982 comeback fueled the rise of a conservative populist opposition led by Barbara Anderson, the head of Citizens for Limited Taxation. With the help of radio talk-show hosts such as Jerry Williams, David Brudnoy, and Gene Burns, Anderson became a highly influential figure, winning ballot measures to roll back property taxes (a victory that took place during King's term, but took effect mainly during the Dukakis years) and to undo an unpopular legislative pay raise.

As effective as King and Anderson were at challenging the liberal orthodoxy of the day, neither matched the power of a political party that could control the levers of government and dole out patronage. But during the 1970s and '80s the Massachusetts Republican Party tore itself apart, with anti-choice right-wingers moving the party far from its moderate Brahmin roots. The Republicans' success in overcoming those schisms in 1990 allowed it to re-establish itself as the true opposition. Indeed, the 1990 election marked a passing of the opposition torch: at the same time voters were electing Bill Weld, they were rejecting a radical, Anderson-backed tax-cut measure that would have blown a hole in the state's budget.

How the Republican Party won in 1990 goes a long way toward explaining why the party now has the inside track on the governor's office. The ideological ground claimed by Bill Weld fits precisely with the beliefs of the now-dominant baby boomer generation: moderate to conservative on taxes, welfare, and crime, and liberal on social issues such as sexual orientation and abortion rights. This ideology also fits the profile of independent voters, who constitute 48 percent of the Massachusetts electorate, far outnumbering Democrats (38 percent) and Republicans (13 percent).

"There was a sense that the Dukakis Democrats were way too far to the left on fiscal issues, and the Republicans were way too far to the right on social issues," says CNN political analyst Bill Schneider. "Both parties had to make accommodations, and the Republicans got there first."

The three pillars on which Republican dominance rests -- fear of taxes, a preference for ticket-splitting, and ideological compatibility -- mirror national trends in the 1970s and '80s, when Republican presidents were seen as a counterbalance to a liberal, tax-and-spend Congress, and Democratic presidential candidates were dismissed as out-of-touch left-wingers. There's even a parallel in terms of symbolism, with Dukakis occupying the same place in Massachusetts Republican demonology that Jimmy Carter used to hold nationally. Indeed, even though it's been eight years since Dukakis left the governor's office, Republicans are still trying to run against him: Dukakis's infamous ride in the tank is a highlight in Cellucci's campaign video.

One sure way back to the governor's office for Massachusetts Democrats would be to lose control of the legislature and thus benefit from ticket-splitters seeking balance. By losing to Newt and the gang in 1994, congressional Democrats may have ensured a Democratic lock on the presidency for years to come. But that's not going to happen on Beacon Hill -- not this year, not two years from now, not any time in the foreseeable future.

Instead, what Democrats need to do to get back into the gubernatorial hunt is to talk about issues that connect with the lives of average voters -- even if there's no immediate electoral payoff. In 1988, Dukakis paved the way for a Democratic presidential comeback by talking about welfare reform and "good jobs at good wages," middle-class issues on which Bill Clinton rode to victory four years later. Similarly, the Democratic candidates for governor -- Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, former state senator Patricia McGovern, and former representative Brian Donnelly -- are addressing important themes, such as education reform and health care, far more effectively than either Cellucci or his Republican opponent, state treasurer Joe Malone.

Democratic political consultant Mary Anne Marsh notes that, even in a booming economy, middle-class voters worry about the security of their jobs and the high cost of college for their kids and retirement for themselves. Even if the Republicans hold onto the governor's reins this time, the Democrats -- by talking about real middle-class concerns while stressing fiscal discipline -- could pave the way for a younger, more charismatic candidate (Joe Kennedy?) in 2002.

Bill Weld's exit from politics presents Democrats with an even greater opportunity. For even though Cellucci is often said to be the force behind Weld's move to the left on abortion and gay rights, Cellucci himself seems not to understand the importance of those positions. Baby boomers liked Weld's hip, libertarian sheen -- but that hasn't transferred well to the plodding Cellucci. And it's not just a matter of style. Cellucci has suggested that he might not support domestic-partnership benefits for gay and lesbian couples and has flat-out asserted that he opposes so-called partial-birth abortions. These aren't nuances. Rather, they go to the heart of Weldism. Nothing could hurt Cellucci more than coming off as just another schlumpy moderate Republican -- as the George Bush to Bill Weld's Ronald Reagan, in other words.

According to a recent poll taken by UMass Boston's McCormack Institute of Public Affairs, Cellucci leads Harshbarger by a margin of 37 percent to 23 percent, and he's running ahead of McGovern by 36 percent to 24 percent. Donnelly is way, way behind. It is, of course, early, and the Democrats will have plenty of time to make their case in paid advertisements and televised debates.

But if Cellucci -- or even Malone, if he pulls off an upset in the Republican primary -- is to be defeated, it will be with a strategy that would have been inconceivable 10 years ago. It will be because the Democrat finds a way to play down the party label rather than make a virtue of it.

Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com.