Will History Repeat Itself?

Almost everyone, it seems, has an opinion about this fall's midterm elections and what effect they will have on Bill Clinton's future.

On the one hand, we're told that if the Republicans make significant gains on Nov. 3, that will harden their resolve to impeach and deepen the peril that hangs over Mr. Clinton's presidency.

This dictum has been repeated so often in recent weeks that it has become a kind of mantra - let's call it "the sixth-year syndrome." But seldom, if ever, have the political pundits taken the trouble to cite historical precedent. They simply assume that the rest of us know all about those other "sixth-year" elections.

Well, I didn't, and so, feeling the need for historical context, I looked up some of those past campaigns and discovered that sure enough, presidents who have had the good fortune to get elected twice invariably have had to endure the humiliation of seeing their party get whacked - and whacked hard - in the congressional elections of their second terms.

That certainly was the fate of two of the 20th century's most popular presidents - Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.

In 1936, FDR was re-elected in a huge electoral landslide, carrying every state except Maine and Vermont. But two years later, in the midterm election, Republicans made a dramatic comeback, gaining seven seats in the Senate and an astounding 80 seats in the House.

There were, to be sure, logical explanations for the GOP's strong showing in 1938. In the earlier elections of the New Deal era, the Democrats, under Mr. Roosevelt's leadership, had been such a powerful force that they all but obliterated the Republican Party.

Going into the '38 campaign, the Republicans held only 16 seats in the Senate and 89 in the House, and even after their big victory that year, the Democrats still retained a commanding majority: a 46-seat edge in the Senate, and a 92-seat advantage in the House.

In addition, a recession in 1938 took some of the bloom off the New Deal, and gave the Republicans an issue they could exploit. But if that year's election was a setback for Mr. Roosevelt, he bounced back impressively in 1940 when he won an unprecedented third term in the White House.

As for President Eisenhower, he never did have FDR's clout as a party leader. Although he was an immensely popular commander-in-chief, his presidential coat had very short tails.
Ike did manage to brin a Republican Congress in with him when he was elected in a landslide in 1952. But two years later, the Democrats recaptured both houses and they held on to their slim majority despite of President Eisenhower's second landslide victory in 1956.

During Ike's two terms in the White House, the country was hit with periodic recessions, which gave the Democrats a decisive edge on the bread-and-butter issues. And in the midterm election of 1958, they hit the jackpot, gaining 16 seats in the Senate and 51 seats in the House.

That impressive performance revitalized the Democrats and put them in position to recapture the White House in 1960, which they did under the leadership of John F. Kennedy.

When Mr. Kennedy was assassinated and Lyndon Johnson became president, there was no change in party or philosophy. In almost every respect, LBJ's Great Society programs were an extension of JFK's New Frontier policies.

Therefore, it could be argued that the 1966 midterm election fits into our pattern, for it occurred in the sixth year of the JFK/LBJ reign in the White House. And, true to historical form, the out-of-power party - the Republicans - made impressive gains, picking up four seats in the Senate and 47 seats in the House.

In 1972, when Richard Nixon was re-elected in a landslide (winning 49 states out of 50), there was every reason to believe that he would be moving through the sixth year of his presidency when the midterm election was held two years later.

But 1974 was another year that an election campaign took place in the shadow of a presidential impeachment crisis. The difference, of course, was that by the fall of '74, the crisis had reached its conclusion.

Rather than face certain impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate, Mr. Nixon had resigned in August, and his blameless successor, Gerald Ford, could only look on helplessly as the Democrats strengthened their majority in Congress, gaining four seats in the Senate and 52 in the House.

Finally, there's the example of Ronald Reagan. When he was elected president in 1980, Mr. Reagan brought a Republican Senate in with him, although the Democrats retained control of the House.

That's how matters stood until the midterm election of 1986. Going into that campaign, the Democrats already had a 70-seat majority in the House and they proceeded to pick up six more seats that November.

But the real news that year was in the Senate races, where the Democrats gained eight seats, enough to enable them to recapture control of that chamber as well.

So where does that leave us as we brace ourselves for the midterm election of 1998?

Well, if history is an accurate barometer, then the Republicans should be able to exploit the "sixth-year" opportunity and make impressive gains.

Of course, it can be argued that not too much should be expected of them because they already have majority control of both the House and Senate. But that didn't prevent the Democrats fromaking big gains in 1958 and 1974, years in which they entered the campaign as the majority party in both chambers.

One thing for certain: If the Republicans do strengthen their control of Congress, we should pause and reflect before rushing to define that result as a mandate for impeachment. That would clearly be a simplistic interpretation that flies in the face of history.

Written By Gary Paul Gates