Desperately Needs Victory, Aides Say : Reagan Entering Critical Period of His Presidency

WASHINGTON —  Back at center stage after recuperating from cancer surgery, and with his personal popularity still extraordinarily high, Ronald Reagan nonetheless faces a critical period that may determine the success or failure of his second term and ultimately the fate of his presidency.

After a slow start marked by setbacks in Congress and failure to lay down the kind of clear-cut agenda that contributed so much to his first-term triumphs, the President’s aides are convinced that he desperately needs a major goal--preferably leading to a signal victory--around which to rally the country and regain his momentum.

The alternative, some fear, could be a steady erosion of the strong leadership that has distinguished Reagan’s presidency thus far. And a lapse into the kind of ineffectual stalemate that humbled Reagan’s four immediate predecessors could leave the nation rudderless at a time when it faces serious challenges at home and abroad.

Yet a series of factors, some beyond his control and some springing directly from the policies he pursued so successfully in his first term, are now converging to sap the President’s authority. Indeed, on several issues now at the top of Congress’ agenda, Reagan will need all the strength he can muster to avoid being swept to the sidelines by the force of events.

On farm policy, trade protectionism and sanctions against South Africa, for example, Reagan occupies positions that seem out of step with many Republicans as well as Democrats, on Capitol Hill and in the country at large. Even on tax revision, which aides see as the best--and perhaps the only--hope for a major Administration victory, public opinion polls suggest that the more voters hear about his proposals, the more skeptical many have become.

“The next three or four months are critical,” a senior Administration adviser said last week. “If you think it’s bad now, with everything that’s going on on the Hill, wait and see what it’ll be when we get further along into the 1986 campaign season. And if we have any kind of downturn economically, it’ll really be bad.”

With the economy apparently slowing down already, several Reagan aides expressed concern that a significant slump could be politically disastrous for the President. One adviser said he got “sweaty palms” upon hearing a rumor that former Budget Director David A. Stockman’s forthcoming book would be entitled, “Reaganomics: The Failure of the Reagan Presidency.”

Similarly, in foreign affairs, the Administration is committed to escalating U.S. involvement in Central America, a policy that stirs uneasiness among voters, despite at least momentary acquiescence in Congress. And at the Geneva arms control talks and the November summit meeting, Reagan must match wits with a vigorous new Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who is 20 years his junior and has shown a knack for courting world opinion. The summit, one Reagan adviser said, “could turn to ashes very quickly.”

Political Atrophy

In part, Reagan’s current problems stem from the political atrophy that goes with being a lame duck; even the most masterful presidents have been less successful in their last terms than they were in their first. Also, while Reagan’s pluck in the face of colon cancer has won public admiration, it inevitably has underlined the mortality of the oldest man ever to occupy the Oval Office.

More fundamentally, the continued strength of Reagan’s presidency is challenged by three factors:

--From the beginning, Reagan concentrated on a tightly limited set of goals, chiefly cutting taxes, strengthening the nation’s defenses and shrinking the role of government in domestic life. That narrow agenda was a source of strength in the early years, but today other issues have demanded attention, and the Administration’s lack of a broad policy framework has put the President on the defensive and left him ill-equipped to seize the initiative on a range of problems outside his original field of focus.

--Reagan’s success at raising the defense budget while cutting federal revenues has fueled federal budget deficits vastly larger than any seen before in the nation’s history. Those deficits, in turn, have been a major factor in confronting members of Congress and millions of American voters with a highly disturbing series of political and personal realities--proposals to cut Social Security, for example, stubbornly high interest rates and an overpriced dollar that cripples U.S. industry and workers as they struggle against foreign competition.

Reagan Isolated?

The President’s seeming serenity in the face of these problems has isolated him from the concerns of many voters and the political goals of his party.

--While Reagan himself might count the remainder of his term a success if he does no more than defend the tax cuts, the increased defense budget and other cherished accomplishments of his first four years, the dynamics of American politics make it difficult for any President to retain the initiative simply by defending past accomplishments. New programs and proposals are needed.

But the tax revision plan on which his aides are leaning heavily appears to be an uncertain reed at best.

Before Reagan assumed office in 1981, the presidency was in such a weakened state that political scientists talked of public confidence in national leadership having fallen to “appalling levels.” These observers believe that a series of failed presidencies that cut across party and ideological lines had steadily diminished the powers of the office, from Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon to Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter.

Aides Worried

What worries some of Reagan’s aides is the possibility that, unless he finds ways to master the problems piling up before him, the President could be lumped into that analysis instead of being remembered as one of the nation’s most successful and politically skillful chief executives, which some political scientists have suggested is possible.

Rightly or wrongly, the White House views the tax initiative battle as crucial to avoiding that fate.

Reagan is counting on the Democratic-controlled House to give him the impetus needed to win congressional passage of the measure. The outlook is far from certain, even though Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) of the House Ways and Means Committee said he will press for House passage of a modified version of the Reagan proposal by late October--a measure for which Democrats would share the credit if it proved popular.

Uncertain Fate in Senate

The tax plan faces an even more uncertain future in the Senate, where many Republicans--especially among the 22 who are up for reelection next year--are feeling the heat from constituents who would be adversely affected by Reagan’s proposals.

“Some of the Republicans just don’t want to deal with tax reform,” a senior Reagan adviser said, “but if we get it through the Democratic House, their attitude will have to change. They can’t refuse to deal with it. Tax reform is important from a political and economic standpoint.”

House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) has warned that there is relatively little support for the tax measure and that it cannot pass Congress unless the President builds support for it.

Just such a concentrating of presidential energies on one key issue at a time, a major element in Reagan’s first-term success, is what many White House aides see as needed now.

‘Can’t Get Bogged Down’

“One thing we need to do is focus the agenda. We can’t get tax reform unless we focus on it, because it is a major undertaking,” a senior Reagan adviser said. “The President ought to keep his eye on the ball. We can’t get bogged down in trade or budget deficits or South Africa or the contras or some other no-win issue.”

But concentrating presidential--and public--attention on a single issue is much more difficult now than it was four years ago. For one thing, many Republicans in Congress do not share the White House enthusiasm for giving top priority to changing the tax system. For another, congressional and public attention is now spread over a number of issues with which the White House is not comfortable.

Rep. Dick Cheney (R-Wyo.), who toured his state during Congress’ August recess, said: “People don’t give a damn about tax reform. They really care about the deficit because it’s tied to interest rates and the foreign trade imbalance.”

Reagan’s advisers see budget deficits as a no-win issue and consign that problem to “damage control” status along with such thorny matters as the farm bill, trade, South Africa and Central America. That is, they will address these matters as cautiously as possible and only when forced by circumstances, expecting to gain no credit for solutions to such vexing problems.

Debt Ceiling Bill

However, the deficit will force itself upon the White House in the weeks ahead because the Senate must take up the House-passed bill to raise the debt ceiling to $2 trillion. Some Republican senators reportedly are so concerned about deficits that they are considering opposing the debt ceiling bill in hopes of precipitating a fiscal crisis that would force the Administration to address the deficit issue.

“A guaranteed cheer line in any speech is that we should not increase the debt ceiling until we do something about the deficit,” Cheney said. And Democrats can be counted on to emphasize that deficits incurred during Reagan’s presidency have doubled the size of the national debt.

“There’ll be a fight, but they’ll ultimately vote for the increase,” a senior Administration official predicted. “They’ll have to--they aren’t about to stop Social Security checks.”

Still, a protracted fight over the debt ceiling bill unavoidably would blur the focus on Reagan’s tax plan. And there are a number of other distracting issues that cannot be avoided.

In the case of South Africa, for example, so much steam has built up on the issue that the Administration has felt compelled to review its policy of “constructive engagement” as it seeks to avoid a confrontation with a Congress that appears bent on voting economic sanctions.

Reagan has indicated that he would veto such legislation, which already has passed the House and is almost certain to pass the Senate this week, and congressional leaders have issued blunt warnings that they have the votes to override any veto unless the President modifies his position on sanctions.

Then there is the seemingly endless number of protectionist trade measures awaiting action in Congress. Reagan’s staunch defense of free trade puts him on the side of the angels in the view of most economists, but it puts him in the negative position of trying to block congressional action instead of offering direct solutions to the problems plaguing business and labor in many parts of the country--problems at least aggravated by Reagan’s own past actions.

And his decision to throw the weight of the government behind a set of complaints against unfair trade practices, the decision announced Saturday, is not likely to satisfy those who want stronger and more comprehensive action against imports.

Even if he blunts the protectionist onslaught, it will distract and drain away the President’s energies and hobble his efforts to control the agenda.

Summit Looms

Looming equally large on the White House horizon are the Geneva arms control talks and the summit meeting in Geneva on Nov. 19-20, which will soon begin to siphon off presidential time and energy. The President, who has said he hopes the meeting will lead to easing tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, will have to begin devoting more of his time to summit preparations in October, Administration officials said.

Reagan aides have publicly played down expectations for the summit, insisting that it is likely to be little more than a get-acquainted session for the two leaders. But a summit that is merely a get-acquainted session is a distinctly modest accomplishment when the American President’s days in office are dwindling down.

Thus Administration officials privately hold out a slim hope that the session could result in improved relations--perhaps something as tangible as a commitment to periodic U.S.-Soviet summits, which they believe would be viewed as significant progress for a conservative President known for his harsh anti-Soviet rhetoric in the past.

Administration officials do not encourage hopes for any breakthrough on the politically charged issue of nuclear arms control.

If the summit now appears to offer modest rewards at best, it contains the potential for imposing substantial costs on the Reagan presidency.

Adept Adversary

Soviet leader Gorbachev already has proved himself to be a tough, well-informed adversary and much more adept than his recent predecessors at propaganda. He took the offensive in the pre-summit public relations battle by emphasizing the Soviets’ interest in addressing the arms control issue, a matter the Administration would rather leave to the continuing, separate negotiations.

Faced with rising challenges abroad and at home, the White House has responded by trumpeting the President’s popularity. Reagan himself has signaled his displeasure at Republicans who have opposed his policies: At a recent Cabinet meeting, he said that no Republicans stand to gain politically by opposing the White House.

Later, White House spokesman Larry Speakes, citing Reagan’s high standing in popularity polls, said the President was dealing from a position of strength and wanted to work closely with Republicans in the coming year as the best way to achieve success both in his second term and in the 1986 elections.

Popularity Increases

“The President enjoys an unprecedented postwar second-term popularity,” Speakes said. “Historically, all five second-term Presidents since World War II have gone down (in the polls) an average of 18 points. On the other hand, President Reagan has increased.” And, he said pointedly, “when the President’s numbers go up, so do the numbers of those who are seeking election or reelection on the Republican ticket.”

But whether Reagan’s popularity can translate into victories on Capitol Hill is another matter. In his first term, he had widespread public support for his programs of cutting taxes and domestic spending and increasing defense spending.

But a number of polls show that while Reagan has managed to retain popularity ratings in the 60% to 65% range, Americans oppose his policies on most domestic and foreign issues by substantial margins.

A recent sampling by pollster Louis Harris shows Reagan with a 61%-37% positive rating in inspiring confidence in the White House, but with a 64%-34% negative rating for handling the deficit. The President also gets substantial negative ratings on defense spending, women’s rights, nuclear arms, U.S.-Soviet relations, South Africa and Central America. The poll shows a 52% to 43% preference for tax reform, but opposition has been climbing.

“And the issues do tend to take over, the longer a President stays in office,” Harris said.