THE CONGRESS: The Democrats: Ready to Think Smaller

"Three months is a generation in politics," Vice President Alben Barkley once observed, and as Democratic members of Congress returned to Washington this week from their holiday recess, they fervently hoped that Barkley's adage still held true. The 94th Congress was supposed to be a Democratic triumph, but in the past three months the session has turned into an almost unmitigated Democratic disaster because of a crushing succession of failures to overturn presidential vetoes. Nonetheless, the party's congressional leaders believe that time yet remains to salvage enough of their program to retrieve their self-esteem and arrest President Gerald Ford's momentum before the presidential campaigns begin in earnest next year. As a first step, House Speaker Carl Albert planned to meet with House committee chairmen to set a new Democratic strategy for the rest of the session.

Sorry Rival. On paper, the leaders had reason for some degree of optimism about finding a workable strategy. They still have their overwhelming margins of 289 to 145 in the House and 61 to 38 in the Senate. In theory, the Democrats could agree to make enough compromises—for example, cutting the dollar amounts on their spending bills—to persuade Ford to go along with their legislation or, alternatively, to win enough Republican votes in the critical battlefield of the House to override the President's vetoes.

But many experts still thought that the Democrats faced nearly insurmountable odds. Reported TIME Correspondent Neil MacNeil: "In these assessments, Congress comes off as a sorry, almost pitiful rival to the President. The brave initiatives of last January have become the cruel frustrations of now. The Democrats have lost their momentum, their sense of purpose and esprit. They are floundering in a political morass. They see themselves as disarrayed and helpless. But if with 289 members of the House they cannot act, they might as well call in the dogs. The hunting will be over."

Six months ago, as Democratic leaders made their overly ambitious plans for the session, the situation was entirely different. Faced with an unelected Republican in the White House, they felt that the huge Democratic margins in Congress gave them a mandate to act on their own. Further, the election of 75 first-term Democrats had brought new energy and a more activist spirit to the House (see box following page). There was even talk in Washington of a "congressional government," meaning that the Legislative Branch would dominate the Executive. With relative ease, the Democrats passed their own $8.1 billion tax rebate, largely abolished the oil depletion allowance, canceled Ford's plans to reduce the food-stamp program and cut off further military aid to the non-Communist governments of Cambodia and South Viet Nam.