Election '82: Trimming the Sails

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For 26 years, Republican Congressman Robert Michel has played well in Peoria, the Everytown of American politics. He has become an institution there, much like the local Caterpillar Tractor plant. But along with much of the nation, Peoria (pop. 124,000) has suffered the ravages of recession and unemployment. Caterpillar has laid off 8,000 employees, and joblessness has hovered at 16%, the highest rate since the Depression. So for the House Republican leader, who shepherded President Reagan's budget and tax cuts through Congress, the overriding national issue of the 1982 campaign, the economy, was a local issue—and a survival issue. Urged the Democrats: "Add Bob Michel to the unemployed list!"

Michel survived last Tuesday's test, but just barely (51.6% to 48.4%). The message he received from his constituents was clear. "We've listened and learned, and we will take what we've learned back to Washington," said a chastened Michel. "There will have to be some adjustments, some modifications in the things we are doing. No question about it."

By shoring up the Democrats' control of the House by 26 seats, sweeping more Governor's mansions into Democratic hands and scaring those Republicans who survived, the voters presumably were signaling Ronald Reagan to moderate his dogmatic approach. But the unexpected success of the G.O.P. in holding on to its Senate majority made it clear that

Reagan's general course of scaling back the role of the Federal Government in the lives of most Americans was not repudiated. Admitted Wendell Ford of Kentucky, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee: "The days of spend, spend, spend are over."

If there was a dominant issue in the election it was Reaganomics, not only because the Democrats tried to make it so, but also because Reagan, against the wishes of some G.O.P. candidates, took to the stump to defend his policies. Particularly hi the dispirited Midwest, where Reagan's handling of the economy was a major concern, Democrats racked up large margins in many races for the House, Senate and governorships. According to surveys taken as voters left the polls, 40% said they had been personally hurt by the economy and 70% told pollsters that they saw their congressional votes as a "vote for or against Ronald Reagan." But Republicans drew on a pool of patience among voters who felt that Reagan's programs might work in time, that the blame for current economic problems was not essentially his but went back to Democratic Administrations, and above all, that the Democrats offered no persuasive alternatives. Some 55% of voters held the Democrats responsible for the staggering economy, and they were evenly split on whether Reagan's policies would eventually help restore prosperity.