Forget the lame-duck talk. Ronald Reagan scored triple whammy in last days of June with Supreme Court shifts (Burger to Rehnquist to Scalia), overwhelming passage (97 to 3) of Senate tax bill, and House passage (221 to 209) of $100-million Contraaid plan. First two victories were hailed as major by Washington Post’s David Broder. Of the Court shifts, he wrote: “Thus, in two hours of pleasant conversation, the President has done as much to reshape the future laws of this nation as six years of battles with Congress have accomplished in redirecting fiscal policy.” On the tax bill, Broder commented: “The historical irony is that what seemed most radical in Reagan’s original program—his drive for deep cuts in tax rates—has become the accepted political philosophy of both parties.” . . . Gary Hart, incidentally, tried to get the Democrats to include Sen. Bill Bradley’s tax-rate cut in 1984 platform but was blocked by Walter Mondale. Says Hart today: “It got away from us and it’s theirs [the Republicans’] now.” … A couple of weeks back, Broder also reports, Boston pollster Brad Bannon warned Democratic leaders that the Senate bill was “very dangerous” because it “reinforces the idea that Republicans represent change, while Democrats defend the status quo.” . . . Interestingly enough, while the pols understand what Bob Packwood pulled off (with help of Bill Bradley) the public doesn’t. Quickie New York Times poll morning after shows 31 per cent think the Senate bill would make the system fairer, 36 per cent say it would not, and 33 per cent don’t know—a pretty even split. . . . Sen. Jack Heinz, chairman of National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, is euphoric. The tax-bill victory,. he says, is “a plus for our incumbents across the board.” . . . And to top it off, the latest Gallup finds Reagan the most popular President at this point in his second term of any since the end of WW II (Reagan 68 per cent, Nixon 25 per cent, Johnson 48 per cent, Eisenhower 53 per cent, Truman 37 per cent).
“It must be the new technology. ”
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