ON the political horizon nothing looms larger than the congressional elections of 1990. Not that there’s a chance the Republicans can score an upset and win control of the House. The odds are stacked too heavily against them. But it doesn’t matter whether they win or lose; it does matter how they play the game.
The Republicans’ excuses have run out. If they do not capture the House in the all-important 1992 elections, their status as a permanent minority will be locked in for another generation. In those elections they will have everything going for them: a new census that will move 17 seats or more from the Northeast to the more congenial Southern and Western states; a presidential campaign in which the Democrats will doubtless run a liberal Easterner against the incumbent Republican; a new working majority of Republican-appointed federal judges who can be expected to contain Democratic redistricting mischief; and reforms by the House itself that will reduce the disproportionate clout of the Democratic majority.
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