Opinion: 5 Reasons a GOP Win Could Be Good for Obama

(Oct. 8) -- Conventional wisdom has it that a loss of the House and the Senate would be a huge blow to President Barack Obama.

And Obama is certainly doing everything he can to stem the loss -- out on the hustings giving speeches, talking to families in their backyards and trying to reignite the passion of younger voters who put him in office.

But should he bother? After all, recent history suggests that losing the House, and even the Senate, could be the best thing that ever happened to him.

First, it's worth pointing out that the Democratic majority has hardly been an unqualified blessing for the president.

It put together an unpopular stimulus package that even some advocates now admit was poorly constructed and that the public overwhelmingly thinks was a failure. The health care reform they shoved through earlier this year has proved a political headache for Obama, as public support continues to sink despite assurances from party leaders that the reform would grow more popular once it passed. And it's done nothing for Obama's popularity, as his poll numbers continue to slide.

So what would happen if the GOP took control? Here are five possible benefits to Obama, based on lessons from the 1994 election, which saw Republicans take control of Congress two years into President Bill Clinton's first term.

1) Improved poll numbers. By November 1994, Clinton's approval rating had sagged to 43 percent, according to Gallup. But one year after losing control of Congress, it had rebounded to 53 percent. A year after that, Clinton handily won re-election. (President Jimmy Carter, in contrast, was stuck with a Democratic congress all four years. And we all now how that story ended.)

2) A tamer GOP. Shortly after the GOP took control of Congress, then House Speaker Newt Gingrich tried to one-up Clinton on the budget. The result was a government shutdown that the public widely blamed on Republicans. In the wake of that debacle, a chastened GOP set about working with Clinton to make progress on a wide range of issues. The same could happen again. For the past two years, the GOP had one mission: oppose Obama's agenda by any means available. Why not? It fired up the base, and the party had nothing to lose. But once Republicans are actually in charge of something, this will likely change, as the onus will be on them to get things done, which will mean finding common ground with Obama.

3) An opportunity to get a lot done. Some of the biggest pieces of social and economic legislation were enacted after Republicans won control of Congress in 1994. Examples:

• Two major health care reform laws: One provided new privacy protections and barred group plans from imposing pre-existing conditions (a reform that benefited the vast bulk of privately insured Americans), and another extended health coverage to more than 7 million children.
• Welfare reform and Medicare reforms: These moved millions off welfare and cut Medicare costs while modernizing the program.
• Bipartisan tax cuts: They included reducing the lowest marginal tax rate, a new the child tax credit, a new Roth IRA and a cut in capital gains taxes.
• Spending restraint: Spending on domestic discretionary programs shot up nearly 10 percent in the first two years under Clinton but climbed an average of only 2 percent over the next six, which helped bring down the deficit.

4) A boost to the economy. Don't laugh. Psychology matters, and right now businesses are hoarding a huge pile of cash -- about $1.8 trillion worth -- in part out of concern about Washington. Putting a business-friendly GOP in charge of Congress could be all that's needed to unleash a corporate spending and hiring spree.

That's pretty much what happened after November 1994. The Consumer Confidence Index shot up into the 100s -- it had been languishing around the 70s during Clinton's first two years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rocketed ahead. And unemployment fell to an average 5.5 percent in 1995-96 from 6.5 percent in 1993-94.

5) A chance to be a uniter. After the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, President Clinton looked for opportunities to bridge the divide -- triangulating became the jargon of the day. In a speech just before his own election, Obama said that his campaign was all about "rejecting fear and division for unity of purpose." But with his party holding substantial majorities in both houses during his first two years in office, it was all too easy to put that promise aside, since he didn't need Republicans to get his agenda enacted. With the GOP running Congress, Obama will have the chance to live up to that promise of being a uniter.

Of course, history rarely repeats itself. And there's no telling how Republicans, or Obama, will behave this time around. But if, come Nov. 3, Obama and his supporters are looking for a silver lining, 1994 offers a pretty good one.