Word: coattailed
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...this underlying optimism that accounts for the quiet debate now consuming Bush's strategists: What kind of campaign should the President wage? There are two choices. Either Bush can ape Reagan and seek a first-ever 50- state landslide or he can run a serious coattail campaign designed to wrest effective control of Congress from the Democrats by devoting considerable time and money to helping specific congressional candidates. Past G.O.P. candidates have hoped for a trickle-down effect -- a huge presidential victory that pulls in enough Republican legislators, who then join with conservative Democrats to fashion a working majority...
...political terms, a coattail campaign could be a twofer. Until now, Bush has testily sought to deflect his obvious lack of interest in domestic affairs by claiming he does indeed have a domestic policy -- while at the same time saying that those who think otherwise should blame obstructionist congressional Democrats, not him. "If you run against the 'Do Nothing' Congress, as Truman did in 1948," says Bond, "you can both lower expectations of your own plurality so you're not called a loser even if you win, and you can put the Democrats on the defensive. A non-coattail campaign...
Which is exactly why a coattail strategy should be pursued. "A serious President does everything he can to secure a meaningful mandate," says Ed Rollins, who directed Reagan's 1984 campaign. "And that means doing your best to elect a Congress of your own party. If you don't even try, then you deserve to be hit when you moan about how everything would just be fine if it weren't for those lousy Democrats on the Hill...
Traditional presidential re-election campaigns allocate resources to areas won or lost marginally the first time around. A coattail strategy would operate in reverse. In 1988, for example, Bush carried Georgia with 60% of the vote while Democrat Wyche Fowler won his 1986 Senate race by only 2 points. With Fowler facing re-election this year, a coattail campaign would target an even greater effort in Georgia -- not to raise the President's already ample victory margin but to drag in Fowler's Republican challenger...
...there being any great coattail effect that Mike Dukakis is going to provide for Ted Kennedy," Malone says, noting that a Republican was elected governor of Massachusetts in 1960, with John F. Kennedy '40 heading the Democratic ticket...