Harold Ickes and Dee Dee Myers say this year won't be a repeat of 1994's perfect storm. | AP Clinton vets say 2010 is no 1994

Three veterans of the Clinton White House argued Thursday that 2010 won’t be as big a disaster for Democrats as 1994, even as they fretted about an enthusiasm gap that’s tangible and an economy that’s even worse.

At an hourlong Democratic Governors Association-sponsored panel discussion at the Capital Hilton, former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers emphasized the differences between the two cycles and said Republicans haven’t spent enough time in the wilderness to credibly sell their ideas as fresh.


“In 1994, Democrats had been in charge for 40 years,” she said. “We hadn’t had a taste of Republican leadership. So they could sort of be all things to all people.”

But a few minutes later, asked about Obama’s role, she suggested the president probably should not heavily campaign for Democratic governors so the focus in those races will remain on local issues.

“We don’t want to federalize all those elections,” Myers said.

Paul Begala, a political adviser in Clinton’s White House, said the mood is more anti-Washington in 2010 than anti-Democrat. Not a single House Republican lost in 1994, he noted, while several could this year.

“The anger is more diffuse,” he said. “It’s less partisan.”

Harold Ickes, deputy White House chief of staff that year, said Democrats won’t be caught off guard this time. He also said Republicans were more united in 1994 behind Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America than they are now, when there are tea party activists to deal with and no clear GOP standard-bearer.

“We were complacent. We were smug. To put it bluntly, we were arrogant and out of touch,” he said. “We clearly have been on red alert for a long, long time.”

While the tea party has fractured the GOP in some races, Ickes conceded that the activists bring enthusiasm now lacking on the left and expressed concern about the number of Democrats who will stay home this year.

“Our base is unhappy,” he said. “It’s pissed off. I think unrightfully so. I think the assumption is they are fair weather on this issue. Politics is a long term, tough business, and it’s fine to be there when the tides are running with you, but you’ve got to be there when the tides are running against you.”

Begala, who joked at the beginning of his presentation that, “here you’ve gathered three of the architects of the greatest Democratic debacle in modern history,” addressed the doomsday scenarios.

“It’s not a wave election. It’s a tsunami election. It’s really big out there,” he said of 2010. “Now, you can survive a tsunami. ... And here’s how: you build an arc.”

Because Clinton won with only 43 percent in a three-way race in 1992, Myers said he came into office facing a lot of skepticism that lingered through the midterms. She said there was still economic unease, even if less than now. She also noted that Clinton raised taxes.

Republicans gained 10 governorships in 1994, and many Republicans predict they’ll pick up more this year.

Democrats think they have good chances in the nation’s most populous states, said Nathan Daschle, the DGA’s executive director. Dismissing talk of an enthusiasm gap as a “noise gap,” he said the DGA is targeting nine states now run by Republicans. He insisted that Republican candidates are more out of the mainstream than they were 16 years ago.

Begala said Democratic candidates are running stronger campaigns, with more money in many cases, than in 1994. He said the party has a good shot at winning open seats in Florida and California and knocking off incumbent Gov. Rick Perry in Texas.

Chris Kofinis, a longtime Democratic strategist who moderated the discussion, noted that exit polls from 2006 show that up to half of voters didn’t make up their minds until the final two months.

“Voters are still winnable,” he said. “This is not an election where people have moved lock, stock and barrel to Republicans and it’s done.”