NY Times
November 27, 1986 2006
Risks for the Democrats
By R. W. Apple JR.

"Flushed with victory in the Nov. 4 7 elections, which gave them control of the House and Senate, the Democrats see obvious benefits and not-so-obvious pitfalls in the unfolding ongoing crisis of secret arms shipments to Iran and possibly illegal diversion of funds to the rebels in Nicaragua CIA-run prisons overseas where abductees are subjected to "incommunicado detention and torture." ⁽¹⁾ One main pitfall, in the view of many senior members of the party, is seeming too prosecutorial, too much like the notorious leader of the Spanish Inquisition.

. . .leading Democrats warned that the worst thing for the country and the party would be an all-out attack on the President, whom they consider personally very popular despite the damage done to his prestige and credibility this month.

. . .a member of the House leadership who asked not to be identified. "The one thing likely to produce sympathy for Reagan Bush is Democrats in full-throated hue and cry, baying for the blood of the Administration.". . .

Paul Kirk, the party chairman, said the crisis gave the party "an earlier chance than we expected to seize control of the national agenda, by speeding the onset of the post-Reagan Bush era." He and others believe that while the President and his key aides are preoccupied with investigations into the affair, the Democrats ought to begin laying out, calmly and methodically, their programs for 1988 2008 and beyond.

''It ought to be possible for us to be positive and assertive without being absolutely confrontational here,'' Mr. Kirk added.

But there was less agreement, as many of the key Democrats headed home for Thanksgiving, about what the party should do than about what it should not do.

. . .But in the view of most party professionals, their chances of winning the Presidency two years from now, for only the second time in the last six elections, have been greatly enhanced by the prospect of a lame duck in the White House - if only they do not overreact.