CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP

October 12, 1998
	Three weeks out from election day, three veteran political commentators assess the mood of the electorate and the races to watch.

Online NewsHour Special Report: Election '98 Oct. 4, 1998: A look at two open seat contests. Oct. 4, 1998: A full report and debate on the politics of impeachment. Oct. 4, 1998: How will the budget and other issues impact Election '98? Oct. 4, 1998: A conversation between voters in Denver and Members of Congess.   U.S. House of Representatives U.S. Senate	MARGARET WARNER: The California Senate seat is one of 34 up for election this year. Of those, 16 are presently held by Republicans and 18 by Democrats. In the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats are up for election, Republicans now have a 21-seat majority over Democrats – 228 to 206 – with 1 independent who usually votes with the Democrats. Among the nation's governors the current breakdown also favors Republicans – 32 Republicans, 17 Democrats, and 1 independent. Thirty-six of those states are up this year, 24 currently held by Republicans, 11 by Democrats, and the 1 independent. With the elections just three weeks away, we get some perspective now from three veteran political reporters: David Broder of The Washington Post; Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times; and Elizabeth Arnold of National Public Radio.
	The impeachment angle.
	Ron, as we just saw in Jeff Kaye's piece, the impeachment issue in President Clinton's problems are causing a few problems for Barbara Boxer in California. How typical or reflective is that of the way the impeachment issue is playing for Democrats in all these races? RON BROWNSTEIN: Well, it's actually quite revealing, I think, in that Barbara Boxer is an incumbent who had problems before Bill Clinton ever admitted wrongdoing with Monica Lewinsky and to some extent is compounding those problems, but what's quite interesting is that I think it's revealing of a larger trend in a different way than that might suggest. Matt Fong, although he has criticized Barbara Boxer for her hypocrisy, has not called on Bill Clinton to resign or much less for his impeachment and conviction by the Senate. What you're seeing in most of these close races is that the candidates on both sides are being relatively cautious about having handled this. The people on the front line – the Democrats almost staunchly defending Bill Clinton – by and large – are from very safe Democratic seats in the House. The Republicans, who have called for him to resign, are almost uniformly from safe Republican seats in the House. What you're seeing is the candidates in the middle being more careful. And with the interesting turn now that's coming this week is for the first time Democrats are thinking they may be able to use the issue themselves. Chuck Schumer, in New York, running against Al D'Amato, gave a very – MARGARET WARNER: For a Senate seat. RON BROWNSTEIN: For a Senate seat – gave a very strong pro-Clinton statement on the floor and in the Judiciary Committee, and out on Elizabeth's neck of the wood you're seeing a Democratic candidate, Jay Inslee, in the House race there, being the first Democrat to aggressively advertise and say it's time to put this behind us and let's move on. If he's successful with that argument, Democratic strategists tell me today you're going to see a lot of repetition of that argument perhaps in the next couple of weeks. MARGARET WARNER: Elizabeth, how do you see the impeachment issue playing in the elections you've looked at? ELIZABETH ARNOLD: Well, I agree with Ron. I think polls are only now just beginning to pick up on an undercurrent that's been there all along, and that is that people have been disgusted with the president's behavior, but they've been equally disgusted with a relentless pursuit of the scandal and preoccupation with the scandal. Ever since Whitewater, people have registered that sort of discontent with these investigations. Come on, let's get on with doing the kinds of things I'm interested in, education and the problem for the Republicans right now is as Congress adjourns, the visual in people's heads is the impeachment vote, not today's wrangling over education, for example. He mentioned – Ron mentioned Jay Inslee's ads, a very powerful ad – it could be the start of something. It's not a long shot race. It's a very close race, and I can't imagine Jay Inslee would take that kind of chance without strong polling behind him. And the ad basically says Rick White's vote means months and months of more mud in politics, White and Gingrich are dragging us through the mud again. MARGARET WARNER: David, is that how it looks to you, that it's all really quite fluid right now in terms of how each party's going to play this impeachment issue and how it may play for them? DAVID BRODER: Well, I think we need to be a little cautious about this. In most of the close races the advertising is just now beginning to hit the air, and the places that I've been, the candidates focus much more on each other than they are on President Clinton or the people who are about to try to impeach President Clinton. I think in the close races this is going to be still very much a man-to-man or man-to-woman kind of a contest. In the end, the environment that's created by the Washington scandal will affect the election. It will impact on turnout, and in some cases it may drive the actual issues of the campaign. But I think by and large we're looking at a classic mid-term election where turnout and the strength or weaknesses of individual candidates will be paramount. RON BROWNSTEIN: And, of course, I think, David, you'd agree. That is quite significant in itself, because only a few weeks ago – maybe a month ago – many people – certainly in the Republican Party – were expecting something very different than a classic mid-term election, an election nationalized around Bill Clinton's behavior, with demoralized Democrats staying home, and a big – you know – unusual wave generating – this does seem – the fact the candidates are moving away from this issue and focusing in on their own comparisons suggests that it's not as black and white sort of political calculation as it might have seemed say in late August or early September.
	The "real" issues of the campaign.
	MARGARET WARNER: And, Elizabeth, so in other words, if the pundits here are saying this election will be the public's vote, whether they want Bill Clinton removed from office, candidates are – out there aren't presenting themselves that way, are they? Is that what you're saying, they're not committing themselves to vote one way or another, they're not saying vote for me, because I won't impeach or I will impeach. ELIZABETH ARNOLD: No, not at all. In fact, there are much more ads up about education, about traffic jams, urban sprawl, those kinds of things, and as was pointed out, everyone's being very cautious, when they do mention this. In fact, at first, the only people talking about who have ads up that said, Mr. President, you should resign now, were long-shot candidates, conservative Republicans and conservative districts who didn't have anything to lose, and had only something to gain by it. You know, I think we should take a step back, though, as David is suggesting. We have to be really cautious. But when we started thinking about this mid-term election cycle, we saw gains for Republicans in the House and the Senate and governorships. That's still what we're talking about right now. The question is how significant those gains will be. MARGARET WARNER: David, what are the substantive issues that these candidates are running on, and is there any kind of a national agenda for either party, say the way the Republicans had their Contract with America in the last off-year elections in '94? DAVID BRODER: Well, the Republicans are trying to remind people that one of the missions that the public gave the government in 1996, balance that budget and end the deficit, has actually been accomplished. And they would like to remind people that that happened at a time that they controlled the majorities in both Houses of Congress. We're talking about taxes and both parties are trying to talk about education, health care, and to a lesser extent crime, but the education issue is the universal issue, and where candidates say the Republican governors who are up this year have been able to put concrete measures in place, toughening school standards, putting more money into the schools, reducing classroom size, those are the candidates who seem to be coasting to re-election because that issue is very close to people's hearts. RON BROWNSTEIN: No. I agree. You know, if you look at the Republican governors this year, by and large, they're running on an agenda that's very similar to the balanced budget deal of 1997, that drew so much criticism in parts of the party. They are running on increasing spending on education, increasing spending on children's health care, and cutting taxes using prosperity to cover all of their bases. At the national level I think the message was a little more defused from the Republican Party. On the one hand, as David suggests, virtually all the candidates, all the incumbents are emphasizing the achievements of the last few years. They're diverting a little bit more on where to go next, whereas, the Democrats, paradoxically, are more unified than they have been in terms of message for sometime. They may be running away from Clinton personally in many cases, but they are basically running on the State of the Union agenda, sort of the holy trinity for Democrats this year preserving the surplus of Social Security, spending more on education, mostly to reduce class sizes, and patient's bill of rights – left, center, and right – just about every Democratic candidate in the country is emphasizing those three issues. MARGARET WARNER: Elizabeth, you want to weigh in on this, on the substantive issues? ELIZABETH ARNOLD: Well, I'd agree with that. Education is usually in the laundry list that Republicans – that voters give you. They generally – it's the economy, taxes, education, but this year as was the case in the primaries, education is really the first thing people talk about, and it's a disconnect. It's the sense that things are really going well for me economically, or should be. I keep hearing that this is supposed to be going well for me economically. Why is it that my child's classroom – it's so crowded – or why is it that my child is attending school in a portable classroom? So education is really what keeps coming up, Margaret, especially when you just ask the overall question, just the blanket question, what are you concerned about? It's my kid's school.
	What happened to the year of the woman?
	MARGARET WARNER: David, going back to the Boxer-Fong race for a minute, what about – what happened to these women candidates? Six years ago it was the year of the woman. I'm now looking particularly at the Senate races. And there are three of the new Democratic women senators elected that time up for re-election this year, are they all in trouble, is there any kind of common trend here? DAVID BRODER: Well, one is in very great trouble. That's Senator Carol Moseley Braun in Illinois. It doesn't have much to do with the fact that she is a woman and almost nothing to do with the fact that she is African-American. But she has managed to create an impression that she's more interested in playing foreign policy in Nigeria and other African countries than in focusing on her constituents' needs. Her office has a bad reputation for responding to Illinois constituents, and that's beginning to catch up with her. Barbara Boxer, as your piece suggested, is in some significant trouble in California, and I'll yield to Elizabeth, who's in Seattle, to tell us about the third member of this group. MARGARET WARNER: Elizabeth. ELIZABETH ARNOLD: Well, the one link, if there is a link, is that all these candidates are women; they were all elected during the year of the woman, and no longer is it a novelty to be a woman, and out here in Washington State Patty Murray is running against another woman, Linda Smith. And Linda Smith is a populist candidate who's taking a number of votes out of Patty Murray's base. MARGARET WARNER: Any other sort of trends here, Ron, maybe in Senate races, any regional differences that are interesting or regions to watch? RON BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think what's happening to Democrats in the South this year is worth watching. You have a couple of open seats in the Senate – Kentucky and in Arkansas you have two very competitive races in the Carolinas, with a Republican incumbent in North Carolina and a Democratic incumbent in South Carolina. You have some very competitive governor's races and I think one of the questions this year is going to be whether Democrats can, in effect, find a place to stand in the South to – if not reverse – at least stop the losses that they've – that have been going on and have accelerated through the Clinton era. One of the ironies is a Democratic president from the South, basically centrist, tried to govern as a centrist president, but yet has precipitated even larger losses for Democrats in the South. This Kentucky Senate race with Scotty Baesler and Jim Bunning is a very close race – MARGARET WARNER: This is an open – RON BROWNSTEIN: It's an open seat, a vacated seat by a retiring Democrat. It's one of the seats that's going to tell us how bad the losses are going to be for Democrats on election night.
	The biggest race in the country.
	MARGARET WARNER: David – DAVID BRODER: Margaret, we ought to say one thing about the biggest race in the country, and that's the California governorship. At this point, you know, Republicans have held that governorship for 16 years now. At this point Dan Lungren, the Republican candidate, is not winning that race against Gray Davis. It's too soon to say that he's lost it, but if – if he cannot pull that race out, whatever gains Republicans make elsewhere in the country, it's going to be a really sort of downer for them on election night. MARGARET WARNER: But how do you explain, David, that, on the one hand, Barbara Boxer, the Democratic incumbent appears to be in some trouble in California, but on the other hand, the Democrat Gray Davis is doing well in the governor's race? DAVID BRODER: Well, I think there are a number of factors that are at work there. But one of the things that has struck many people, including some Republican critics of the Lungren campaign, is that his focus has been almost entirely on the crime issue so far -- death penalty and three strikes. And he's so far at least, letting Gray Davis have almost a free ride on the issue of education, which in California, as elsewhere, is number one on the voter's minds. MARGARET WARNER: Elizabeth, you want to weigh in on this? ELIZABETH ARNOLD: Well, I think what's interesting about the California race is that it's more a referendum on Barbara Boxer and whether over the past six years she's done anything to reach out beyond her liberal base, not necessarily a question of Matt Fong's popularity. What's interesting for the Democrats is they're having to pour a lot of money into the race, a race that they didn't expect to pour a lot of money into, and that's hurting Democrats elsewhere in the country. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Thanks. Elizabeth, David, Ron, thanks very much.