A NEW WAVE OF ADS

October 28, 1998
		Margaret Warner and three veteran journalists look at the latest wave of Republican ads that question the president's credibility. They also examine the rest of the political landscape with a week to go.

Oct. 28, 1998: NewsHour coverage of the New York Senate race Oct. 22, 1998: Discussion of campaign ads with media experts. Oct. 22, 1998: RealAudio and RealVideo versions of some campaign ads Browse the NewsHour's Election '98 index PBS' Election '98 site: Ad watch     Web, White and Blue Vote Smart
	MARGARET WARNER: Election day is less than a week away, and the campaign for Senate and House seats and governorships is turning out to be the most expensive mid-term election in history. We take a look at how the campaign is being fought and how the money is being spent with three veteran political reporters: Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times; Ceci Connolly of The Washington Post; and Jim Drinkard of USA Today.
	A new campaign.
	So, Ceci, is the tone of this New York race typical of what you're seeing around the country? CECI CONNOLLY, Washington Post: Oh, my goodness, Margaret, it absolutely takes my breath away. No, it is not typical. I think that that New York Senate race is clearly the nastiest one that we've got this year, and it's got to be right up there in the top ten ever in history. It is just an absolute slugfest, as your viewers saw. What we're seeing also around the country is a bit tamer. This is an election year in which the economy is good. Most people are satisfied, which is good news for most incumbents. Now that we're getting close to election day it's only a few days away now, we're seeing a little bit more fighting and squabbling. For instance, some of it's just downright silly. Up in Massachusetts they're arguing about Salem witches and Christmas decorations, or down in Arkansas, in a more serious matter, they're fighting about whether or not U.S. troops ought to be fighting under U.N. command. But certainly New York stands far and above the nastiest. MARGARET WARNER: Far and above the nastiest, Jim? JIM DRINKARD, USA Today: I think that's true. I was talking to a political consultant the other day who said New York is just different than anywhere else this year. It's so big in terms of population, in terms of money, and in terms of personalities that he said it's like a glacier. It creates its own climate. MARGARET WARNER: Big out-sized personalities. But, Ron, now the Republicans nationally just now have started running, at least in some districts, some pretty tough -- RON BROWNSTEIN, Los Angeles Times: A real reversal of strategy. After an initial flurry last summer, very few candidates in the Republican Party have run ads focusing on President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, or the – much less the prospect of impeachment. And although a few Democrats have run sort of response backlash ads, relatively few there as well. Now we're seeing the Republican Party putting a significant sum of money in their final ads through the National Republican Congressional Committee's Operation Breakout Ads in selecting congressional districts around the country, largely in the South and the Midwest, and now running ads on the scandal.
	The Republican ads.
	MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's take a look at one of the three new scandal-related ads that the RNCC just started airing in, as Ron said, a number of targeted congressional districts around the country. REPUBLICAN POLITICAL AD: FIRST WOMAN IN AD: What did you tell your kids? SECOND WOMAN IN AD: I didn't know what to say. FIRST WOMAN IN AD: It's wrong. For seven months he lied to us. SECOND WOMAN IN AD: But aren't there other things to do? FIRST WOMAN IN AD: I'd say it's okay to lie? Beside, the Republicans are doing them; they cut taxes; they helped balance the budget. They're putting people on welfare back to work. And now they have a plan to save Social Security. SECOND WOMAN IN AD: But the Democrats say – FIRST WOMAN IN AD: The truth is the Democrats gave us higher taxes and more government. SECOND WOMAN IN AD: Now there's a difference that really matters. VOICE IN AD: Republicans are the balance we need. MARGARET WARNER: So – and where are we seeing these? RON BROWNSTEIN: That particular ad is running largely in the Midwest, running in Santa Barbara, in California, a number of mid-sized Midwestern districts like Lexington, Cincinnati, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, obviously aimed largely at women. It's important to understand there are two messages in that ad. One is reminding people about the scandal. The last line, though, is quite significant also. It's a reprise of the argument that the Republicans used at the end of the '96 campaign, when they basically said you need a Republican Congress there to balance an act as a check on Bill Clinton. There's a lot of support in this country for divided government. It's been sort of almost an institution that we have added to the checks and balances of the Constitution over the last generation. And I think that's an argument with some resonance.
	What is the GOP strategy?
	MARGARET WARNER: Ceci, so why are the Republicans doing this? CECI CONNOLLY: Well, that's a great question, Margaret, and we're trying to figure that out, ourselves, I think today as these ads begin airing around the country. I think there are a couple of factors at work. Down in the South, where you're seeing the harshest anti-Clinton ad produced by the NRCC, I think it's really all about rallying your most loyal base voters. The conservatives – you want to remind then why they've disliked President Clinton and why they need to get out again and vote Republican, and the spot that you showed is intriguing because I think the target audience there is primarily what we call a suburban swing vote or soccer moms that everyone heard so much about in 1996, and I think that there's a possibility to strike a chord with that audience. Certainly as we travel the country, we hear from parents who are distraught about what to tell their children about the whole Clinton controversy. But the question really is how many of these ads are going to be seen in truly competitive races, and that's still yet to be determined. JIM DRINKARD: I think what we're seeing is a Republican attempt to change the subject. They saw the control of the debate slip away from them at the end of the congressional session with all the debate about the federal budget and then with the Middle East peace process took over the headlines, took over the front pages, and this is an attempt to remind people what they were talking about all summer and turn back the clock – that time when everybody thought it might have a big impact on the elections. I think it's interesting too to look at those southern seats where the most – where the harshest ads are running. MARGARET WARNER: And we should point out this is – as Ceci said – this was not the harshest ad. There is one running in three southern districts. JIM DRINKARD: Three southern districts. House districts where that ad is airing but those are three House Democratic incumbents who don't seem to be in too much trouble. So the question is why? Well, if you look at the states, one of them is North Carolina. In the area around Raleigh they are trying to turn out Republicans, and there is a Senate race there that is very, very close. There's a governor's race in Georgia, where the other ad's running, and in South Carolina, a Senate race and a governor's race. So there may be some other motives there. RON BROWNSTEIN: That's a very good point. I think it's also an effort to change the subject in another way. When the focus was on President Clinton's behavior during the summer, especially around the period of his confession and the Starr Report, he suffered and Democrats suffered. When the subject moved to what should be done about his behavior, whether he should be removed from office, Democrats rebounded a bit and Republicans here are focusing back on the behavior. Now, Democrats are responding. The Democrats are coming out with their own ad, which will be on the air by tomorrow, which is again an attempt to shift back to the question of whether this investigation should go on, whether impeachment should go on, People for the American Way, the liberal lobbying group, which ran an ad, a similar type ad saying that this has been going on for too long, is also going to becoming out tomorrow with three new ads. So what you've got really is an attempt to sort of – each side trying to control the debate at least about the scandals to the extent that it's in the election at all – is about what President Clinton did or what should be done about it, which are very different things and very different reaction from the public on those two questions.
	An unwanted ad campaign?
	MARGARET WARNER: Ceci, let me ask you something about these ads. Congressman John Linder, who's head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said earlier today in a TV interview that the candidates whose districts this ad ran in didn't even know they were coming. Is that typical? Are we seeing all around the country the candidates having less and less control over what kind of advertising is going on in their district? CECI CONNOLLY: Oh, I think in many cases, Margaret, that's absolutely the story of campaign 1998. You remember in 1996, we saw so many of these third party issue advocacy ads, as they're referred to. In many instances they were groups that nobody quite knew who they were or where the money was coming from. This time around donors were encouraged to give their money directly to the parties, especially in the case of the Republican Party, and you are seeing a phenomenal amount of advertising paid for by the NRCC, and in particular on those House races. We're talking about 25 million dollars in advertising in these final few weeks. That compares to maybe seven or eight million that the Democrats are able to afford. JIM DRINKARD: And I think it's also important to remember that this is soft money for the most part. This is money that is flowing into the parties from donors who can give incredible amounts of money far in excess of what a normal voter could give to a candidate in support of a campaign. These amounts range up to $100,000, even more, so it's – it's money that is attempting to also influence the playing field after the elections. MARGARET WARNER: So what's the relationship, Ron, between the amount of money say the candidates are spending versus the parties, and then these other committees, these separate committees? RON BROWNSTEIN: Well, the candidates are moving into a minority position and the total amount of money being spent. The Hotline, which is a political newsletter, estimated this week. The candidates, I think, are about Ό of the total, and it was especially the parties are going up. The irony, of course, in all of this is that Janet Reno right now is investi—is determining whether to appoint a special prosecutor over basically an identical course of advertising in 1996 by the Clinton campaign to what we're seeing now from both parties, but especially the Republicans in 1998. MARGARET WARNER: Ceci, what's the difference between – is there a difference between the kind of advertising that say the candidates want to do, versus what the parties want to do, versus what these other groups want to do? CECI CONNOLLY: There's certainly a difference. First of all, there's supposed to be a legal difference, which is candidates can say vote for me or vote against the other guy, but parties and these groups that use the soft money that Jim talked about are not supposed to specifically endorse the candidate. The interesting thing is that the loophole these days is so big that it's the old clichι you can drive a truck through it, Margaret. And what is happening is that those issue ads make very clear who they want people to support or not support next Tuesday. JIM DRINKARD: Congress had an opportunity this year to address all of this, and there was a big debate about whether to ban soft money and whether to bring those issue ads under federal regulation, and there was a majority in the House and a majority in the Senate, but in the end, it failed because of a filibuster in the Senate.
	The Democrats counter.
	MARGARET WARNER: Now, the President mentioned today – complained today about the imbalance in the amount of money that the Republicans have over the Democrats. I think it's something like $100 million difference. Ron, can you see the difference when you're out there? RON BROWNSTEIN: Sure. MARGARET WARNER: You can? RON BROWNSTEIN: But this is not a coincidence. This is not happening randomly. This is the way in which the Republican majority in Congress has the opportunity to reinforce and institutionalize itself. Democrats were competitive financially in the ‘80s and early ‘90s because they controlled the majority and they used that as a lever to pry out money from business interests, in particular, that were more ideologically sympathetic to the Republicans. Now Republicans have ideology and control working for them. And this is an enduring systemic problem that Democrats are going to have to deal with for a long time as they try to regain the House. It's not just some sort of unfair advantage that's dropped down from heaven. It is a basic part of the political playing field in congressional races for the foreseeable future. MARGARET WARNER: So, Ceci, how are they trying to deal with it? CECI CONNOLLY: The Democrats? Well, they certainly have utilized President Clinton and Vice President Gore, as well as the first and second ladies to do quite a bit of fund-raising this year. I mean, they've been quite active and fairly successful. Part of the problem was that they started this campaign year in debt, deeply in debt, coming off of that 1996 campaign – they were approximately $11 million in debt, and then they had to pay legal fees on the order of $14 million, I believe. So they've been digging out of a hole which is very difficult. I will note that President Clinton did a fund-raiser here in Washington just last night that brought in over $1 million and tonight many of those Democratic fund-raisers are back on the telephones specifically saying to their donors, you've seen these nasty Republican ads, we need to respond to them right away, please give money again to pay for our response ad. MARGARET WARNER: So the message is we haven't seen anything yet, perhaps? JIM DRINKARD: I think we're seeing – as Ceci pointed out, it's a vicious circle. The ads paid for by the money create the pitch for more money and more ads. MARGARET WARNER: But now the Democrats do have a couple of other groups sort of helping them with get out the vote and so on, don't they? RON BROWNSTEIN: And, in fact, this year several of the interest groups are in an off-year election like this, are focusing more on get out the vote than on broad advertising toward the public. The AFL-CIO spent very large sums in '96 on issue advocacy advertising aimed at Republicans – and comments. This year, they're spending most of their money trying to reach their own members and get them out to vote in what is a pretty difficult climate to get people out to vote. It's sort of a placid election, dominated by scandal, which doesn't really have people rushing toward the television or the voting booth. MARGARET WARNER: So, in other words, the general public may not see these efforts, but if you're in a target group, you will? RON BROWNSTEIN: Absolutely. The Christian Coalition, the AFL-CIO, groups like that are spending a lot of time this week calling their members, writing their members, trying to lash them to the poll somehow. MARGARET WARNER: Well, great. Thank you all three very much.