POLITICAL WRAP

August 4, 2000
		Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot reflect on this week's GOP convention and on what's to come.

Online Special: GOP Convention 2000 Election 2000 Media coverage has a new look Aug. 3, 2000: George W. Bush addresses the GOP Convention. Aug. 3, 2000: NewsHour pundits discuss the impact of the convention and the future of the Bush candidacy. Aug. 3, 2000: A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the George W. Bush video biography. Aug. 3, 2000: Protests and the police response during the week of Republican National Convention. Aug. 2, 2000: The vice presidential candidate on the battle ahead and his vision for a Bush-Cheney administration.. July 31, 2000: A look at the new breed of Internet coverage coming to this year's conventions. July 25, 2000: Shields and Gigot on the Cheney Choice. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Shields and Gigot, Politics and Campaigns and Election 2000	MARGARET WARNER: And that's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. So, Paul what do you think this convention and Bush's speech last night did to the dynamic of this race? PAUL GIGOT: I think it left Bush in a strong position, Margaret, maybe even a dominant one even at this early stage of the election. I think it did two things for Bush: One is it lifted him personally. It made a lot of people comfortable with him, thinking of him as a President. Poll Ballot Ground -- a Voter.Com survey had his favorable rating at 67/26 after this. That matters a lot more than these bounces which are really ephemeral, but that personal underpinning of what people think of him, that's lasting, and that will make it possible for him to withstand some of the attacks that are coming. The other thing he did was he reached out on -- basically reached into the Democratic citadel on issues. One of the clichés of this race is that Democrats had an advantage because it was their issues that were dominating the discussion. But it turns out that Bush is making real in-roads on education and Social Security, less so on health care, but Social Security and education, I think is remarkable. No Republican that I can think of has been at parity with the Democratic presidential -- on those issues ever. And Bush finds himself, I think he's winning the education argument. Social Security there's a debate to be fought out. But one of the most effective parts of that speech was that part on Social Security. He helped himself this week. MARGARET WARNER: What do you think this did to the landscape of the race? MARK SHIELDS: I think the convention certainly helped Governor Bush. I think it helped the Republican Party, helped Governor Bush more. It was more of a Bush convention than it was a Republican Convention. I was watching him last night. All I could think of was a quote of Helmut Kohl, the former German chancellor, who dominated this country's politics for a generation. He said I've been underestimated for decades. (Laughing) And things have gone very well. He had been. There's no question. A friend of his from Texas said that usually the larger the room, the smaller George Bush appears. He's a very good politician one on one. He charms people in small groups but he's never... the debates he did poorly. He's never been good in a big room. Last night he was in a big room, the biggest room of his life and he did well.
	Playing on Democratic turf
	MARGARET WARNER: Now, do you agree with Paul that the Gore forces have reason to be worried that the Bush forces have decided to play on Democratic turf on some of these issues? MARK SHIELDS: I think that it played properly on those issues. I think the Democrats have to do well on them eventually. I think it's a daring move on George Bush's part. I do think there were just two places where George Bush perhaps left himself and the Republicans open. One is by the concentration, it was, I thought, very well done. There was no mention of Ted Kennedy. There was no mention of union bosses. There was no mention of environmental extremists. MARGARET WARNER: All the staples. MARK SHIELDS: All the staples. No mention of Hollywood liberals; it was very single and very single-minded, it went after Bill Clinton and Al Gore as well and the scandals, the embarrassment, however you want to put it. It did put the focus on the past eight years, just as David Gergen pointed out in the previous piece. For that reason I think it opens that up for legitimate discussion. The last time we had a Bush in the White House, African-American unemployment was twice as high as it is today. Hispanic unemployment was twice as high as it is. We had the biggest surplus - the biggest deficit in the nation's history; now the biggest surplus. I think that was a potential mistake for them. But I don't think there's any question coming out that he had a big, big advantage for one simple reason: That is, he went into this convention with an enthusiastic, united base of his party and he was ten points ahead in the polls. And Al Gore goes into a convention without a united, enthusiastic base of his party, and he's ten points behind in the polls. MARGARET WARNER: Let me pick up on one thing that Mark mentioned that Karl Rove said in the interview with Gwen. He said that he - his favorite line in Cheney's speech is they came in together -- meaning Gore and Clinton -- we'll see them go out together. Do you think the Bush forces are putting too much on this Clinton connection as a sort of leg of their strategy? PAUL GIGOT: No. I think they have to. I think they're pinning - they're pinning their strategy on the dichotomy between Bill Clinton's job approving rating, which is high, and, as Mark said, it's tied to the prosperity and peace that we enjoy. But they're zeroing in on the vulnerability, which is his personal disapproval rating, the unhappiness that people have with the presidency, the linking between Gore and Clinton on ethics. They have to go at it. You have to make a case for change, Margaret. That's the place where voters have been unhappy. They don't have a choice on that. If they didn't do that, they would find themselves in a very difficult situation because well, then why not keep on going with what we have? MARK SHIELDS: Paul raises I think the key point in the Bush strategy which is an interesting one. It stands in stark contrast to Gerry Ford's race in 1976. Gerry Ford -- the country was in bad shape. Inflation was bad. Unemployment was up. He had pardoned President Nixon. And his campaign was one that contrasted him with the Nixon years by never mentioning Nixon. It said, "I'm feeling good about America." That was it. It was a great slogan. MARGARET WARNER: That's the first time you've ever broken into song. MARK SHIELDS: It was very upbeat, it was very upbeat. The point was by all earthly indications, people weren't feeling good about America but feeling good about Gerry Ford. This is the opposite. Now we're saying things are terrific in this country. It's time for a change. That's tricky politically because people feel the prosperity. They feel the peace. They feel a sense that Clinton has done a good job. They're saying now it's time for a change and they throw in one little curve ball and that is Bill Clinton and Al Gore haven't done enough. Now we've been told that Democrats are intrusive. They're everywhere. They're always meddling in everything. Now they haven't done enough. PAUL GIGOT: They're linking the failure of character and ethics - they're linking it to a failure of achievement. So it allows Bush to make the link between that and I will fix Social Security. I will do something on Medicare. I will get a tax cut done, the gridlock in Washington -- I'll transcend it.
	Gore's dilemmas
	MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's look at one other thing. Again as Rove's interview indicated, the Republicans really think they have Gore in a box on this question of tone. Do you think they do? PAUL GIGOT: Yeah. I think they've got him in other boxes too. Gore has a couple of dilemmas. I don't have any good advice for how he gets out of them. One is he has to energize his base which is a bit sullen right now. At the same time he has got to reach out to swing voters that he's losing by double digits to George Bush. You reach out to your base with partisan attacks, rallying the base, soak the rich, you know, big oil and that sort of thing. That might turn off some of these swing voters. The other dilemma he has is he wants to take credit, as Mark says, for the 1990s, wants to say times are great, we did it all. At the same time he has to declare some kind of independence from Bill Clinton, from that underside of the Clinton years. How you do that is very, very tricky. Now he might be able to do that with a vice presidential choice. Let's say he picks a Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, one of the first and only Democrats to come out and declare... to criticize the President during the Monica Lewinsky episode. MARGARET WARNER: You mean, that sort of buys him that distance he's looking for. PAUL GIGOT: Yeah. A lot of reporters, if he picks Lieberman, the press will say exactly that, and that might allow him then to use his convention to rally the base and to begin what is going to be the Dresden firebombing of George W. Bush. MARGARET WARNER: So what about this? Can Gore use the same tactics on Bush that he used, say, on Bill Bradley, the Dresden firing bombing, whatever you want to call it? MARK SHIELDS: Dresden firebombing, I think, may be a new height in hyperbole. It's been a long week. PAUL GIGOT: Wait. Just watch. Just watch. MARK SHIELDS: We've spent a lot of time together. This is known in the business, this is known in the trade as discounting. It's what Karl Rove did beautifully in his interview with Gwen. It was a very good interview. He said Al Gore is going to get this huge bounce out of the Democratic convention. Therefore you discount. You say look here comes the October surprise. Here comes the Dresden firebombing. I think Al Gore has a problem, Margaret. There's no question about it. He has to establish, as all Vice Presidents do, that independence especially with this President. He has to get Bill Clinton off the stage in a way that serves that sense of independence. It may be a vice presidential choice. It may be a declaration on policy where he is different. George Bush, you recall in 1988 when he was running for vice president, said he was first gentler, kinder. Now that upset the base of his own party because they said wait a minute you're saying the gipper was mean and not kind? PAUL GIGOT: As Nancy Reagan said kinder and gentler than who? MARGARET WARNER: But, Mark, are you saying Gore doesn't run any risk if he goes really on the attack when you have Bush playing Sunny Jim? MARK SHIELDS: I think the other point where Bush opened himself up was he talked so much about Texas. He established his roots. The film was very good. But he's now given us two points of attack, if you're looking at it that way. You say you've got the eight years and you've got his Texas record. And he talks about how well he's worked; he's played well with Democrats and Republicans down there. They get along. I mean, Bob Bullock, the former lieutenant governor, was almost eulogized at the convention. So I think that's now open. A Dresden firebombing is in the eyes of the beholder, not necessarily the property owner in Dresden, in other words. Does he go after him and say this what he says, we'll leave no child behind. How many children have been left behind in Texas without health care, without adequate housing, I mean, in this incredibly prosperous state? How has Texas used its prosperity? He talks about prosperity with purpose. Is that firebombing or is that just holding somebody accountable.... PAUL GIGOT: Analogies aside, Al Gore is not going to win this election unless he raises big, big doubts about George Bush. I mean, the 67% favorable rating, he can't allow that to survive. So it' going to be a pretty rough-and-tumble race. MARGARET WARNER: Very briefly, Mark, how do you see his options next week for vice presidential choice, Gore's? MARK SHIELDS: Slim. I mean, the Democrats have a very weak farm system. I mean, if there's going to be, you know, a commentary on the Clinton years, I mean, you look at the possibilities. I mean, the Republicans had more interesting possibilities to choose than do the - that's governors, for one thing. I mean, there aren't any other than Gray Davis and Jim Hunt in major states - there aren't any Democratic governors. I think, again, you do the declaration if independence either substantively which I think is better, or just symbolically through a vice presidential choice. And probably the one that would make the most change would be Bob Kerrey, the Senator from Nebraska, who now is not on anybody's short list. So I guess it's easy to say he would be a bold choice. PAUL GIGOT: There are two choices that scare Republicans: Joe Lieberman and Bob Kerrey because they would break the mold. And there are people who are not typical Democrats. They are seen as bipartisan people. And they differed with Bill Clinton. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Thank you both very much. Have a great weekend. MARK SHIELDS: Thank you.