Negative ads, the bipartisan flaunting of campaign finance laws and why the Republicans aren't bringing up the character issue in the presidential race. These are the topics covered this week by political experts Mark Shields and Paul Gigot.
MARGARET WARNER: It’s Friday, and that means political analysis with syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. Welcome back.
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Thank you, Margaret.
MARGARET WARNER: Mark, why do you think we’re seeing all these ads, these kinds of ads now?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, essentially, Margaret, in 1996, we have a remarkably passive electorate. The electorate by every measure is less involved than it was in 1992. Attendance, audience for the campaigns, debates, convention, all of it are down. Network coverage is down 40 percent. So we get the way to reach, if you’re a candidate, if you’re Bob Dole or Bill Clinton’s campaign, the way to reach is through paid advertising, is buying time on "Seinfeld" or the Big League playoffs or Monday Night Football or something where you can reach large numbers of voters.
MARGARET WARNER: And why do you think, Paul, we’re seeing--is this usual to have such a disconnect between what the candidates are saying on the stump and what we’re seeing in the ads, I mean, stuff like condoms in the schools, gays in the military. You never hear Dole and Kemp talking about that on the stump.
PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: Some disconnect is, is pretty routine, particularly when the campaigns were targeting voter blocks, specific voter groups, blacks, or Christian conservatives, something like that. I think the great under-reported story of this campaign, one of the--I think after the election a lot of people will write about it--is the great success of the Democratic ad campaign at the presidential and congressional level. It’s been going on for a year, and it’s been a sort of a two-track strategy. The President stands up and says, I want a clean campaign, I love Bob Dole, he’s a wonderful man, I honor his service, and in every swing market in the United States, the Democrats are really hitting him with Medicare, Dole-Gingrich. They’ve been linking him sort of dark, grainy, black and white, and it has been very, very effective. I think it may be, in fact, that it has poisoned the well for Dole, so that his credibility on taxes and some other things are, are--have suffered. These Republican ads are not nearly as effective, and they’re late. They’re coming late, and it’s hard to make up for those images that have been planted already.
MARGARET WARNER: Now all this--what is this Common Cause complaint about, Mark? This week, Common Cause was talking just about these ad campaigns and said, it was the most egregious violation of campaign spending laws in all of history since Watergate, both parties asking for an independent counsel. What is that all about?
MARK SHIELDS: Common Cause was stating the obvious and spreading the ugly truth. Both parties have violated the letter and the spirit of the election law. When you as the nominee of your party, Democrat or Republican, accept matching public funds, you sign a guarantee, you sign a pledge note, a promissory that you will not--this is all the money that will be spent in your behalf, all right, that’s, that’s it. And in the past, there have been, there have been some minor violations of small expenditures. This year it’s gotten big. The Democrats have spent $34 million out of the Democratic National Committee in an effort, a television effort that was largely coordinated certainly with the President’s campaign. The Republicans, because they have had less money, because Bob Dole went all the way through the nominating season, spent $14 million. I mean, they have flouted the law, flouted it, and both sides have, and it’s outrageous and it’s indefensible. Right now, the only enforcement, Margaret, is that seven years after the fact you get an audit, and they assess your 1988 
campaign, a fine of $100,000, it’s buried back in the truss ads of the newspaper. Nobody reads it, it’s not a factor in the campaign. It is not--it is no longer salient to our politics, but it is wrong, and, you know, whether it goes anywhere or not, Common Cause has raised an absolutely legitimate issue in my mind.
PAUL GIGOT: Disagree. Common Cause is the arsonist who reports his own fire to the police. I mean, Common Cause created this campaign finance system, and when you try to put campaign spending limits on people who are competing for power, and then you say $65 billion or whatever it is, and they’re shocked, shocked--
MARGARET WARNER: It’s $70 million, but it is a lot.
PAUL GIGOT: Million. Sorry. Shocked, shocked to find that both sides want to win and they want--they actually want to spend a lot of money, so they’ll exploit loopholes and there are loopholes within these laws, Mark. The system that was designed by Common Cause and some of their intellectual allies, and that’s what comes of spending limits. What’s--you can’t limit political speech like that.
MARK SHIELDS: Paul, don’t talk to me about speech being money. Money is not speech because if you start to say money is speech, what you’re saying is millionaires matter more, let’s have a poll tax in the country. Don’t blame Common Cause for this situation. It is not Common Cause’s fault Common Cause responded, and so did the Congress of the United States in 1975, after Richard Nixon, after the revelations and the disclosures of people being shaken down, extortion, and illegal expenditures. That’s what happened. That’s what happened in this country. Maybe you weren’t around then. I was, and I can tell you how corrupt it was, and I can tell you after that, Paul, we went through a system where, in fact, people did abide by it. Ronald Reagan did. Ronald Reagan didn’t break the law. Ronald Reagan didn’t push it past; he didn’t have to. Now in 1996, it’s being broken, and that’s bipartisan.
MARGARET WARNER: By both parties, by both parties.
MARK SHIELDS: Bipartisan.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let’s turn to the campaign, itself. What’s the state of play inside the Dole-Kemp campaign now, Paul, on this question of how negative, how personal, how much the candidates should raise the issue of character?
PAUL GIGOT: As you--
MARGARET WARNER: Against Bill Clinton.
PAUL GIGOT: The state of play is as inconsistent, I’m sure, as it’s always been. I mean, I don’t think they know exactly what they’re doing. I’m not sure Bob Dole knows exactly what he’s going to do. I know that a lot of Republicans in and out of the Dole campaign wished that Jack Kemp in particular had taken the character question of Bill Clinton a lot more than he did. That’s a traditional vice presidential role. Certainly, Jack Kemp doesn’t like to do, but you sign on, probably you should do it, and particularly since in the later stages of the campaign I think this--the Dole campaign would like to drive two issues, taxes 
and trust. And trust gets right to the notion of presidential character and honesty, and it’s very much a legitimate issue to bring up. But you have to show as a candidate and as a ticket that it matters to you. I mean, people, some of the people in the campaign say, wait, the voters say they don’t like negative campaigning, but in fact, they like the information that’s provided, and they also have to know if you’re trying to say this matters, this campaign matters on the basis of trust, you have to show voters in a debate or somewhere else that it matters to you enough to bring it up and to bring it up in a civil, calm way, but take it right to the present.
MARGARET WARNER: Why do you think, though, these Republicans who are complaining, and I assume calling you up to complain, and other journalists, why do they think the character issue will work against Clinton when, in fact, the public already has doubts about his character and seems ready to vote for him anyway?
MARK SHIELDS: You go with what you have, Margaret. On the issues of the environment, the economy, Medicare, Bill Clinton enjoys a large decisive edge over Bob Dole in every measurement of public opinion. People give him a high job rating, so you look at it. It’s exactly the position, similar position that Fritz Mondale was in 1984. People asked about Ronald Reagan, who cares more about the elderly, Mondale, who cares more about ordinary people, Mondale, who cares more about working people, Mondale, who are you going to vote for, Reagan. I mean, and so the Mondale people kept emphasizing that Ronald Reagan was a cruel and indecisive fellah who wanted to start World War III. Going with Bill Clinton, the problem that they have is character matters a lot more the first time people are hiring a President. After that, performance sets in. Even six months after Richard Nixon was drummed out of office, okay, for heinous crimes, when the American people were asked what were the most important qualities they wanted in a President, the seventh on the list of eight was honesty. I mean, they want competent, they want leadership, they want strength, they want decisive, they want all of these things, they want compassion, and, uh, after we had a conservative mantra in this country now for 20 years saying everybody in Washington is an ethical eunuch and a moral leper. They’re not looking for--they’re not expecting George Washington. So, I mean, to some degree they’re hoisted on their own petard. The other fact is that Republican conservative hate radio--and I call it hate radio--has accused Bill Clinton of everything up to and including murdering Vince Foster, so whatever Bob Dole does, he can never reach that level of vitriol that they expect and really gets their own juices going, and I think it’s unfair to Jack Kemp, I really do, asking Jack Kemp to be attack dog is wrong because that isn’t Jack Kemp’s style, it isn’t what he does. It’s like asking Tom Cruise to sing. Don’t do it.
MARGARET WARNER: I guess he can’t. But did what Jack Kemp say in the debate, Paul, about it was beneath Bob Dole to attack on character, does that now hamstring Bob Dole for Wednesday night?
PAUL GIGOT: Sure doesn’t make it any easier, does it?
MARGARET WARNER: No.
PAUL GIGOT: And when you’re talking about attack dog, we’re not talking about calling him a, a--I don’t know--
MARK SHIELDS: A womanizer?
PAUL GIGOT: Anything like that. We’re talking about calling him--we’re talking about--this is a President who promises one thing and does another. This is a President who tried to nationalize the health care system and now says the era of big government is over. Bob Dole can look at Bill Clinton and say, how can you transform yourself like that? That’s one big element of character as well, and that’s, that’s what Kemp should have done. I don’t think it’s something that is beyond his realm of capability.
MARK SHIELDS: That’s absolutely legitimate. That’s absolutely legitimate, to draw the issues of character based upon issues and positions and inconsistencies and contradictions, but I think the conservative criticism of Jack Kemp is that he didn’t go after Bill Clinton firstly.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. We’re going to have to go out here. Thanks both.
