POLITICAL WRAP

October 23, 1998
	Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot discuss the political impact of the Mideast agreement and other issues.

Oct. 9, 1998: Pundits Shields and Gigot on the impeachment vote and the budget battle Oct. 2, 1998: Shields and Gigot discuss the House's decision to release more documents on the Clinton-Lewinsky matter. Sept. 23, 1998: Pollsters discuss the public's reaction. Sept. 21, 1998: Historians discuss the president's testimony. Sept. 21, 1998: Two former federal prosecutor's discuss how the testimony looked to them. Sept. 18, 1998: Shields and Gigot analyze the partisan struggle over the release of grand jury evidence. Sept. 17, 1998: How is the world media covering the Lewinsky matter? Sept. 17, 1998: A discussion on the videotape debate. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Omaha road trip, Starr Investigation, and Shields & Gigot.   Wall Street Journal House Judiciary Committee White House	PHIL PONCE: Paul, looking at this Mideast agreement from the admittedly narrow perspective of domestic politics, what impact will this have on the President's political standing?
	The President's Standing.
	PAUL GIGOT: I think there's no question it helps him, Phil. It comes at a good time for him. Obviously, an impeachment hanging over you, it's always good to be able to demonstrate that you're doing your job and particularly part of his job which is uniquely presidential, that is, foreign policy. You don't have to deal with Congress usually. It depends an awful lot on your administration. And the other thing I think the reason this helps him is that - he, other than in Northern Ireland - the President really hasn't had a good foreign policy year. You've had the breakdown of the North Korean agreement. You've had the Asian economic crisis, problems in Russia, the breakdown of the coalition against Saddam. And this was something the President could point to and say see, I can still get things done in foreign policy. PHIL PONCE: Mark, good timing for the President? MARK SHIELDS: Good timing for the President, Phil. Shows him energetic, shows him involved, shows him committed, shows the kind of stamina that Bill Clinton in his best moments has demonstrated. There's no doubt about it. I think there's a question politically how much help it is for the Democrats - if he might, in fact, have been more helpful on November 3rd - if he'd spent the last six days out campaigning - and raising money because heading into those last two weekends, the Democrats are looking at a two to one disadvantage in spending, but I don't think there's any question. I think Paul is right, that it's a major presidential achievement. PHIL PONCE: And, Mark, how much did the President have riding on this? He, what, spent 70 hours over the course of nine days? MARK SHIELDS: No question. The President raised the stakes - and while not in any way minimizing the risks politically and personally that both Mr. Arafat and Mr. Netanyahu took, the President probably had more riding on it politically than either of them did in that sense. I mean, he had made this the focal point and pushed it, so I think - I think, in retrospect, one can say that Bill Clinton defined this as an awfully important event. PAUL GIGOT: I just want to underscore a point that Mark made. About the impact on congressional elections, on October 25, 1982, Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada. The Democrats resisted. They said they opposed it; they said it was terrible. The public turned out it liked it. The Democrats still picked up 26 House seats in the elections just a couple of weeks away. So I'm not so sure that you can translate a presidential agreement like this to congressional candidates.
	Impact On The Elections
	PHIL PONCE: How about that, Mark, the possibility of negligible impact on election day, which is just less than two weeks away? MARK SHIELDS: Well, it's certainly - you have to say it's an advantage for the Democrats when the conversation and the subject matter is shifted from impeachment, impeachment hearings, Starr Reports - where is Monica stories - to a substantive historic achievement in an area where Americans are concerned and have a long-term - a long-time interest. And I think Bill Clinton, to his credit, overcame enormous obstacles here. I mean, he and Benjamin Netanyahu do not like each other. There is real tension between the United States and Israel, between these two leaders and between these two governments right now. So I'm not - I think that what we're talking about in the elections of 1998, quite simply, who's going to be able to energize his voters - her voters, which party - and I think up until now, Phil, that there's been no question Republican voters have been more energized, especially the conservative base of the Republican Party - the last few days we've seen Democrats start to become more energized, but - and perhaps this will help - and I don't think there's any question - the energy level has been higher on the Republican side heading into this election than it has been on the Democratic side. PHIL PONCE: How about that? Are Republicans right now more energized with the election closing in on that - PAUL GIGOT: I think so. I think they have something of an edge, particularly since the Republican candidates left town, the Congress left town, it stopped playing the role of piñata for the White House. PHIL PONCE: Who wound up getting the treats? PAUL GIGOT: Well, we'll find out. But it's pretty clear that this budget deal, you know, the Republicans held their noses and passed it. And now they can get back and start using their financial advantage to be able to argue the themes that they want to argue about, what they've accomplished, and appeal to an electorate, which gives them a very high approval rating by recent congressional standards, upwards of 60 percent, and drive - and use that base support, which Mark I think correctly says is out there, going to vote against a lot of Democrats, not because of what their members of Congress have done but because they want to put a vote against President Clinton. And right now I think the Republicans do have an edge on that score. PHIL PONCE: How about that, Mark, is that going to be the question? Yay or Nay on President Clinton? MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think it will be afterwards. That'll be the post mortem, Phil. We don't - PAUL GIGOT: It's the pre mortem, Mark. MARK SHIELDS: This is the pre-mortem? This is actually - this is actually a pre-autopsy, rather than being the Dr. Kevorkian of the election of 1998, let me say this - that I think Paul made a very, very good point here, and that is that the Republicans - anytime, Phil, that you have a Republican Congress appropriating $3 ½ billion more in health and human services than the Democratic President requested you know the revolution is over. And so that whole strategy is about - it's protecting incumbents. It's not about threatening incumbents; it's about let's get through to use every sports cliché, which we in politics invariably borrow - it's four corner defense - it's punting on third down, it's all those things, banking on the fact that the Republicans do have twice as much money as the Democrats and an energy level a little higher among its base voters. And that's the question that I don't think anybody knows and probably won't know until the 3rd of November. PHIL PONCE: How about that, Paul? PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think-I mean, there are two things about this - two themes in this election. I think Clinton - President Clinton and contentment - I mean, you have most of the voters are reasonably happy. There's not a big issue that's driving this election. Nobody's furious about the economy; they're pretty happy with it. Nobody's furious about any particular driving social or economic issue. But what is driving a lot of the underlying motivation of voters is what their view of the President is. You have a lot of Republicans who feel well, if - here's my vote on impeachment; this is my chance to go out there and influence this. In the last couple of weeks you've had Democrats responding to that a little bit and saying, you know, I'm mad at Ken Starr. And what you see is the First Lady and the Vice President a little bit and some Democrats trying to drum up their base vote to counter that Republican enthusiasm by saying, yes, sure, let's make it a referendum on impeachment. You know, it's rare the presidential - that Democrats - the same party of the President - talk about impeachment but they think it's maybe to their advantage this time, because it can counter that Republican enthusiasm. I'm not so sure they're wrong.
	A Week And A Half
	PHIL PONCE: Mark, how about that, is there a possibility of the Democrats scoring some points with what Paul is talking about, making it a referendum on impeachment? MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think there's no question that the Republicans feel and felt and understandably so that they'd overplayed their hand. They backed off. We saw it last week. The sort of rush to judgment or the anti-Clinton armament that was rolled out didn't play well politically, and there's no question that they backed off. I mean, putting Henry Hyde up front, which I think both of us agree is the smartest course of action, but one which the Republicans have resisted doing, and that should not be a leadership issue.. Every time they make it a leadership fight and trot out the leaders of the party to talk about impeachment, it does generate Democratic sympathy, support, and energy. And that's exactly what the Republicans don't want to do between now and the 3rd of November. PHIL PONCE: Paul, let's talk briefly about the budget. The President signed the budget this Wednesday. Which side is benefiting more from what the budget shaped up to be? PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think that while the Republicans were in town and offering almost no resistance to what the President requested, the Democrats were getting the better of the argument. I think now that they've gone, they can forget about its, and I think the impact of it is dissipating. And what you're seeing, what you'll see in the advertising over the next two weeks, is Republicans reminding them not about what happened this year but what happened last year. The balanced budget, moving ahead on welfare reform, the tax cuts they passed last year, the IRS bill that they did pass this year reining in the Internal Revenue Service, those are the themes that they're going to talk about and they're going to talk about the tax cut they're going to pass next year because they weren't of course able to get their act together and do two years in a row, but maybe every other year. PHIL PONCE: Mark how about Democrats, what are Democrats going to be emphasizing in the next week and half? MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think there's no question that there's a Democratic unity coming out of this fight, and a Republican disunity. I mean, the criticism when the speaker of the House uses his valedictory statement, at the end of the Congress, to criticize the immaturity of members of his own party who predict it and go to the floor to do that, that tells you something. And Steve Largent, the Republican revolutionary, a former Hall of Fame pro footballer in Seattle, said we have passed a bill, we can't read, with people we don't trust, spending money we don't have, on things we don't need, and I think he probably was speaking for more than a few Republicans, so there are those fault lines - are not going to go away. There is a level I think of disunity and disharmony in the party which may be papered over by a big victory on the 3rd of November, but if that victory does not materialize and this sort of no runs, no hits, no errors strategy doesn't work, then I think you'll see real unrest and maybe - and more than resentment. PHIL PONCE: And that's where we're going to have to leave it. Mark. Thank you very much. Paul, same to you.