POLITICAL WRAP

October 9, 1998
	NewsHour regulars Mark Shields and Paul Gigot debate the meaning of the House vote in favor of an impeachment inquiry and the budget showdown between the Congress and the White House.

Oct. 8, 1998: White House counsel Gregory Craig and Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA) discusses the House vote. Oct. 8, 1998: A historical perspective on the House vote Oct. 7, 1998: The House prepares to vote on beginning an impeachment inquiry. Oct. 6, 1998: A look at the House impeachment process so far. Oct. 5, 1998: Excerpts from the House Judiciary Committee debate on the impeachment inquiry. Oct. 5, 1998: The vote for a formal impeachment inquiry. Oct. 2, 1998: Excerpts from the grand jury testimony of Jordan and Currie and the phone conversations of Tripp and Lewinsky. Oct. 1, 1998: The methods of the Starr Investigation on President Clinton. Browse previous weeks' political wrap House of Representatives U.S. Senate White House	JIM LEHRER: And to Shields & Gigot for analysis of the impeachment inquiry vote, among other things. Syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. We'll get back to the Congress vote in a minute, but Paul, the House vote on the impeachment inquiry yesterday, does it qualify, in your opinion, as a partisan proceeding by a Republican Congress against a Democratic president?
	A partisan vote?
	PAUL GIGOT: No, I don't think so. And I would say that while the vote was more partisan than it needed to be, a lot of the rhetoric was more partisan than the actual two resolutions. And in the end they were very close. The Democrats said we're going to inquire but stop it at December 31st. The Republican resolution runs out January 3rd because the Congress runs out and they'd have to redo the resolution all over. So I don't think there was in the end that much difference. Only five Democrats voted against any kind of inquiry. Everybody else voted to move ahead. JIM LEHRER: So why was there so much heat about it then? PAUL GIGOT: Because both parties, Jim, are conflict about this, and particularly Democrats, because if you ask the Democrats, they want the president to go in their heart of hearts. If he would just vanish, they'd be better off with Al Gore at the head of the party. But the base wants him to stay. They don't want him railroaded out. The Republicans would love President Clinton to stay until the year 2000, if you really ask them, but their base wants him to go. So I think - and right now for this election they're both playing very hard to their bases because this is going to be an election on November 3rd dominated, I think, by turnout, and so both parties are trying to speak to those two groups. JIM LEHRER: Do you read it the same way? MARK SHIELDS: I read it very much the same way in some respects. First of all, I think there's no question the cross pressure - the membership of the party is at odds with its leadership. The leadership of the Republican Party -- if you're really interested in a non-bipartisan thing you would not have Bob Barr speaking on the floor of the House on a resolution like this. I mean, Bob Barr has made it his life's work, other than protection of family legislation, to get rid of Bill Clinton, to impeach him. I mean, so that just gets the partisan juices going. I mean, if you really want to, you'd have Henry Hyde and you'd have some other Republicans of that stripe who are not noted as visceral in-fighters. But I don't think there's any question, Jim, that the Republicans in the House want Bill Clinton there, bruised, battered, bloody, and maybe even losing popularity. The problem was that the Republicans had this week was in the measurement of public opinion the president's job rating had not slipped nearly within the margin of error, while the Republican Congress is on a slippery slope. They lost 20 percent of their support in the Gallup Poll. So that's another conflict that's at work for the Republicans and as they try and deal with this.
	Dick Gephardt takes control.
	JIM LEHRER: What about the Democrats? You heard what Paul said about the Democrats - on this - how do you read that? MARK SHIELDS: I think - the Democrats -- a low point for the Democrats, obviously, was the 17th of August. I mean, at that point, if there had been a vote taken on an impeachment inquiry then, there would have been -- JIM LEHRER: That was the day that the president - MARK SHIELDS: The president came out, then had his terrible speech that night and all the rest of it. JIM LEHRER: Right. Right.
	MARK SHIELDS: If they had voted on the 18th of August, 120 Democrats would have voted or 150 probably would have voted for an impeachment inquiry. Two things happened after that. One, Dick Gephardt, the House Democratic leader, met with every single member and listened to every single member of his caucus, and they came up with a strategy which gave Democrats a chance to condemn the president's behavior, every Democrat did, and find it unacceptable and at the same time gave them a chance to vote for an inquiry - as Paul pointed out - and to expose the fact that no Republicans are going to be with him on this, on limiting the duration of it, or limiting the scope of it. So Gephardt, in my judgment, Gephardt showed himself to be a very, very effective leader here, among the Democrats. And I think the fact that the Republicans were united, whether it was bipartisan or non-partisan, call it what you want, I mean, there wasn't a single - other than Jay Dickey of Arkansas - who went across the lines to vote that way. JIM LEHRER: He was the only Republican who didn't vote with the Republican majority. MARK SHIELDS: That's right. So the fact that they held it to 31 Democrats who broke ranks was really -- because there was a sense of betrayal in the Democratic House caucus toward Bill Clinton and a sense of fury, and that there were no recriminations among Democrats, at least -- PAUL GIGOT: And, Jim, it could be the definition of peeric victory. A lot of White House people are cheering - but, boy, I think they may pay a price for this. And that is because they wanted so few Democrats to go -- vote for the Hyde resolution and because they put so much pressure on behind the scenes. I mean, Jim Moran told me that this was a -- JIM LEHRER: He's the congressman from Virginia - a Democrat -- PAUL GIGOT: From Virginia, who voted for the Hyde resolution. And he said that there was a lot of pressure from the House leadership and the White House on this to vote against the Hyde resolution. They made it a partisan vote. And in doing that, they put a lot of their people in very competitive seats in tough positions -- either way. If they vote against the president, their base might be hurt and not come out. If they vote for the president, they might anger some voters, swing voters, independent voters, Republican voters, who are angry with the president. It was a no-win vote for these people - and forget the polls and the approval reading. Those polls don't matter. Maxine Waters in California - who cares if 99 percent of her voters are in favor of the president - she's going to win anyway. With David Price in North Carolina, Jay Johnson in Northeastern Wisconsin -- Lee Hamilton's district in Southern Indiana, those are the seats the Democrats could lose, and they may lose because of this vote.
	The '98 election becomes a referendum.
	JIM LEHRER: All right. So what does this set up in your opinion, each of yours opinion, about this election? Is it a referendum on Bill Clinton? Is it becoming a very, very important election? MARK SHIELDS: It is. It's a more important election than most mid-term elections. It is a referendum. If the Democratic losses - I mean, we know all about the historical trend, Jim, six years into a presidency the party of the White House in recent years has lost an average of 40 House seats. That's not going to happen. But if the Democrats lose 20 House seats, then the new Congress will be more anti-Clinton, the Democrats will be more gun shy about supporting the President. If the losses, instead, are five or six House seats, then that, I think, will be a message to the Republicans that this dog ain't gonna hunt, that there is not a mood in the country to get rid of the president; yes, to reprimand him, to censure him, to make him stand in the snow bank in his bare feet, or whatever else, but there is not that momentum to get rid of him. PAUL GIGOT: In May the Democrats were saying we have a chance to take back the House. MARK SHIELDS: That's right. PAUL GIGOT: And they did. If they now lose 15 or 20 seats, I don't think they're going to be coming back here on November 4th saying, you know, that was our fault, that was something we did. They're going to say it was the President of the United States who cost us again. And they're going to come back in a mood that is not all that cheerful for the president. And the president knows this, and that's why he's trying to make this, he's trying to gin up as much Democratic vote and base vote as possible. I mean, this election, a Democrat told me that the real crisis for this president may not be -- turn out to be August 17th; it may turn out to be November 4th. JIM LEHRER: Because if there is a large gain in Republican seats - PAUL GIGOT: That's right. JIM LEHRER: -- then terrible things happen for the president. MARK SHIELDS: I think there have been three events, and -- the 3rd of November is the big enchilada here, no question about it - that election date. But the August 17th was the low point for the Democrats and to the degree that Clinton and the House Democrats -- I disagree with Paul, obviously - I think the Democrats that they could hold the Democrats together probably works for the party, that there were no recriminations, that there weren't Democrats standing up there and castigating the White House and all the rest of it, I think -- JIM LEHRER: You mean, on the floor? MARK SHIELDS: On the floor, in public, or in interviews, I think that works for the Democratic Party -- All Dick Gephardt and David Bonior are concerned about is the 3rd of November. They're not concerned about - they're concerned about changing the subject. You saw - in Kwame's piece you saw Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt, and they're talking about 100,000 schoolteachers and school construction -- they want to change the conversation. They don't want Monica. They want to talk about schools.
	The great budget debate.
	JIM LEHRER: Well, let's talk about Kwame's piece for a moment. First of all, clearly, there was that talk - a few weeks ago - oh, there might be a government shutdown - clearly there's not going to be any government - they're working that out. The House has already voted for a continuing resolution. The Senate's probably going to do the same, then they'll come up with another one next week. What's at work in all this thing? How does that play off of the impeachment issue? PAUL GIGOT: It's directly related to it, because there's really only one politics of the White House now, and it's the politics of survival. And Monica Lewinsky has done an awful lot of things to this presidency. And one thing it's done that is the most remarkable is it's driven this president into the arms of Barney Frank and the House liberals. They've always been suspicious of each other. They've never really fought --the liberals in the House that they like -- but now they have leverage and man, they're going to use it. And that leverage is, Mr. President, we want issues, we want, as Mark says, change the subject. If you need to veto every bill that comes up, veto those bills, make an issue of education, make an issue of agriculture, and the Republicans are laying down across the board, giving up the tax cut, giving them the IMF, egg money, $4 billion, the president vetoed the egg bill. Pat Robertson, Republican from Kansas, agriculture expert, called me up and said we just had a veto from our new president, Tom Daschle - the Senate - the Democratic leader -- because he doesn't like the farm bill and he and Tom Harkin of Iowa said to the president, veto that bill, he vetoed it. MARK SHIELDS: The Democrats, Bill Clinton, in his hour of peril, maximum peril, the new Democrats, who are so much, you know, a classy group, the third wave, the Tony Blairs of the United States -- I mean, who was the first one who took them on - you know, went to the Senate floor - we talked about it here - JIM LEHRER: Oh, absolutely. MARK SHIELDS: Joe Lieberman president of -- founding director of the new the DLC -- PAUL GIGOT: Democratic Leadership Council. MARK SHIELDS: The DLC, Democratic Leadership Council. PAUL GIGOT: Mark's blood brother. MARK SHIELDS: Jesse Jackson called it the Democratic Leisure Class, you know, DLC. But - I mean, these are the people who oftentimes represent suburban districts - but in Bill Clinton's maximum peril, the people who stood up to defend him have been the liberal labor Democrats, and they're the ones to stand up. Are they going to - are they going to say, okay, Mr. President, we'll stand with you, we'll go shoulder to shoulder, we'll do anything for you? But hey, pal, there's a few things we care about - education and - JIM LEHRER: Hear this. Here's a list. MARK SHIELDS: That's right. Exactly. JIM LEHRER: Okay. And thank you both very much.