POLITICAL WRAP

October 8 , 1999
		Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot discuss the HMO legislation passed on the House floor, and comments George W. Bush made about the Republican party.

Oct. 7, 1999 The House passes a patients' bill of rights. Oct. 6, 1999: The House debates health care reform. Oct. 6, 1999: The Senate holds hearings on the the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Oct. 5, 1999: Defense Sec. Cohen discusses the nuclear test ban treaty, defense spending and East Timor. Oct. 5, 1999: The Supreme Court hears arguments for and against campaign finance limits. Sept. 30, 1999: A snapshot of the George W. Bush campaign. Browse the NewsHour's Congress, Military, Health and Shields & Gigot indexes     The White House The U.S. Senate The U.S. House of Representatives The U.S. State Department's CTBT page Text of the Norwood-Dingell Patients' Bill of Rights legislation	JIM LEHRER: And here to look at the week of politics with syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. That didn't come out exactly right. You are to do this, the two of you. Okay. The vote yesterday in the House on health care, the right to sue an HMO was upheld by a very sizable vote in the House. Everybody interpreted this as a defeat of the leadership of the House of Representatives, the Republican leadership. How do you read it? MARK SHIELDS: Everybody is right. The House control has been lost by the Republican majority and the Republican leadership. The agenda is not of their making. To lose, Tip O'Neill when he was Speaker of the House had a very simple rule. A Speaker never speaks on any issue unless the Speaker's side prevails because the Speaker can't afford to be on the losing side of an important fight. And Denny Hastert, who has made his reputation as a leader of the Republicans, for his handling of health care, went into the well yesterday and made his pitch and saw 68 members of his own party walk. The only thing I can compare to in recent history is 1994 when the Democrats majority lost their control of the House on the crime bill. And they never recovered. And I think we're going to see a long time before Republicans recover.
	The Republican agenda
	JIM LEHRER: What happened yesterday? PAUL GIGOT: I disagree with Mark in the broader sense that the Republicans have completely lost control of the agenda. I mean they did pass a tax cut, although it was vetoed, that was still a sign of being able to organize. But on this one, he's absolutely right this. I mean, this wasn't just a riot. This was a wildebeest herd running across the African plain away from the lions - and not just 68 votes on final passage -- 29 Republicans were lost on their preferred alternative. Now you hear a lot... JIM LEHRER: Which was voted on before they got to the final bill, the Norwood-Dingell bill. PAUL GIGOT: And which failed. I've heard a lot from Republicans about how we only have a five-seat majority. And that's true. But you lose 29 of your own on your preferred alternative, that's much bigger than five. Five committee chairmen voted against them and two voted against them on the other. It was a rout. JIM LEHRER: And some people are suggesting that there was just a simple misreading of where this story was, that too many other Republican leaders saw it in Washington lobbying terms rather what was going out in the country as far as the public's feelings toward HMO's. PAUL GIGOT: I don't agree with that. The reason I don't is look what happened in the Senate. The Senate managed to put together, a Republican Senate earlier put together an alternative that was not as onerous, not as regulatory; didn't have the right to sue that would help the trial lawyers; had a real alternative cohesion to it and they managed to pass that, and keep their people on board. So there wasn't a way to do it. MARK SHIELDS: The House is always a keener and more direct reflection of public attitudes and public will both in its strengths and weaknesses. I don't think there is any question this was a popular move; this was an insurgency up from the grassroots. Jim, I was in Washington when Medicare passed. There was not a stauncher lobby in opposition, a more formal one, than the American Medical Association. To see the American Medical Association lined up with people like John Dingell, labor, liberal Democrat from Michigan, and Charlie Norwood, a dentist Republican from Georgia pushing against the insurance companies, it was formidable and it was reflective in my judgment. I would say this -- the whole agenda nationally has changed; twelve or fifteen years ago all the issues cut the Republicans way -- welfare, crime, tax cuts, getting tough on the Soviets, big defense. Now the Republicans had a big edge, advantage over the Democrats on those issues twelve or fifteen years ago. The tax cut, Alan Simpson, the old Republican Senate Republican whip, said the tax cut this year didn't amount to a sparrow's burp in a windstorm. It doesn't have the traction anymore. And the issues that do matter to people, whether it's patients' bill of rights or health care or education, are issues where the Democrats have the advantage. It isn't just Denny Hastert's fault. The agenda has moved away from the Republican Party.
	The nuclear test ban treaty
	JIM LEHRER: There's another, of course there's another thing on the other side of the ledger this week, Paul, and that is the Senate held fast against the President and the Democrats on the nuclear test ban treaty and the President today said, okay, let's delay it. Should that be considered a victory for the Republicans? PAUL GIGOT: I think so. I think this is an example where the Republican leadership in the Senate again has held together. It goes back, the opposition, seven, eight months where Jon Kyl of Arizona went to Trent Lott, Jon Kyl being one of the experts on arms control and said the President is going to get us on this at some point; he's going to surprise us with this sometime this year or early next. Let's get organized. Quietly behind the scenes brought in experts, James Schlesinger, former Secretary of Defense, very influential with a lot of members and slowly opposition built, and sure enough the President brought a vote and the Democrats said we want a vote. We want a vote. We want a vote. Trent Lott said a couple weeks ago, okay, we'll give you a vote. Little did the white House know because they haven't talked to enough Republicans, that they didn't have enough votes to pass it and now I think it's pretty significant embarrassment for the President and his foreign policy. JIM LEHRER: How do you read it? MARK SHIELDS: I think that tactically there's no question Republicans have the advantage here. I think substantively they don't. I mean I think what's lost here is we're in sort of a political tactic back and forth. The United States embarked upon a nuclear test ban voluntarily in 1992 under President George Bush. I mean, we have had a superiority and it's been in our interest whether it's India, Pakistan, to limit nuclear testing. I think it's inarguably in our national interests and the world's interests. I just am amazed that Republicans think that this is going to be a great victory for them. PAUL GIGOT: Jim, when Dick Lugar, Republican of Indiana, big supporter of bipartisanship foreign policy, supporter of every arms control treaty I can think of, in my memory, says this is a stinker of a treaty, something is wrong with the treaty -- the CIA says it's not verifiable -- that's been very influential with people. So, I think on the substance of this, the Republicans are right as well as on the politics. MARK SHIELDS: When the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stands up there when we've got 11 testing places in the Soviet Union, in Russia, 11 in China, 30 in the Soviet Union, I mean I think you take a risk for peace. I think it's worked well in the past and I think it would work well now, but the Republicans, listen, these are folks that need a victory. And if this is their victory, I hope they enjoy celebrating it. JIM LEHRER: And that will be put off until after the next election, we're talking... PAUL GIGOT: The president doesn't want to commit to that. That's the rub. The Republicans don't trust him frankly not to bring it back before the election next year where it's much harder for people running to resist a President. But I think they'll probably exact that promise before it's over.
	George W. Bush causes a stir
	JIM LEHRER: All right. Speaking of presidential politics, let's move on to George W. Bush. He made a speech he made in New York City earlier this week and it caused a bit of a stir. Here's a clip of it. GEORGE W. BUSH: Too often on social issues, my party has painted an image of America slouching toward Gomorrah. Of course, there are challenges to the character and compassion of our nation, too many broken homes and broken lives. But many of our problems, particularly education, crime and welfare dependence, are yielding to good sense and strength and idealism. We are demonstrating the genius for self-renewal at the heart of the American experiment. Too often my party has focused on the national economy to the exclusion of all else, speaking a sterile language of rates and numbers, of CBO and GNP. Of course we want growth and vigor in our economy, but there are human problems that persist in a shadow of affluence. And the strongest argument for conservative ideals, for responsibility and accountability, and the virtues of our tradition is that they lead to greater justice, less suffering and more opportunity. Too often my party has confused the need of limited government with a disdain for government itself. But this is not an option for conservatives. JIM LEHRER: Paul, what is George W. Bush up to? PAUL GIGOT: Well, it's well beyond triangulation -- the old phrase about Bill Clinton running against Democrats and Republicans in the Congress at the same time. This is kind of running, I think -- he's basically saying a lot of things about conservatives that other conservatives have said to try to recast himself in conservatism from outside of Washington to the more reform-minded, successful, pragmatic kind of conservatism that the Republican governors have been able to practice. It's less right versus left as a change than it is kind of outside of Washington versus inside of Washington. And I think it's a fascinating tactic. And so far it seems to be working. JIM LEHRER: Working? MARK SHIELDS: Well, I have to say I like the musical number, slouching to Gomorrah. Slouching to Gomorrah and slinking to Sodom, I guess, is next. I kind of like the ring of that. Last week, Paul said this is not the way to get the Republican House back in power, when he talked about...when George Bush talked about balancing the budget on the backs of the poor. And it strikes me this is not triangulation the way Bill Clinton did it. Bill Clinton did it after the Republicans won the House in 1994. And it was a reelection strategy. George W. Bush is the only hope the Republicans have to keep the Congress -- the only hope. JIM LEHRER: To keep the Congress? MARK SHIELDS: To keep the Congress. And Republicans recognize that; 178 of them endorse him -- didn't endorse him because of his education policy, which we learned about this week, or his position on farm subsidies. They endorsed him because he's a winner, because he's running ahead in the polls. And that's it. He's a very likable fellah, don't get me wrong. But if he weren't running ahead in the polls, they wouldn't have endorsed him. They know he is the only ticket back in. I think that's important. I think that what he is doing is he is recognizing, Jim, most of all that the issues are not working for the Republicans in 1999 and 2000, the issues I mentioned of health care and education. He's cutting down the angle on every single issue. There's no way you can look and say this guy is Tom Delay, this guy is Dick Armey who is sort of seen as the poster boy of the Republican House. This guy is different. He is a compassionate conservative. That's the perception that people have of George W. Bush. He had as good a week this week as I've ever seen a non-incumbent presidential candidate have in New York. He spent repeated time in the company of minority groups. He's comfortable there. This is something that most presidential Republican nominees don't do except in a week when the Democrats are holding their convention and there aren't that many cameras around. He does it, he does it easily, comfortably. He brought George Pataki, the governor, and Rudy Giuliani, the Capulets and Montagues of the New York Republican Party, together. I mean, he really - he had a terrific week in New York. PAUL GIGOT: There was a difference between what he did last week and this week. Last week he sandbagged the Republican in Congress -- he didn't tell them. This week the speech was read in advance to most of them. The timing last week was bad in a crucial time of the negotiations. He echoed Clinton's language - Clinton's attack, the backs of the poor. This time he did it in a way, I think, that a lot of other conservatives have criticized conservatives. I mean, he basically see we want to be optimistic. That's something Mark has praised Ronald Reagan for an awful lot. That's the only way you can have a governing conservatism in this country is if it has a smile on its face. It's not censorious. JIM LEHRER: Is he saying, the way you read it, he is saying I'm not one of those and he's pointing to Tom Delay and the ghost of Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey and those people who are still running the House of Representatives? PAUL GIGOT: It's just part of the price Republicans are paying for the public image that Newt Gingrich developed over time. Fairly or unfairly, he did have a public image that put the Republicans and seemed to be more divisive and the country is not in a divisive mood. It's not in a confrontational mood. We have peace and prosperity. They feel pretty good about themselves except some things on the moral front and certainly in education. And Mark, the one thing I do agree with Mark on is that some of the old Republican themes of the 80's, taxes and foreign policy, don't work as well as they do in a time of peace and prosperity. So a Republican candidate had better be credible, had better have something to say about education. And George Bush has a good record on education. He better have something to say about health care and other things. So, that only makes sense, and there's a lot in that speech, I can tell you on education, a lot in that speech, that the National Education Association and Al Gore are not going to like. MARK SHIELDS: The last measurement of public opinion by the Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll, Bill Clinton was at 58-37 favorable in his job rating, higher rating than Ronald Reagan or Dwight Eisenhower, our last two-term President, had in their seventh year. The Republican House and the Republican Congress is minus nine. That's a 30-point swing. That's what George W. Bush is dealing with. He's not taking on Bill Clinton frontally. He is distancing himself from an unpopular Republican Congress and at the same time acknowledging that the only way to keep the majority is clutching oh, so gratefully and so feverishly to his coat tails. JIM LEHRER: But he doesn't have the Republican nomination yet. PAUL GIGOT: He doesn't, but he's as big a lead as I can remember anybody having at this stage. Now there is a danger here and Mark is right. There is a danger you can dispirit your base and hurt getting a Republican House and you can also create an opening. I mean, John McCain is creeping up above 20 in New Hampshire, Steve Forbes in Iowa. So he has to be careful about how far he takes this and be sure that people don't think he is running against his own base. JIM LEHRER: We have to go. MARK SHIELDS: Okay.