NewsHour Online: Political Wrap

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

JANUARY 5, 1996

TRANSCRIPT

Political pundits, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, and "Wall Street Journal" columnist, Paul Gigot, welcome in the new year with a discussion about balancing the budget. They talk with Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: Paul, why did the Republicans give on this budget matter at least as much as they did today, and letting the government partially reopen?
PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think it is fair to say it was retreat. It wasn't perhaps up there with the Italian Africa Corps. But in political terms, it wasn't too far away from that. It--they retreated because it wasn't working. They had hoped that the--using the power of the purse to put pressure on the President and since he vetoed their appropriations bills, they could make him responsible for, therefore, not opening the government. Instead, they found themself getting the blame and they found that--their own ranks breaking. Bob Dole, in particular, stood up and directly disagreed with Newt Gingrich on this matter of strategy, therefore, created an opening, political cover, if you will, for about 30 or so House Republicans who were not going to vote with the freshmen and the leadership and even if 200 Republicans held solid, those 30 would have busted the unity in the House, and so they came to this fall-back position, this compromise, but I don't think there's any question that at least as a matter of strategy and tactics, this is a defeat.
MARGARET WARNER: Did they have any choice, Mark?
MARK SHIELDS: No, I don't think they did have a choice. I think that Bob Dole actually did them an enormous favor by pointing out the central problem that they face, and that was he said our message, meaning the Republican message, is not shutting down the government; our message is balancing the budget. And what had been lost is the Republican thrust, movement to balance the budget, and they'd been seen as these people closing down government, and especially the increased publicity and attention given to prison guards, FBI agents, Meals on Wheels, nurses in veterans hospitals said, I don't care, I just want to take care of these men who've served the country. All of a sudden, it reached a point where Newt Gingrich said, as a former army brat, it's morally indefensible to put federal employees in the crossfire where they had been for four weeks. So I mean, I think it became an untenable position.
MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Now they're obviously hoping, and they've said so, that the public attention will focus back on the serious balanced budget talks and put pressure on the President. Is there any reason to think that's going to happen?
PAUL GIGOT: Well, we tried this once before, remember, in November, and of course, the President stretched out the negotiations, and there really was no progress at all. And I think that, at least among Republicans I talked to, there's increasing doubt that there will be any budget deal at all, frankly. There's a sense that the President believes he has the upper hand and that even if he personally would like to do a deal, that the pressures within his party, Dick Gephardt and the House wants no deal, flat out no deal, nothing to show that this Congress has done anything at all between here and November. Al Gore, who may be running in the year 2000 against Dick Gephardt for the Democratic nomination, wants to do a little bit like Dan Quayle did in 1990 when he was Vice President, stand up for the interests of the party, the factions within the party. He doesn't want the President to do too much of a deal. The great pressure is on the President not to do it at all. So I think what you're hearing from the Republicans is that, look, maybe we have to start thinking about the fact there will be no deal and we have to go to the Hill, the Senate, and the House to see what we can get with House Democrats to maybe get enough votes to get something into law.
MARGARET WARNER: Mark, do you think the Republicans are right in their analysis of the White House, i.e., that the White House now has no political incentive to get a deal, if I'm hearing Paul correctly?
MARK SHIELDS: No. I think the White House does have an incentive to get a deal. I think there was a misreading of the President, Congressman Dave Hobson of Ohio, but he said we thought Clinton would fold; we were wrong. And I think that's what they were predicating there, that the President would accommodate or harmonize or however. I do think that the division, the fault lines that emerged this week are not simply between Bob Dole and the House Republicans. They're between congressional Democrats and the White House. I think Bill Clinton would like to have a deal. I think he'd like to show that he was the balanced budget, that he'd fought the good fight, that he'd protected Medicare, and all the rest of it, and he could point to an achievement, that he had done this and had done it the humane way, and he had saved, in the words of Democratic pollster Mark Melman, he had stood there as Bonnie and Clyde, the House Republicans, are going to drive over the precipice, and he stopped them. He stood there as the Texas Ranger and said, no, you're not going to do that to Medicare and Medicaid. I think that the House Democrats, quite frankly, congressional Democrats probably generally but House Democrats specifically, Paul's right. They would like to fight this thing out. They think it's the best issue for the Democrats to define the campaign of 1996.
MARGARET WARNER: For their own reelections?
MARK SHIELDS: For their own reelections and for a real debate in the country. I mean, for 10 months you sit there and say okay, what are our responsibilities to each other as citizens? What does it mean to be an American? What do I owe other Americans? What--is an American entitled to medical care? Is an American entitled to education, shelter? I mean, this is a great debate. I mean, what is it--what are we willing to pay for clean air and clean water? Are we willing to pay for the Environmental Protection Agency, or is it too meddlesome and intrusive? Should we do it by states? I mean, those, I think that's a debate that Democrats would like to have. They think they can win it; Republicans don't. Every Republican I've talked to said, no, that's too easy to demagogue. These are the same people, of course, who in the national health debate in 1994 were not resistant.
MARGARET WARNER: Okay. So if it is the case that the Republicans have far greater incentive than the President or the Democrats for a deal, is there anything the Republicans can do to change the pressure in some manner so that once again the Democrats feel under pressure to get a deal?
PAUL GIGOT: Well, first of all, I'm not so sure that the premise is right. I think that over time if these arguments that the White House has been using on Medicare, which I think a lot of them are flatly untrue or exaggerated, get exposed, it's not going to be as easy for that to be sustained over time. So I'm not so sure that the House calculus on the Democratic side is correct about how this plays out between now and November. This isn't a constricted period of time with the President just having the bully pulpit. In a campaign, you have advertising, you can really make the case, both sides can get their argument out. In the short-term, what the Republicans are going to do, I think, is to try to see if the White House is still at all interested. And if it's not, they're going to go work with the members of the House and the Senate, and there really is nothing that they can do short of beginning to hit this argument that the President--and I think they would frame it this way--the President is for the forces of the status quo. We are the change agents, and he is just standing in the way. After all, he's agreed with us on Medicare reform, welfare reform generally, taxes. He even offended, I think, you know, some of Mark's friends on the capital gains cut by saying that he would endorse it. He wants a tax cut, and yet, he won't sign it. Take that argument to them, and maybe they can change the polling numbers and the dynamics.
MARGARET WARNER: Meanwhile, there have been a lot of reports this week that conservatives are upset with Bob Dole. Now, Mark said that he thought Dole had done the Republicans a favor, but is Dole in trouble with the conservatives at all in terms of presidential terms, presidential campaign terms?
PAUL GIGOT: I think he hurt himself, I don't know how much, I don't know how lasting, because it was really a tactical question that they disagreed over, strategy to take to the President, not over the substance. But I think that he reopened some doubt in Republican minds that his opponents will try to exploit about the tactical Bob Dole, the process man, the legislative guy, the deal maker, somebody who when the chips are down he cuts and runs because he wants a deal. And I think that's what you're going to see with--that some of the other campaigns try to exploit.
MARGARET WARNER: And do you think that would work against him?
MARK SHIELDS: No. I mean, I think Bob Dole is--he's on the front page of every paper in Iowa. He's on the front page of every paper in New Hampshire. He's leading the news. He is the guy that says he's the grown-up. I mean, you got Gingrich and Clinton squabbling and this and that. Bob Dole is the grown-up and says, hey, look, I'm interested in results, I'm not interested in these debating points, any illogical purity, we're going to get things done, I'm the man of character and accomplishment. And I think that's--that works. It shortens the race as long. As we're debating the budget here in Washington, then whatever Steve Forbes or Malcolm "call me Steve" Forbes or Pat Buchanan or Lamar Alexander or Dick Lugar are doing is basically on page nine. So I think, I think it has worked. I mean, Dole's numbers are up.
MARGARET WARNER: He's up to 63 percent approval on today's CBS poll. All right. Before we go, let's talk about this new memo involving the Travel Office. We just heard Michael Isikoff and Charlayne describe it. What is the potential political fallout here?
PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think it's serious, because I think it goes right to the heart of the credibility of the First Lady and this White House. You know, there was a Travel Office employee, Billy Dale, longtime serving in the White House, who spent two years of his life being indicted for embezzlement because he was dismissed in part of this. And his--he was ultimately acquitted after a two-hour deliberation; that's it. And one of his problems in his defense was getting White House documents to be able to tell his story. It really goes right to the heart of whether or not this White House tells the truth about anything, and--
MARGARET WARNER: You're saying just the late appearance of this two-year-old memo is in and of itself--
PAUL GIGOT: Margaret, this isn't a close call. I mean, this goes right--I mean, this flatly contradicts what they told the Congress. Now, maybe they didn't tell it under oath, so maybe there's no perjury involved, but the fact is it looks if Watkins is telling the truth, and this is not some Republican on the Hill making this up, this is part of the Arkansas people that came to Washington, it looks like the Congress and the American people were directly lied to. That doesn't help you as you're trying to make your case on other issues.
MARK SHIELDS: Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel, has to be a little miffed. I mean, he's been looking for this for two years, I would say. He's probably not a guy you want to cross or upset or make angry, and I think in that case his finding something after two years does raise suspicions. I don't think there's any question that this is a problem. How deep a problem I know I'm not willing to say. It's epidemic, and it tells you about the White House position on labor, or school prayer, or something of the sort, no, but I do think, I do think Mr. Watkins did come. He did come from the campaign. The campaign had to settle a sexual harassment charge and used campaign money to do so. He was paid for 11 months after he was fired from the White House by the Clinton-Gore folks. I mean, this is not an outsider. This is somebody inside. This is somebody who was picked, and it is a problem. And we're going to get into who's telling the truth. That is not where you want the First Lady to be in an election year, and she's about to start a book tour. She wants to talk about the book but she's going to have press availabilities, and that's going to be a problem. It is no way that this is anything other than unmixed trouble for the White House.
PAUL GIGOT: I think, frankly, just to give it--and she's obviously not an appointed official, but I think if she were a cabinet officer, there would already be calls for her resignation. It goes to that, that much.
MARGARET WARNER: Okay, guys. We have to leave it there. Thanks.

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