Clinton is Tarred to Gore
July 30, 1999
Democrats Now Wear
Bill's Scarlet 'I'
By PAUL A. GIGOT
Maybe Newt Gingrich wasn't wrong about impeachment helping Republicans, just premature. At least that's one way to explain Asa Hutchinson's thousand-dollar tie.
The lanky Arkansan, one of the most prominent and passionate of the House impeachment managers, was supposed to be a dead incumbent walking. But there he was recently, the main draw at a Bell County, Texas, Republican dinner. His hosts were raising money with a five-and-dime auction and they asked Mr. Hutchinson for something to sell.
"I said, 'Well, sure, I'm wearing the same tie I wore during the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton,' " says the congressman. "And they just go bananas."
His cravat finally sold for $1,200 to a man of no other discernable mental defect. "My wife said, 'Don't give 'em any more!' " says Mr. Hutchinson, who also shook hands with well-wishers lined up 12-deep.
Yes, this is just an anecdote. And there's no accounting for taste in neckwear. But the tale nicely illuminates the backlash politics of impeachment now obvious across the land.
Republicans may have failed to remove Mr. Clinton. But six months later their willingness to try has helped them win the battle to define his presidency. The biggest impeachment losers to date--William Ginsburg excepted--are Democrats who put their ethics in a blind Clinton trust.
The House managers certainly don't look worried these days. California's Jim Rogan, the manager with the least-safe seat, has become the hottest GOP draw not named Bush. For his May re-election announcement rally, Mr. Rogan expected about 400 people. "We stopped counting at 1,500 RSVPs," he says, and 2,700 showed up.
Two years ago his campaign donor list was 3,000; now it's more than 20,000. Democrats say he's a goner, but he's banked more than $1 million already, and the national GOP recently sent out a fund-raising letter under his signature.
Messrs. Rogan and Hutchinson have joined South Carolina colleague Lindsey Graham as star attractions even in the precincts of yuppie, anything-goes Seattle. "Talking to our district workers and even our major donors, I kind of felt people out about whether they'd be a draw," says King County GOP chairman Reed Davis, who invited them, "and it was Paul, George and Ringo."
This isn't just GOP spin. A July poll by the Pew Research Center found that support for impeachment has risen to 44% from just 35% last December. More voters now think Monica's paramour should have resigned (35%) than thought so in December (30%). And more voters now say their congressman should be re-elected if he voted for impeachment (57%) than if he voted against (52%).
All of which supports those who thought Mr. Clinton's survival in office wasn't proof of national moral decay. Voters thought removal from office was too politically upsetting, especially amid an economic boom. Yet now, with impeachment past but the scoundrel present, America's conscience is reasserting itself.
And it is taking its revenge out on his Democratic defenders, especially the president's ethics red cap, Al Gore. Liberal pollster Celinda Lake says the scandals have operated with a time-release political fuse. "Democrats paid a big price," she says. "It has diminished our credibility on morality."
One reason may be the way events of the last six months, both national and Clintonian, have tended to ratify impeachment. Juanita Broaddrick went public, Judge Susan Webber Wright held the president in contempt for lying under oath (fining him $90,000 yesterday) and the Cox report revealed a White House willing to sit on spying reports for political gain. Meanwhile, the Columbine massacre reinforced the sense of American moral decline, along with Mr. Clinton's hilarious implausibility as a moral leader.
In her June survey with Republican Ed Goeas, Ms. Lake found Republicans leading Democrats by a whopping 41 percentage points, or 57%-16%, on the issue of "restoring moral values." This values deficit is so large it trumps the Democrats' advantage on health care, education and entitlements.
It's even worse for poor Mr. Gore. George W. Bush and Bill Bradley are both tagging him with the Scarlet "I" for impeachment without ever mentioning the word. They don't have to. Mr. Bradley says, "Every little lie erodes trust invisibly, like acid rain," while Mr. Bush promises to "show that politics, after a time of tarnished ideals, can be higher and better."
Jimmy Carter rarely mentioned Watergate either, but voters got the point. And now so does Mr. Clinton, whose every public appearance has become a personal cheerleading session for his own legacy, and for the veep who called him the second-coming of Lincoln. He knows that if Mr. Gore loses in 2000, he'll get (and deserve) much of the blame.
Maybe there's a larger, hopeful lesson here--namely, that politicians can ignore the polls, do the right thing and still prosper. Democrats, on the other hand, must feel like Al Pacino in "The Godfather III": Just when they thought they'd be free of Mr. Clinton, he drags them back down with him.
interactive.wsj.com |
