Why Democrats vote against Clinton
Posted at 07:15 a.m. PDT; Thursday, October 8, 1998
Close-Up
seattletimes.com
by Dick Polman
Knight Ridder Newspapers
The 1990s have not been kind to the Democrats of Capitol Hill. Six years ago, Bill Clinton was supposed to lead them to glory. Yet now he feels like dead weight, and the Democrats don't quite know what to do with him anymore.
Today, a number of House Democrats were preparing to lighten their load. They decided to vote with the majority Republicans to launch an open-ended impeachment inquiry.
They are trying to ensure their own political survival - and if that conflicts with the president's interests, so be it. After all, they ask, what has he ever done for them?
A big part of Clinton's problem - aside from the fact that nobody wants to defend his behavior in the Monica Lewinsky scandal or to dispute the charge that he lied under oath - is that many Hill Democrats feel no loyalty to him. They have been complaining about him for years and blaming him for their woes.
The '94 elections
In the 1994 elections, they lost their House majority when Clinton's failures, notably on health care, inspired Republican voters to show up and Democratic voters to stay home. In 1996, they lost an opportunity to win back the House when Clinton's fund-raising scandal broke in the last weeks of the campaign and appeared to dampen Democratic turnout.
There have been other grievances. In 1993, House Democrats put their careers on the line to back a big presidential tax increase - and some lost their seats in 1994 as a result. Yet, at a 1995 fund-raiser, Clinton apologized to an audience of affluent Texans for raising their taxes. Many Democrats still cite this incident as evidence that Clinton cares only about himself.
As a result, one official close to the House Democratic leadership said privately yesterday, "We want our people to know that we don't expect them to walk the plank for the president and possibly lose their seats over this."
Who is defecting
Republican pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick said two kinds of Democrats joined the Republicans: "The 'Blue Dog' Democrats are the conservative types who don't have much love lost for this president. The second kind are those who represent largely conservative districts and who have tough re-election races this month."
Those vulnerable Democrats couldn't afford to oppose the GOP inquiry. Said Fitzpatrick: "They would have to go home and face voters who would say to them, 'This guy has lied under oath; you and your colleagues admit it, yet you are shrugging your shoulders about it.' "
In addition, House Democratic leaders believed that some liberal members were voting for the GOP inquiry as an expression of their personal distaste for Clinton's behavior - and in recognition of the fact that the inquiry was going to be approved anyway.
Voting against Clinton was probably easiest for the so-called Blue Dogs, who hail primarily from Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia.
The term "Blue Dog" twists an old joke about "Yellow Dog" Democrats - Southern Democrats so loyal they'd vote for an old yellow dog if it ran on the ticket. Blue Dogs say they're Yellow Dogs who've turned blue from being choked by the party's liberal majority.
The Blue Dogs are the remnants of the conservative Democratic ranks, thinned considerably by the party's losses during the Clinton era, and the White House didn't expect to win them over.
Indeed, one Blue Dog, Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi, has said he thinks Clinton is a perjurer: "He knew what he was doing; he went to one of the best law schools in the country. I happen to think that the law has been broken, and I'm willing to move it on to the Senate."
Those in 'swing' districts
The decision to defect was tougher for others. Some Democrats are fighting to keep their seats in Ohio, Illinois and Connecticut, in "swing" districts that oscillate between the two parties. To hang on to the job, they had to choose politically.
Voting for the GOP inquiry brings the risk of alienating their core Democratic voters - particularly African Americans, the most loyal Clinton constituency. But loyalty to Clinton is a risk as well, because a "no" vote might rouse the conservative voters to turn out in greater numbers for their opponents. And conservatives are plentiful in many of these swing districts; in close races, their participation could be pivotal.
Among the president's staunchest defenders were two members of the House Judiciary Committee, neither of whom appears to represent a swing district.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., represents a district that stretches from Greenwich Village to the Upper West Side and includes a slice of Brooklyn home to some of America's most passionate liberals and gay activists.
And the ranking Democrat on the committee, Michigan's Rep. John Conyers, represents a portion of Detroit and is one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Who'll vote Nov. 3 is key
All these Democrats have seen the polls which show that Americans are generally fed up with the scandal and hostile to impeachment. The hitch is that many of those people won't vote on Nov. 3. A new Republican poll, released yesterday, reports that Clinton-haters are the people most motivated to cast ballots in next month's election.
James Thurber, a congressional analyst and former Hill aide who is tracking key races this year under a grant from Pew Charitable Trusts, said yesterday: "These Democrats can't afford to take any risks. They don't want to go home to a county fair and risk having the first question be, 'Why did you vote against the impeachment inquiry?' And a challenger can really hammer them on that. They don't want to be in the position of explaining a negative."
Some Democrats said privately that it was possible to vote for the GOP inquiry with a clear conscience - and with sufficient political cover.
They noted that David Schippers, the chief GOP counsel on the Judiciary Committee, is a Chicago Democrat who prosecuted mobsters in the 1960s for Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
And Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, one of the first top Democrats to criticize Clinton, said on the radio last Friday, "We've just got to get real and know that the inquiry is going to happen - and figure out how to let it happen."
Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.
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