Clinton Burned Bridges To The Money
I doubt if Al Gore broke into an exuberant jig after Tuesday night’s elections were counted. Or even a mildly enthusiastic macarena.
Nor was there champagne-popping by Democratic congressmen, senators and governors who hope to hang onto their jobs.
They saw the future - and it looked threadbare.
There were ominous signals for Gore, who hopes to inherit the White House in 2000. And bleak tidings for Bill Clinton, who’d love to reclaim the U.S. House from Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1998.
Oh, Dems were galled enough to watch Gov. Christine Whitman’s midnight nail-biter, outlasting a revolt by angry New Jersey voters and an out-of-nowhere surge by Jim McGreevey.
Golden Girl Christie survived the near-crackup, but her national ambitions are on ice.
Democrats were braced for a couple of easy Republican triumphs. They expected crimebusting Mayor Rudy Giuliani to win in a New York City landslide. They weren’t shocked when Jim Gilmore rode Christian Coalition support and fury at car taxes to become Virginia’s governor.
No, Dems’ anxieties for 1998 and 2000 went beyond Tuesday’s votes. After all, spin doctors could tilt those numbers like a fixed pinball machine. Their problem was more brutal:
The party’s broke, certainly when compared to cash-flush Republicans. And its poverty may not change for critical 1998 House and Senate races or even Gore’s presidential gallop.
“If you don’t have gasoline, the car won’t go,” said Democratic consultant Harrison Hickman.
You could see Democrats’ thin wallets in evidence across the country. Candidates were lucky to scrape up dough for yard signs and phone banks. They’re usually outspent by the Republican National Committee. But a 5-to-1 ratio bodes annihilation.
For their plight, Dems can thank Bill Clinton and the Faustian bargain he made in 1996 - to win at all costs, milking shady foreign characters and pushing election laws over the cliff. Never mind that Sen. Fred Thompson’s desultory hearings didn’t nail Clinton with a “smoking gun.” Or that Attorney General Janet Reno may yet condemn Clinton and Gore to the clutches of a special prosecutor.
Instead of concentrating on winning ‘97 elections, the Democratic National Committee bigwigs have been frantically returning thousands of tainted dollars and hiring lawyers. In Washington, the latter can run up $500-an-hour bills faster than you can say “Bob Bennett.” That, boys and girls, is why the DNC is $15 million in the hole: Legal bills caused by Clinton’s ‘96 shenanigans. And why Clinton, even as he preaches reform, is habitually in hotel ballrooms waving a tin cup.
But Clinton’s tambourine-beating was too late to help cash-strapped Democrats this time. You could see the effect in New Jersey, where the RNC blew $760,000 on “advocacy ads” (without mentioning Whitman) showing Democrats as tax-hiking, welfare-spending wastrels.
No wonder, at Clinton’s desperate appearance in Jersey, a background song crooned, “I ain’t got no money.” The disparity made the brave comeback by McGreevey more remarkable.
The Dems’ flat wallets were even more visible in Virginia, where Don Beyer, a Volvo dealer running uphill for governor, had to borrow $400,000 personally to stay on TV. He was swamped by Gilmore, $2 million in his jeans from the RNC.
Aside from learning to dine at McDonald’s, Democrats could take other lessons from their Tuesday tumult:
Woe be the pol who underrates America’s automotive addiction. McGreevey’s vow to tamp down New Jersey’s sky-high car insurance rates zoomed him in polls. In Virginia, Gilmore won with a three-word soundbite - “No car taxes.”
Don’t count on Clinton’s coattails. Domino’s may deliver but Clinton couldn’t. He backfired in Virginia by damning Gilmore’s car-tax gizmo as “selfish.” Virginians said, stick to your limo, Prez.
Taxes, taxes, taxes. That’s the voters’ obsession, even though 75 percent of New Jerseyites were happy about the booming economy. Republicans’ PR splash about Internal Revenue Service reform should help them in ‘98.
Don’t overlook the religious right wing’s power. The Christian Coalition was Gilmore’s quiet ally in Virginia. No wonder Pat Robertson strutted around the victory room. Anti-abortion groups were vocal against Whitman, odd for a Republican.
Don’t take African-Americans for granted. When Doug Wilder, Virginia’s first black governor, sat out the election, so did the Democrats’ Afro-American base. A disaster.
Don’t count on gender politics that worked for Clinton in 1996. Whitman basically split among women voters. Independent working women follow their pocketbooks.
As for dreams Al Gore and Dems harbor of digging out of the red, matching cash-rich Republicans: forget it. The day after Tuesday’s fracas, Republicans were staging a $6 million extravaganza. Tip $5,000 in the hat, schmooze with Senate leader Trent Lott and Speaker Newt - same sins the GOP laid on Clinton.
As The Gipper used to say, “There they go again …”
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