Clinton, Dole Race To Finish Line Florida Poll Buoys President, But Gop Says It Has Momentum
To the whimsical calypso-pop harmonies of Jimmy Buffett, a confident President Clinton coasted north from Florida to New England on Sunday, while newly energized challenger Bob Dole declared that momentum belongs to the Republicans.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Clinton-time in Florida!” declared Gov. Lawton Chiles on a sun-swept morning that brought news of a New York Times poll showing Clinton ahead by 19 points in a state that last went Democratic in a presidential race in 1976.
Dole, continuing his breathless 96-hour dash to the finish line, took heart from national polls that suggest a narrowing of Clinton’s big lead. At stop after stop, Dole insisted that “the polls are closing. The polls are moving our way. People are deciding that character does count.”
Both men intend to campaign virtually around the clock until polls open Tuesday. Worried about poor turnout after what voters have described as a lackluster campaign, Clinton and Dole alike pleaded with their audiences Sunday to show up at voting booths nationwide.
“As we get closer and closer and closer to the election, the work passes from my hands to yours again. It’s a very humbling thing for me, you know,” Clinton told the congregation at St. Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal Church in Tampa, Fla. “If you ever doubt whether the people are the boss in the end in a democracy, run for office. … Even the president is a hired hand, trying to get a contract renewed.”
Dole began his campaign day at a get-out-the-vote phone bank in San Diego after attending a Methodist church service. One voter told Dole that he, his wife and daughter already had cast absentee ballots for Dole. “That’s three,” Dole joked into the phone. “We’re ahead.”
Already, both parties are looking past Election Day to the tense political landscape that will follow. The contest has turned uglier in recent weeks amid Republican assaults on Clinton’s character and growing questions about foreign contributions to the Democratic campaign.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., vowed Sunday that Republicans will investigate fund-raising practices if they keep control of the Senate. Lott urged appointment of an independent counsel and warned on CNN, “There are big troubles ahead for this president.”
On the same program, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, accused Clinton and the Democrats of “breaking the law.”
Senior Democrats, who have said the party was so swamped with contributions that it bypassed safeguards, called Sunday for bipartisan campaign finance reform.
“I’m not claiming purity here, but it seems to me in analyzing this issue, we ought to be looking at both camps to determine whether or not there’s a need for change,” Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Dodd said Democrats and Republicans should agree, as of today, to accept no more contributions from foreigners or any of the contributions known as “soft money” that go not to candidates but to the parties.
At the White House, a Clinton victory is so widely assumed that press secretary Mike McCurry was forced to tamp down queries about future Cabinet resignations.
McCurry said Clinton has not focused on who might go and will make no request for mass resignations.
On the campaign trail, Dole caught a few hours of sleep amid his 96-hour marathon and awoke to declare that the momentum is his.
“Teachers, union members, everybody - well, not everybody, but a lot of people - are coming our way,” Dole told a cheering crowd of several hundred outside GOP headquarters in San Diego.
It was after 2 a.m. in Las Vegas when Dole showed up, rolling for votes. Wayne Newton warmed up the crowd. A showgirl barely clothed in pink feathers and silver sequins waved a Dole/ Kemp sign. Banners were strung across a ballroom at the MGM Grand Hotel reading “Nevada is Betting on Dole.” The theme from the movie, “Rocky” blared.