Posted on 01/02/2004 6:37:35 AM PST by RB Jones
This is a year of turmoil and terror in the Democratic Party: Their likely presidential nominee battered, bloodied, and ridiculed even before the general election has begun; angry, unforgiving voters appear ready to wreak punishment on the scandal-ridden Democratic-controlled Congress; and a fiery anti-incumbent mood may be sweeping the nation.
Rarely, in contemporary American politics, has a prospective Democratic presidential standard-bearer emerged successfully from his early primaries burdened by so many deep public doubts about his character within his own party. This is the astonishing situation that now faces the Democrats and Bill Clinton as he moves to lock up the nomination and convince a doubting nation that he is not the "slick Willie" portrayed by his political enemies, depicted by the new media, and lampooned by late-night comedians.
The Arkansas governor's candidacy has need deeply weakened by allegations that he committed adultery during his marriage; that he personally took steps to avoid being drafted during the height of the Vietnam War; that he and his wife, Hillary, an influential lawyer with a prominent law firm that does business with the state, were insensitive to the appearance of conflict of interest throughout his governorship; and that he has been slippery and evasive in answering questions from the news media about his personal and professional conduct.
Clinton made his dubious national television debut on the CBS network's popular 60 Minutes program, following the Super Bowl telecast. On this show, in response to charges that he hand engaged in a 12-year affair with Geniffer Flowers, Clinton admitted that he had "made mistakes" in his marriage. Shortly after fighting his way back to emerge victorious in a no-holds-barred New York primary, and with the presidential nomination almost assured, his picture appeared on the cover of Time magazine beneath the ominous headline, "Why Voters Do Not Trust Clinton."
Although he had won 14 of the 20 primaries and caucuses since Super Tuesday, a good two-thirds of all Democratic primary voters said they wished they had another choice for the nomination. And 41 percent of all voters said they had a negative view of the former boy wonder of southern politics.
Trouble some Win:
The results of New York contest, a linchpin in any Democratic election strategy, were even more troublesome for Clinton's candidacy. Clinton managed to win it with 41 percent of the vote, but his earlier rival, former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas, who did not even campaign, ended up in second place, getting 29 percent of the vote.
Equally worrisome to the party was the record low turnout in the Democratic primaries, down 18 percent by mid-April. Democratic turnout was down 39 percent in New York alone over 1988, hitting new lows as well in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas. That was further proof that Clinton was not attracting broad support from his own party, let alone the independents and working-class swing Democrats who are critical to any hope of a Democratic victory.
"The drop in the turnout has to terrify the Democratic Party, Tsongas said.
Gov. Mario Cuomo offered this blunt analysis when the New York primary was over: "The turnout numbers--low--and the Tsongas numbers--high--mean trouble. The campaign isn't working. There's no clear message. The voters hear the captain and officers and the crew squabbling, and they aren't im pressed with our ship."
It is little wonder, then, that a growing number of Democrats are only questioning Clinton's electability in the fall.
Many Democratic strategists and party activists think he may be able to regain some of his credibility among his party. But many others fear that his candidacy has been so badly damaged during the early primary process that he will find it nearly impossible to slough off his considerable negatives in a climate of widespread voter cynicism, suspicion, and anger toward all politicians.
In over three decades of political reporting, I cannot recall a time when some of the Democratic Party's senior strategists and adviser have spoken with such brutal candor about their likely nominee and his perceived weaknesses. Here's what some of them are saying:
"The negatives are forming on Bill Clinton like a political stalactite, drop by drop," said veteran Democratic consultant David Sawyer. "Each drip leaves a residue that builds on his negative image."
"The halls of Congress are filled with Democrats wringing their hands over their prospective nominee," Sawyer said.
Driving much of his hand-wringing is the fear that many democratic members of Congress are going to be especially vulnerable to a throw the buns out mood this fall, partly as a result of the House check overdraft scandal. "They are scared to death that there will be this mass rejection of incumbents," said a top Senate Democratic aide.
"With a weak candidate at the top of the ticket, and with Congress on the hot seat, it's the combination that's really scary to them." Said this aide. "The anti-incumbency thing is fueling a greater concern about who is going to lead the ticket."
Indeed, many Democrats fear that their primaries are about to deliver to them "the worst of all worlds, a bleeding front-runner stumbling over the finish line" to receive the Democratic presidential nomination, said Sawyer.
Another Democratic strategist, who conducts polls for the party, told me that in head-to-head polling against President George Bush, who has substantial negatives of his own, Clinton does poorly. "I did a poll in Idaho for a Senate race and we found that Bush had a 61 percent negative job approval rating. And yet Bush beats Clinton by 2-to1."
New York Democratic strategist Bill Cunningham, a close Cuomo adviser, said, "I don't know if you can raise further doubts about Clinton. The doubts already exist and they're becoming harder to dispel.
"It's sort of like Night of the Living Dead," Cunningham said of the draft-dodging issue that has dogged Clinton's campaign. It came alive again in the New York primary when Clinton confirmed reports that he had received his induction notice prior to his decision to enter the Reserve Officers Training Corps program--a pledge that he broke when it became clear that he would not be drafted under the national lottery system that was implemented at the time.
Underscoring Doubts:
The revelation underscored doubts that Clinton had not told the full story about his efforts to avoid military service during the Vietnam War years and that, say Democratic strategists, only further undermined his political credibility. "The Clinton people don't nail it down," Cunningham said. "It was another cut, another wound, and all of those wounds have an impact.
"You have to give Clinton credit for battling back all the time," he added. "But he also does not know how to finish off an issue. They keep cropping up again. And it reinforces the slick Willie image--he only answers part of the question.
"There's a perception building about Bill Clinton and that's the load he'll take into the general election," Cunningham continued. "A lot of people are dreading the general election right now."
Democratic media adviser David Garth similarly worries that "every time I think he's had his last wound he starts to bleed again and something else gets discovered.
"He hasn't done anything so terrible. It's just the way he plays it when confronted by charges or allegations," Garth told me. "If he would just stop trying to finesse the situation. It's not so much the thing he did that was so bad but how he handles it and people remember how he handles it.
"He's too cute by far. He talks like a lawyer when he says he didn't inhale [when he tried marijuana at Oxford]. I find it hard to believe. He should have just said it was a mistake. No one is going to hold one of those thing against him. But one thing they will hold against him is playing it a little too cute."
"Both of these candidates are so flawed that there is no possibility of their defeating President Bush," former New York Mayor Ed Koch said of both Clinton and former California Gov. Jerry Brown. "Bill Clinton has no credibility."
Koch, among a number of Democrats, wants to force a brokered convention in which party leaders would regroup behind an experienced national consensus candidate as an alternative to Clinton--perhaps Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen or Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore.
That was the private hope of party leaders such as Maryland Democratic Party Chairman Nate Landow who called a meeting of party fundraisers in late April to discuss Clinton's prospects and to reassess the nomination process. "Voters continue to have reservations about Clinton," Landow told me.
In a letter to party leaders, he said, "Many members are concerned, to say the least, about our party's prospects for winning in November and feel the need to discuss openly how we got to where we are and what options we have for the immediate future and for changing the [nominating ] process."
In early April, when it appeared briefly possible that Tsongas just might reenter the race, Oklahoma Sen. David Boren pleaded with him to get back in to offer the party a credible alternative to Clinton. "There are a lot of people who wish someone else would get into this race," said a Senate Democratic official.
Ominous Polls:
A look at the Gallup polls over the past few moths show why Democrats are becoming increasingly nervous about putting Clinton at the head of their ticket.
In a head-to-head match up on March 20, Bush led by only 52-43 percent and Clinton was indeed within striking range. But as the weekly disclosures took their toll during the ensuing primaries, Clinton's margin fell to 54-38 percent on March 29 and then fell further to 54-34 by the beginning of April.
Many Democrats fear that all of this points to the possibility of very negative general election if Clinton is the nominee.
"What's going to happen is that the Democrats will have a view of Bill Clinton and the Republicans will have a view of Bush and the swing voters will be the battleground," Cunningham said. "And the questions will be over the negative perceptions of the candidates and whose perceptions will dominate.
"When it gets down to the final two candidates, you are facing a very negative election," he said. "This is going to be a very depressing campaign--there's nothing uplifting about it. Bush is going to campaign on the fact that he's not Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton is going to campaign b y saying that things are terrible in America."
Yet it would be premature to suggest that the 1992 presidential election is already over. There are too many political variables in today's volatile social and economic climate to reach that conclusion. Bush has enough negatives at this point and there is enough voter discontent nationally to make this a horse race, at least in the popular vote.
"But right now the ammunition is there to use against Clinton," said Cunningham. "The worry among Democrats is that they [the Republicans] will refine it and shape it in such a way that the comparison with Bush in the general election will used skillfully against Clinton."
Yet there are some in the Democratic Party who think that the way things are going, the Republicans won't have to do much to run a successful campaign against Clinton. Said one key strategist in the Bush-Quayle campaign committee, "We're following the Napoleonic maxim: Never interfere with the enemy when they are in the process of destroying themselves."
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