Politics

Modest Gains Forecast For GOP

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 19, 1998 / 11:06 AM EDT / CBS

Only five weeks ago, it was widely believed that President Clinton's Oval Office encounters with Monica Lewinsky would loom large in Campaign '98. Democrats trembled at the thought of Republican attack ads showing the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth flinching at questions involving his unorthodox use of a tobacco product.

Democrats ranging from Jimmy Carter to Dianne Feinstein denounced their wayward commander-in-chief. And that was just the friendly fire.

Republicans lined up to loudly call for Mr. Clinton's resignation. Indeed, conservative holy man Pat Robertson announced that resignation was too good for Mr. Clinton and urged Congress to impeach the rascal.

But, faster than you can say "inappropriate relationship with Ms. Lewinsky," things turned around.

"The president utterly destroyed a very strong Democratic year by his reckless behavior and public dissembling," said Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution. "The Republicans then overplayed their hand and imagined they could alter public opinion by dumping every grand jury document and tape that came into their possession and acting in a way that seemed stridently partisan."

The latest CBS News-New York Times poll shows that public approval of Congress has dropped from 56 percent in September to 43 percent in mid-October. The poll numbers also suggest that most Americans view the GOP-led Congress as having spent too much time on impeachment matters and not enough time on the nation's business.

The changing climate has prompted some fast political footwork in both parties. The Clinton scandal, for example, has seen Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening do more head-spinning than Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

In September, the Democratic governor canceled a fund-raiser with Clinton and became a no-show at the president's appearance at a Maryland school. He declared Mr. Clinton to be a poor role model. In October, a smiling Glendening warmly shook hands with Clinton at a Maryland school. "We are proud of you," Glendening said of Mr. Clinton and his monogamous sidekick, Al Gore.

By and large, however, both Democratic and Republican candidates are treating the Clinton scandal like the Ebola virus. Those Republican attack ads featuring the president's videotaped grand jury testimony never materialized, and many Democrats are still leery of openly embracing their president.

Gary Jacobson, one of the nation's top academic experts on congressional elections, sees the impact of the Clinton scandal as a wash.

"It does mobilize and excite the conservative wing of the Republican Party, but they all vote anyway," he said. "The general public's opposition to impeachment will give a mild boost to some Democrats. The two will probably pretty much offset one another."

With affair de Bubba on the back burner, the upcoming off-year election is expected to produce modest Republican gains in the House ad Senate. Most estimates range from 5 to 20 seats in the House and 1 to 5 seats in the Senate.

"Right now, it's largely a status-quo election," said CBS political consultant Norm Orenstein of the American Enterprise Institute. "It wouldn't be surprising to find a small change in the House, say five seats, while the Republicans simultaneously pick up five seats in the Senate."

Jacobson sees GOP gains of 5-10 seats in the House and at least three seats in the Senate.

Thirty-four Senate seats are up for grabs on Nov. 3, as are all 435 House seats. In addition, 36 governorships will be decided. The Republicans, who already hold a comfortable edge in state chief executives, are expected to fatten their margin by two or three mansions.

In the Senate, where the Republicans hold a 55-45 advantage, the magic number for the GOP is 60. That's the number of Republican Senators needed to override Democratic filibusters in the Senate. While a gain of five GOP seats is certainly possible, getting there is a bit of a stretch.

Only eight of the 34 Senate elections appear to be genuinely competitive. To reach 60, the Republicans would have to hold New York and North Carolina, where GOP incumbents are facing stiff challenges, and grab five of the six remaining seats in California, Wisconsin, Nevada, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Illinois. (Democrats hold five of these. Kentucky is an open seat.)

"Getting to 60 would require us intercept every pass and recover every fumble in this game," said Mike Russell of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The committee expects a gain of 1-3 seats for the GOP. The Democrats would be happy to hold their own.

The nation's top Senate race is in New York, where veteran GOP incumbent Al D'Amato and Democratic Rep. Chuck Schumer are battling it out in the political version of a Casket Match. The two political street fighters have already filled New York's expensive airwaves with negative advertising.

Mr. Clinton is popular in New York, and Democratic political consultant David Garth believes Schumer may get a boost from the impeachment backlash. Both the president and First Lady Hillary Clinton have campaigned in New York for Schumer. Still, the race is expected to be extremely close.

Democrats no longer talk about recapturing control of the House, where the GOP holds a narrow 228-206 advantage. (There is one independent.) The party in the White House normally loses seats in an off-year election, even when the president is not an impeachment candidate.

Still, several factors should combine to reduce the number of seats the Democrats may lose. The economy is still prosperous and the nation is at peace, creating an incumbent-friendly environment. President Clinton's approval rating remains high, and the GOP has already captured many of the previously vulnerable Democratic congressional seats. Only about 50 races are genuinely competitive.

Two races have notable symboli importance to the parties. In California's 46th District, conservative firebrand Bob Dornan ("B-1 Bob") is trying to recapture the Orange County seat he narrowly lost to Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez in 1996. Donations from liberal Democrats around the nation eager to keep Dornan out of Congress have flowed into Sanchez's campaign.

In Florida, the GOP hopes to oust Rep. Corrine Brown in the heavily Democratic 3rd District. The GOP candidate is former Jacksonville NAACP President Bill Randall. Both candidates are black. A national Republican official says a GOP victory in the Jacksonville-Orlando district would have the same kind of shock value Sanchez's victory over Dornan had in 1996.

The Republicans, who already hold 32 governorships, are expected to pick up two or three more on Nov. 3. Of the 36 governorships at stake, 24 are held by Republicans, 11 by Democrats, and one by an independent.

There are governor races in the nation's eight most populous states, and the GOP is expected to win most of these contests. The Bush brothers, George W. and Jeb, are heavily favored to corral two of the largest states, Texas and Florida, for the GOP.

Nevertheless, Democrats are running strong in such unlikely places as Alabama and South Carolina, and have a solid chance to win the most important race.

The crown jewel of the 1998 election is California. Democratic Lt. Gov. Gray Davis has held a steady single-digit lead in the polls over Republican state Attorney General Dan Lungren since the beginning of the race.

California GOP gubernatorial candidates in recent elections have started behind in the polls and come on strong at the end, but there doesn't now seem to be any issue that might propel Lungren to a similar finish.

Outgoing GOP Gov. Pete Wilson, for example, successfully seized on the immigration issue to propel his candidacy. Lungren has tried to paint the Democrat as a liberal, but Davis, a Vietnam War veteran, has effectively repelled Lungren's attack by wrapping himself in the American flag.

"Barring any dramatic last-minute developments, Davis will probably win," said Jacobson, who teaches political science at the University of California at San Diego.

This year the public has already bounced away from the president in dismay, then ricocheted back in revulsion. We have learned about a conservative Clinton critic's love child and a congresswoman's dalliance with a married man. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee called a long-running affair he conducted when he was past 40 a "youthful indiscretion." Dramatic last-minute developments definitely seem conceivable. Possibly involving vampirism.