Politics

Will Bill Help Or Hurt?

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 20, 1998 / 1:08 PM EDT / CBS

Twinkle, twinkle, Kenneth Starr
Now we know how brave you are

When Republican Rep. Mike Pappas of New Jersey crooned this birthday tribute to his favorite special prosecutor on the floor of the House last summer, he received widespread TV coverage. Pappas probably never anticipated that his song would be used to attack him. But that's exactly what's happened.

Democratic rival Rush Holt crafted a radio ad that intersperses the voice of the singing congressman with accusations that Pappas has spent "months and millions" on "partisan investigations."

With the Nov. 3 election growing ever closer, Republicans and Democrats are still experimenting with ways to extract political advantage from President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. So far, there have been a few explosions in this political laboratory, but no clear and convincing evidence that the issue has been a signficant help to either side.

GOP Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth of Idaho tried to exploit the issue a few month ago with TV commercials denouncing the president's conduct. A local newspaper promptly disclosed her own six-year affair with a married man.

As might be expected, a dozen or so Republican candidates dabbled with anti-Clinton ads through the summer and early fall. But nothing happened to suggest that Mr. Clinton was dragging down the Democratic candidates targeted in the ads.

Then the Democrats took a crack at using the affair by accusing the Republicans of subjecting the nation to a long and unwanted investigation of the president's misdeeds.

Finally, in the closing days of the campaign, the GOP launched a $10 million TV ad blitz aimed at exploiting the Clinton scandal.

On the Democratic side, in addition to the "Twinkle, twinkle" ad, Democrat Ralph Neas attacked Maryland GOP Congresswoman Constance Morella for voting for an open-ended impeachment inquiry.

And Peter Vallone, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in New York, thrust Mr. Clinton to his bosom in a TV commercial. None of these Democrats is expected to win.

But the Democrats claimed to have struck gold in Washington state, where Democrat Jay Inslee is in a tight race with GOP Rep. Rick White.

Inslee began airing a TV ad blaming White for "dragging" the nation through the "mud" of an impeachment inquiry. Now the Democrats are trumpeting a poll that shows Inslee has pulled even with White since the ad began running.

Brett Bader, a Republican consultant working for White, denounced the survey as a "phony poll. Our people were called. It consisted of a bunch of negatives on Rick and then a question of who you would vote for."

Separately, a group of Democratic political strategists in Washington has urged Democratic candidates to attack Republicans for voting for the impeachment inquiry. But it remains to be seen how many Democrats will actually take up the call.

And in the closing days of the campaign, the GOP launced a national ad blitz linked to the Clinton-Lewinsky affair.

"For seven months, he lied to us," one woman tells another in one of the GOP ads. The toughest Republican ad is running only in the South, where the GOP has targeted three vulnerable Democratic congressmen.

By and large, however, both Democrats and Republicans candidates are treating the Clinton scandal like the Ebola virus. 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 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."