The lessons of '98
Therisks of campaigning this fall on a "repeal health care" platform
The lessons of '98
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
It took some digging this week, but I finally found a rare Republican lawmaker who is apparently capable of assessing the current political climate, and the reality of health reform, without his head exploding.
Unlike so many of his party brethren, who seem to think they can retake Congress in November simply by banging on Barack Obama and bellowing about "repeal," New York congressman Peter King surfaced on Don Imus' morning show to offer a few words of wisdom. He said: "We Republicans, we can't just pile on (and) just say 'we're going to repeal'....We also have to avoid demonizing. Republicans tried that with Bill Clinton in 1998 during the whole Monica Lewinsky affair, and we ended up losing seats."
Finally. I'd been waiting, seemingly in vain, for a Republican with an ounce of historical perspective to bring up the cautionary lessons of 1998. Unlike so many of his amnesiac or clueless colleagues, King actually remembers what happened. He didn't fill in the details during his Imus gig, so I'll do the honors:
After President Clinton was outed in '98 for his trysts with the intern - and particularly after he confessed the truth in August - House Republican strategists were convinced that they'd rack up victories in November simply by running against the scandal. House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicted a pickup of 40 seats. He didn't see the need for any affirmative Republican agenda; he thought the scandal, and the GOP push for impeachment, would suffice. In fact, that spring he declared that he would "never again, as long as I am speaker, make a speech without commenting on the topic." And during the final week of the '98 election season, he approved a blitz of anti-scandal TV ads in 30 key House districts.
Well, the House Republicans never did pick up the 40 seats that Newt envisioned. Or 30 seats. Or 20. Or 10. Turned out, the Republicans lost five seats.
This was an historic embarrassment - and an historic win for Clinton's Democrats. As I reported at the time, "a president's party had not gained House seats in the sixth year of a president's tenure since 1822."
During the '98 postmortems, top Republicans lamented their mistakes; lobbyist/strategist Vin Weber told CNN, "The problem was, we didn't run on a substantive agenda." Indeed, the political fallout was so toxic that not only did Gingrich quit as speaker, he quit his seat as well. One GOP strategist, Jay Severin, suggested that Republican should "take Newt's belt and shoelaces away from him."
By the way, this is the same Newt who today is insisting that Republicans run this fall on a repeal platform ("Together we will pledge to repeal this bill and start over. Together we will prove that this will not stand").
And there's another noteworthy angle on '98:
It's fascinating to hear the current Republicans complain about how the majority party has jammed/rammed health care reform down our throats in defiance of "the will of the people" - given the fact that, in 1998, the Republicans wielded "impeach Clinton" as a campaign issue, despite ample evidence that they were willfully defying "the will of the people."
During the '98 autumn campaign season, the people repeatedly signaled their disinterest in impeaching the president. Right after special prosecutor Ken Starr's scandal report was released in September, 59 percent of Americans told national pollsters that they approved of Clinton's job performance, and, on a separate question, 64 percent opposed impeachment. A month later, Clinton's job approval rating stood at 65 percent, and 62 percent opposed impeachment. But the Republicans paid no heed to the people's will - which surfaced again in the exit polls on election day, when 63 percent said they opposed impeachment.
For Republicans, the biggest lesson of '98 is that there are risks in playing only to the conservative case. They defied "the will of the people," deciding that it was only important to stoke the sentiments of their most devoted voters. The base wanted to see Clinton impeached, hence the scandal-centric campaign strategy. And the party wound up paying an historic price in November.
Today's Republicans are preparing to stump this fall for health reform repeal (excuse me, "repeal and replace," which presumably refers to the reform ideas that they had zero interest in pushing when they ran Washington). They claim that their repeal slogan broadly reflects the people's will (actually, it's impossible to know whether this will be true seven months hence); far more significantly, they know full well that repeal is the stance of choice within the conservative base.
Republican leaders are talking up repeal because they want to ensure that the tea-party faction is stoked to vote. Republican leaders are fuming irrationally about "Armageddon," and about how Obama has purportedly betrayed his oath, because they know that the tea-party faction responds to raw meat. The big question - as Peter King suggested - is whether the care and feeding of the base, and the politics of demonization, will be enough to ensure success in November.
yersinia, I said I just googled it, fraud please be serious. Also, the gist of them is not in dispute, no matter how much still splits hairs. The most serious about small govt. and paying as you go along and a govt that can give you evrything you want is a govt that can take away everything as well, is not in dispute. My point was we can't go on running trillion dollar deficits and continue on as a democracy. Where do you stand on that? And, Djoko glad to hear from you, but you are nastier now than when you left. What happened? Your guy won, you hold all the levers of power but you are still angry. What up with that?— NEPhilly- Hey Dorko Putzo, a new CNN poll finds that "anybody" who runs against Obama in 2010 is currently tied with him for the race and 20% of all democrats want Obama not to run in 2012. Ouch!— CD75
- Still Independent- you said this from the previous blog " So the argument is that it's OK to throw brick through windows so long as you continually do it?".................. Obviosly I am still wondering when your independent thoughts will be evident but what I am saying is this stuff does happen all the time to politicians of all political stripes as well as pundits. Just this time the Democrats are trying to distract the public from their sketchy math and bogus healthcare bill. Furthermore, Democrats insist Republicans must condemn - over and over - this imaginary rise of widespread radicalism. In doing so, they are implicitly accusing Republicans of controlling the aforementioned radicals.
- NEPhilly, I don't want to deflate your balloon of admiration for Thomas Jefferson -- because I also admire him in many ways. But in some ways he was rather two-faced. Did you know that when he died, his estate was far in arrears because he was such a spendthrift? His family ultimately lost Monticello. And of course, there's his position on slavery -- all while maintaining a black mistress. People are very complex creatures. All of us are. We each hold at least some conflicting viewpoints. Benjamin Franklin, whom I also admire, behaved rather poorly to his family. Yet he was generosity and graciousness itself to the people he met in Europe and casually adopted as his family. I think that knowing this is the reason I keep asking for compromise and tolerance. It just makes sense, considering human nature.— NigeltheMastiff
- nigel, it is hard to judge them socially by our 2010 standards when we have an African-American President and something approaching equality for everyone, but your point is taken. I have not been an extremist on these boards as you well know, I just want to know how we are going to pay for all of this. Also, raising taxes and mandates and govt. growth all put a drag on private sector job growth, imho. Off to my fantasy baseball draft.— NEPhilly
- NEPhilly, I believe the very nature of conservatism is a resistance to change. And frankly, if we hadn't had people who pushed, we would never have had a successful civil rights movement. We would still have slavery. Women wouldn't be able to vote. So we have to take even the political thoughts of the forefathers in the context of that day -- which doesn't apply to contemporary life. And we can't just consider the current context of social mores; we must also put the founders' political thinking into context -- because social, technological and other changes affect political context.— NigeltheMastiff
- STILL: Are you a Lib? You have to be a Lib if you don't agree with SPIN BORO MIKE. There is nothing unusual about the threats. This happens all the time. The broken windows were done by Dems & Libs to make Conse 'Pubs look bad. In fact, The Dems and Libs are proven guilty, and they are 100% responsible for causing problems. There isn't a single instance of Conse 'Pubs stirring up the tea party or fanning the flames.— Talvenada
- Yakov: Don't forget Republicans like Romney, too. The bottom line: The GOP currently has the upper hand in the argument because its talking points (Armageddon, killing Granny, death panels, socialism, etc.) are easily digestible for the mostly uninformed masses, although untrue. If Republicans can continue to convince the public between now and November that this new law is the beginning of the end of the United States, and if that public is a broad base (beyond the fanatical wing), then it has a chance to gain big in the midterms. If, on the other hand, the public realizes that those charges are what they are — political canards meant to stir loyalty through anger — and discovers that there are things in the new law that it likes, then the premise of Polman's post will hold true. And Talvenada: If you honestly believe there is no single instance of a Republican stirring anger, then you must not be paying attention. Of course there has been, numerous times, because they believe it's good politics.— HeywoodEm
- WOOD 'EM: I was talking like SPIN BORO MIKE to make the opposite point to him.— Talvenada
- Smike, from the previous blog: Personally I have long condemed the murderous actions of 60's and 70's protesters that would fall into the lib camp. During the Nixon/Agnew years there were plants to make it look even worse. That didn't take away from the basic act.There was and is no justification to act like an idiot and destroy property, trash someone's name, or assault people with whom you have political differences. I looked at the link that you provided and I didn't hear racial slurs but that's not the point. The overall behavior of late is inexcusable. It is all to be condemed. I do wish that in light of the conservative jihad regarding Obama's failure to come out against Wright and Ayers that they would keep to the high road and speak out against the lousy behavior by the fringe on that side. No one with the balance of reason in them believes that the lunatic fringe of either side represents the majority.— JimR
- Tal: Whoosh. Went right over my head.— HeywoodEm
- JimR- you said , "The overall behavior of late is inexcusable. It is all to be condemed."......... Again, What the left is saying happened on Sunday looks to be a hoax from the video I saw. But I am waiting to hear condemnation from the left for the bullet hole in Cantor's window. All I'm hearing is crickets. Maybe we'll hear some condemnation from you. I'll lie in wait.
- CD75, next time you crow about Delaware, the guy's name is Castle. He's a flaming moderate, very popular personally, there's nothing for the hard right to point to in that particular race. I think there's also a spelling malfunction in your post.— newageblues
- Lets cut to the chase here. The real problem is that Tea Partiers represent the means of obstruction. They must be discredited, first as robotic foot soldiers of the insurance companies, then as out-of-control and potentially violent mobs. Neither is true. Or, as the president likes to say, it's just another distraction.
- JimR- you said " Personally I have long condemed the murderous actions of 60's and 70's protesters that would fall into the lib camp."........... Oh really, I have never heard you once condemn any acts committed by liberals. Obama refers to William Ayers as just another guy in the neighborhood. Not once has any liberal poster on here condemend William Ayers or the terrorists acts he committed. I guess this is the part where you'll tell us you are a conservative. But now we are tobelieve the left, who has a long a storied track record of trumping up hoaxes, that the current threats are legitimately carried out by conservatives? Still waiting the smallest shred of evidence to back up these allegations .
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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