You win some, you lose some

By James Zogby

Despite retaining control, Republicans will spend the next several months engaging in a fractious intra-party bloodbath, since many correctly view the 1998 results as a defeat. This is because, behind the figures, are some striking victories and defeats that warrant closer examination in order to assess the real outcome of the 3 November contests.

After months of focus on the scandal in Washington, Republicans were hoping for a sweeping mandate in November. They had hoped to make the elections a referendum on the president's integrity. Since the president's party historically loses 30 seats in an off-year

election, Republicans were seeking gains of at least that many seats in Congress and around five gains in the Senate. This would have given them commanding control of both houses of Congress and the ability to set the nation's agenda for the next two years.

In fact, Republicans focused so extensively on the president's problems that they failed to articulate any other political message for their 1998 political platform. From August through September, Republican Congressmen and candidates formed a national chorus calling on Clinton to resign. This was followed by Republican-led votes in Congress to release embarrassing details of the investigation against the president and finally a vote to begin impeachment proceedings in November.

Through all this, President Clinton, though obviously distracted by the scandal, maintained that he was focusing on the "people's business". He lost important votes on campaign finance reform and health care reform, but finally succeeded at the last minute in getting Congress to agree to approve a budget that contained much of what he had sought in education spending, environmental protection and Social Security. Clinton then swung from this victory to nine days of negotiations at the Wye Plantation which ended with a widely covered White House signing ceremony. Thus, in two critical weeks before the election, Clinton transformed the press approach to his presidency. He emerged as a leader with both a domestic and foreign policy agenda.

In the president's absence from the campaign trail, Vice-President Gore, First Lady Hillary Clinton and strong Democratic leaders like Jesse Jackson, criss-crossed the country appearing at Democratic Party events, raising money for their candidates and mobilising voters for the elections. The fact that Democrats were able to turn what was expected to be a stunning defeat into a virtual draw is largely due to the efforts of those Democratic leaders. In any assessment of 1998's winners and losers, then, the president, vice-president, first lady and Jesse Jackson must be listed among the big winners of the year.

Clinton has, at least for now, salvaged his presidency. While the impeachment process will probably run its course, its momentum has been seriously weakened. Republicans will now be hesitant to be seen as too aggressive and Democrats will not abandon their leader. Gore and the first lady earned tremendous credits as campaigners, with many Democrats owing their victories to their support.

Jesse Jackson focused, as he has so often in the past, on mobilising African American voters, who were the decisive factor in several big Democratic victories. African Americans have also become big winners in 1998. Although Republicans have gained tremendous strength in the southern states in the past 10 years, African American voters were able to stop them in their tracks. By increasing their voter turnout in key states and by voting over 90 per cent for Democrats, African Americans helped Democrats win back governorships in South Carolina and Georgia and also defeated a Republican incumbent senator in North Carolina. African Americans and Jesse Jackson will be in a position to demand strong consideration from the Democratic Party in 2000.

Two other important winners in 1998 were the sons of former President George Bush. George W Bush was re-elected as governor of Texas by a huge margin and Jeb Bush won as governor of Florida also by a substantial margin. Both Bushs' victories are impressive, not only

because they won control of two of the nation's largest states, but because in order to win they built broad coalitions that included substantial numbers of Hispanic and African American voters. By developing what some are calling a "compassionate conservatism" and reaching out to minority voters, the Bush brothers' victories may point the way to broader Republican successes in the future.

Moderation won over extremism in this year's elections. George W Bush has always been seen as a moderate-style Republican. In 1994, Jeb Bush lost his first race for governor of Florida by running as a conservative ideologue. This year, he and several other Republicans and many victorious Democrats ran successful races by moving away from ideological extremes and developing a more centrist message.

The real 1998 winner was the practice of GOTV -- "get out the vote". This was the first off-year election where both parties spent over $1 billion in campaigning. Advertising, mostly negative, and high-priced political consultants used up most of the money. In the final campaign week, however, both parties focused their energies on direct, old-fashioned voter contact in an intensive effort to get supporters to vote. While the turnout was a low 35.7 per cent of registered voters -- the lowest since 1942 -- the numbers were higher than expected because of the last minute GOTV efforts. If any lesson is learned from 1998, one hopes that it is that more effort should be given to mobilising and encouraging voters instead of negative advertising that discourages voters from participating.

The biggest loser in 1998 was, of course, Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich. It was he who orchestrated the Republican strategy of impeachment as a campaign platform. Even during the campaign's last week, when it was already apparent that most Americans were not going to base their vote on their attitude toward the president, Gingrich authorised the spending of $10 million on a targeted national advertising campaign that focused on the president's scandal. The strategy backfired and angered his Republican colleagues, one of whom said, "We were out in our districts finally trying to focus on issues and Gingrich comes in and tries to remind the voters of what they didn't want to hear about."

For his failed strategy, Gingrich was forced to resign.

Not only did Gingrich lose, but the idea of impeachment also lost ground. So did meanness in advertising and the divisive politics of campaign consultants like Arthur Finkelstein. Finkelstein has long been an architect of right-wing ideological campaigning. In addition to his American clients, he was the campaign consultant behind Binyamin Netanyahu's 1996 victory in Israel. He lost in two critical races this year. Republican Senators Al D'Amato of New York and Lauch Faircloth of North Carolina were Finkelstein clients and both were defeated.

Another consultant who lost big elections was Ralph Reed, former head of the right-wing fundamentalist Christian Coalition. Two of his fundamentalist clients, the Republican governors of Alabama and South Carolina, Fob James and David Beasely, were defeated in re-election attempts. Ralph Reed and the Christian Coalition were 1998 losers.

The State of California also shouldered a big loss in 1998. Overshadowing the victory of Democrat Gray Davis as governor was the failure of California voters to overturn an arcane law that will make California irrelevant in 2000's presidential primaries. California has had a Republican governor for 16 years, making the victory of a Democrat in this huge state that has 12 per cent of the nation's voters (and over 20 per cent of the electoral votes needed to win a presidential election) very significant. But California has recently decided to move the date of its presidential primary election to March 2000, so that it could also use its enormous clout to play a critical role in choosing both parties' nominees. However, in order to facilitate this effort, California's voters needed to pass a statewide referendum to change their primary elections. The referendum failed, rendering California's 2000 primary inconsequential, unless the state's party leaders succeed in court to change the law.

These were the winners and losers of 1998. But no discussion of November's elections can be complete without some mention of the Arab American vote in November.

All six Arab American congressional incumbents were re-elected. Three Arab American challengers were defeated, but all ran strong races in which they netted more than 43 per cent of the votes. Jean Shaheen was re-elected as governor of New Hampshire as were 26 other Arab Americans running for state and local offices.

In targeted states, Arab American GOTV efforts paid off, turning out a substantial number of voters on election day. A Michigan congressman called me to point out that the Arab American voter turnout was much higher than that of any other group in his area and was the decisive factor in the victory of a candidate for the State Senate.

In Illinois, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania and Ohio, Arab American votes were noted by politicians and party leaders. Not only did Arab Americans use phone banks and advertising in newspapers, radio and television to mobilise their voters, but both the Democratic and Republican parties used paid advertising and paid canvassers to compete for Arab American voters in these elections.

Thus, the Arab American strategy for 1998 succeeded -- Arab American candidates won. In critical states, Arab Americans secured their place in electoral coalition-building efforts for the 2000 elections.

The writer is the president of the Arab American Institute.