Toward November
TOWARD NOVEMBER As the Clinton undertow gradually drags Democrats under, Republicans will be tempted over the next few months to sit back and play it safe. Raise lots of money, neutralize the...
...This is almost surely an effect of the Clinton scandals...
...If Kenneth Starr issues a report before Labor Day, such an event will presumably inflict damage on Clinton and put the Democrats in a more awkward position than ever...
...In China, Iraq, and Serbia—to take only the three most obvious examples— Clinton's policy in dealing with dictators has been virtually all carrot and no stick...
...Another is that Republicans have now drawn even in the "generic congressional ballot" (that is, as many Americans are telling pollsters that they plan to vote for Republicans this fall as for Democrats—and polls at this stage of the game usually underestimate GOP strength...
...Then they might be able to override some presidential vetoes in 1999...
...The question is whether the Republicans can go on the offensive and turn a mild tide into a surging flood...
...If Republicans simply remind people that Clinton has refused to explain himself...
...As Clinton's foreign policy falls apart, Republicans should be doing more to highlight his failure...
...if they cut through all the fog the White House likes to throw up and demand that the president come clean...
...Pacific fleet, recently acknowledged that simply accomplishing the Navy's current tasks would cost $82 billion...
...For example, Adm...
...Given their performance over the last couple of years, one might say, Republican congressional leaders hardly deserve the increased majorities that Bill Clinton's recklessness and fecklessness will probably give them...
...They can do this both through legislative action and through rhetoric...
...A recent survey by two Democratic pollsters, Stanley Greenberg and Celinda Lake, found Democrats and Republicans in a dead heat in the general congressional race—though with a "shifting issue environment" increasingly unfavorable to the Democrats...
...Republicans need to explain to the public why defense expenditures should increase...
...They can urge the president to stop dithering and punish Milosevic...
...Then they will be in a position to lay the groundwork for a successful presidential run in 2000...
...But none of this will happen by accident...
...One way or another, Republicans need to persuade voters that, with federal taxation at a record high as a percentage of GDI, they are serious about cutting taxes on working families and that Democrats stand in their way...
...Republican candidates should be assuring the public: The greater the number of Republicans in the next Congress, the better the chance of a substantial tax cut...
...They have a real opportunity to do so on at least three fronts...
...With a little GOP pushing, Clinton's job-approval numbers can be sent in the direction of his character numbers...
...Republicans can do better, for themselves and the country...
...Ideally, Republicans would be aggressive on each of these fronts...
...efforts to aid the Iraqi opposition...
...True enough...
...Furthermore, it is unlikely that the economy will be better, that the world will look safer, and that Clinton will appear more honest by November— which means that the natural swing over the next few months should be at least mildly against Clinton and the Democrats...
...According to a recent account in the Washington Post, Clinton said at a White House meeting in 1994, "I hate our China policy...
...And they can cut off trade with corporations controlled by China's People's Liberation Army...
...Walter B. Jones Jr., Republican of North Carolina, remarked on the House floor recently, "America faces new threats and dangers every day, and yet we continue to cut our defense budget...
...They should have the wit and spine to help themselves—the country, too...
...yet the budget for the Navy is only $70 billion...
...Republicans cannot count on being the happy beneficiaries of History...
...Finally, there is the most important issue of all— Bill Clinton: his character, his presidency, his place at the head of our nation...
...Archie Clemens, head of the U.S...
...Republicans should throw these words back at the president time after time this fall...
...Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute notes that the gap between Clinton's job-approval rating and his rating on personal moral characteristics is greater than it has ever been...
...if they point out that a Democratic House would guarantee that Clinton was home free, utterly unaccountable to the nation—that would be a measure of leadership and a boon to Republican electoral fortunes...
...The president's request for fiscal year 1999 represents the fourteenth consecutive year of real decline in defense spending...
...Unfortunately, the GOP Congress has objected barely at all to this decline and looks ready to grant the president's request once more...
...In a Washington Post/ABC poll, 64 percent of Americans approve of Clinton's job performance, while only 24 percent say he has high moral and ethical standards...
...I wish I was running against our China policy...
...I mean, we give them MFN and we change our commercial policy and what has it changed...
...First, foreign and defense policy...
...Republicans also need to point out that the administration has allowed our defense capabilities to go the way of our world leadership—steadily downward...
...Last week's special election in New Mexico, where the Republican won more easily than she should have, given the nature of her campaign and the demographics of the district, is merely one piece of evidence...
...Republicans should push instead for relieving the "marriage penalty," or for a payroll tax cut, or, best of all, for an increase in the thresholds of the 15 and 28 percent income-tax brackets...
...At the least, they should try to take some of the larger-than-expected budget surplus and direct it to defense in this congressional session...
...Whatever the merits of the speaker's economic case, it will be hard to convince the electorate that America's capital-holders have not been doing well in recent years...
...Next, there is the matter of taxes: Republicans should also fight hard to direct some of that surplus to meaningful tax relief for the middle class...
...Raise lots of money, neutralize the Democrats on health care, snipe at Clinton's China policy, and coast into November—with majorities in both houses of Congress intact...
...Last week, Newt Gingrich proposed a capital-gains tax cut...
...But if they have it in them to go on the offensive in the coming months, they will not only increase their margin of victory this November, they will deserve it...
...They can pass legislation ensuring that Clinton will not be allowed to ease sanctions on Iraq—indeed, requiring certain U.S...
...Republicans should note this, and then embrace a Reaganite view of America's role in the world, explaining how the stick of American power should be used...
...A recent Gallup poll has 66 percent of Americans approving of the president's job performance, while 33 percent believe him "honest and trustworthy...
...But Republicans can do more than wait...
...True, the tide is already running their way...
...Then they will be better equipped to handle any impeachment proceeding...
...Greenberg and Lake say that their surveys show that there is an emerging "focus on values and moral decline" and that "Democrats are currently faltering on a broad range of 'values' issues, from personal responsibility and discipline to morality...
...The evidence that our defense spending is too low is ever more incontrovertible...
Vol. 3 • July 1998 • No. 42
