CHEER UP!
KRISTOL, WILLIAM
CHEERUP! by William Kristol FRIENDS, REPUBLICANS, COUNTRYMEN: Cheer up! (Especially Republicans.) The GOP will do well on November 3, capping the best three elections cycles for a political party...
...In any case, a fresh poll by John Zogby indicates that people blame Clinton over Starr for the scandal by better than 2 to 1—and don't blame Republicans at all...
...After the new Congress finishes doing some easy, but not unimportant, things—like overriding a presidential veto on partial-birth abortion, passing a modest middle-class tax cut, and continuing to strengthen defense—those splits will lead to a fierce debate among presidential contenders for 2000...
...And to win over less partisan, less anti-Clinton types—who may be wary of impeachment—Republicans can tout the reasonably good times that four years of a GOP Congress has brought...
...As it happened, the lead among likely voters was only 4 points—and even that contrasts with Newsweek and New York Times polls showing Republican leads among likely voters of 4 to 8 points...
...it was a report on the Post's own poll that highlighted an alleged 9-point Democratic lead...
...Republicans can count on an undercurrent of disgust at Clinton and the party that props him up to drive GOP voters to the polls...
...Republicans don't have to raise the issue of Clinton and his coming impeachment...
...What's more, the dynamics this year are more favorable to Republicans than in 1996...
...Contrary to Democratic spin, media bias, and liberal wishful thinking, the Republicans do look strong for November 3. in the past week, most polls have shown Republicans ahead among likely voters in the generic congressional ballot...
...Not bad for a party that, in many ways, is still not ready to be a serious national governing party...
...it's already on voters' minds...
...an appeals-court hearing this week on Paula Jones's sexual-harassment case against Clinton—and most telling of all, total hysteria among liberal columnists about the impending victory of Kenneth Starr and everything he represents: "sexual McCarthyism," the Salem witch trials, the rise of the "Taliban wing" of the GOP, and other frightening phenomena...
...The GOP will do well on November 3, capping the best three elections cycles for a political party since the Democrats in the 1930s...
...a president on the verge of impeachment rather than on the verge of reelection...
...But for now, Republicans have a simple task: get along with one another for two weeks, appear cheerful and unthreatening, and wind up after November 3 in the best position they've had in 70 years...
...The GOP strategy for the remaining two weeks of the election campaign is pretty obvious: a soft, positive, moderately conservative message that reassures swing voters...
...Then they can concentrate on their real mission—to drive New York Times contributors and other liberal muckety-mucks nuts...
...There was a front-page Washington Post story last week that particularly depressed Republicans (who are all too easily depressed by unfavorable Post stories...
...There are, it's true, big splits in the Republican party...
...it is a reliable rule of American politics: Hysteria on the op-ed page of the New York Times is a harbinger of good news for Republicans, glad tidings for conservatives...
...And Republicans always do better on Election Day than mid-October polls suggest: They outspend the Democrats in the last two weeks, and their voters turn out in greater numbers than preelection surveys usually foresee...
...William Kristol is editor and publisher of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...We have a GOP Congress that has produced a tax cut and a budget surplus rather than a government shutdown...
...And whether impeached or not, Clinton will be around for at least a while to ensure continued Democratic demoralization, and to make Americans receptive to bold Republican leadership in 2000...
...The Republican congressional leadership did a reasonable job of dampening potential Democratic turnout by cutting a not-too-awful budget deal with the president, who, incidentally, is likely to be impeached shortly after the election...
...Note, too, that the Post in October 1996 had Democrats with an even larger lead over Republicans among registered voters—and the GOP nevertheless held both chambers of Congress...
Vol. 4 • October 1998 • No. 7
