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Democrats celebrate, Republicans search for direction after election nightATLANTA (AllPolitics, November 3) -- A day after Tuesday's midterm elections, leaders from both parties are trying to find meaning in the surprisingly strong Democratic showing across the country. The Democrats are clearly celebrating. President Bill Clinton said Wednesday the Democratic wins were a "vindication of the policies."
"I think it's clear what happened," Clinton Wednesday afternoon. "I think that they (the Democrats) stayed together, they had a message that was about the American people, their needs, their opportunities and their future. I think that they won because they had a clear message that was about America, about saving Social Security and improving education and passing the patients' bill of rights and raising the minimum wage and those other things." In the Senate the balance remained unchanged, 55 Republicans and 45 Democrats. In the House, the Republican majority lost ground as five seats slipped away to Democrats, cutting the Republican edge to 223-210 with one seat undetermined and one, in Vermont, remaining with an independent. It was the first time since 1934 that the party of the president gained seats during a midterm election. While Clinton refused to comment on whether the voters were sending a message to Republicans about dropping the Lewinsky investigation, others in his party did not hold back. Democrats see movement away from scandal"I think the American people were saying we do not want to have further investigation. We want to close this off," Roy Romer, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Wednesday. "They clearly made a separation between the personal conduct ... They want Congress to wrap it up, get it behind them, so we can get on to the issues that the president has been working with Congress." Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, who also won re-election last night, agreed with Romer.
"They (the Republicans) can't feel very good about prolonging this, given the results tonight," Daschle told The Associated Press Tuesday. Daschle's counterpart in the House, Dick Gephardt of Missouri, attributed his party's success to the Democrats' "kitchen table" agenda and what he called the Republicans' obsession with investigation. They "spent a lot of time on this impeachment investigation and 40 or 50 other investigations which they carried on endlessly," Gephardt said. Republicans spent Wednesday morning trying to figure where they went wrong. Did their message get lost in the anti-Clinton rhetoric? Or was Tuesday's vote a true referendum against the policies of the GOP? Gingrich: GOP should have focused on issues"I totally underestimated the degree with which people just get sick of 24-hour-a-day talk television and talk radio, the degree to which this whole scandal just became sort of disgusting by sheer repetition," House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted.
"We probably should have almost maniacally focused on cutting taxes, reforming government, working on saving Social Security, recognize that would cause a big fight, accept that was a better fight for us than drifting into October with, as people kept saying, no national themes, no national dialogue," Gingrich said. "If you make it a referendum on a president with a 67 percent approval rating, you shouldn't be surprised if the election goes against you," Republican Gov. Tom Ridge said as he coasted to re-election in Pennsylvania. In the waning days of the 1998 campaign, the National Republican Congressional Committee shifted gears and began pummeling the Democrats in targeted congressional districts with a $10 million TV ad campaign that touched on Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. Although none of the ads mentioned Lewinsky or the prospect of impeachment directly, some did allude to the president's lying to the American public. The conservative wing of the Republican party blamed Tuesday's loses on a lack of a commitment to conservative values and consistent message on impeachment. "There was no consistent message with regard to impeachment," Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, one of the president's harshest critics, said Wednesday. Conservatives says they were ignoredWhile avoiding direct criticism of the Republican leadership in Washington, leading activists on conservative issues say the Republicans failed to promote the kind of family issues that could have won elections Tuesday. Gary Bauer, head of the Campaign for Working Families, and Randy Tate, head of the Christian Coalition, offered similar post-mortem themes Wednesday, trying to sort out voting patterns.
At a news conference, Bauer said the lack of "Reaganesque" campaigns created an issues vacuum which allowed Democrats to move ahead. He also suggested that Congress needs to boldly confront the Clinton Administration on issues including tax cuts and partial-birth abortion. Tate, at a separate news conference, told reporters voters who are aligned with the Christian Coalition may have been taken for granted by conservative candidates who lost in Tuesday's elections. He said Republicans were doomed to failure by campaigning only on anti-Clinton sentiment, rather than clearly articulating the conservative message. 2000 hopefuls remain above the frayBut the few bright spots for Republicans came from the more moderate and inclusive campaigns waged by incumbent Republican governors, like George W. Bush in Texas and George Pataki in New York. "I have set and I will continue to set a tone that seeks to unify not divide," Bush told supporters celebrating his landslide re-election."I will work to include, not exclude. I believe in setting clear goals and insisting on results."
Pre-election polls have put Bush as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. Bush's brother Jeb, also won a governor's seat Tuesday. The younger son of former President George Bush will take the helm of the politically powerful state of Florida. Other presidential hopefuls also hoped their parties would take unifying messages out of Tuesday's elections. "We're going to have to start talking about what we're for, and not what we're against," newly re-elected Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said. "I think that part of the message from the election last night was get on with that agenda, focus on the challenges that are confronting the people of the United States of America, " Vice President Al Gore said Wednesday. "And I hope and expect that the Congress will hear that message." The Associated Press contributed to this report.MORE STORIES:Wednesday, November 4, 1998
• Democrats celebrate, Republicans search for direction after election night • Same-sex marriage ballot measures • Prop. 3 failure places California presidential primary in limbo • Election '98 Lewinsky factor never materialized • Nation votes on environment issues • Democrats win state legislative chambers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
