Posted on 02/17/2002 12:32:11 PM PST by spald
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Washington Bureau
Sunday, February 17, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The 2002 elections will decide control of the House and Senate and may provide something of a referendum on the Clinton administration.
A number of Clinton associates -- Erskine Bowles, Robert Reich, Rahm Emanuel, Andrew Cuomo, Janet Reno, Bill Richardson -- are running for office in their home states this year
Some are calling on former President Clinton to help; others act as if they never knew him. But all want to put the former president's fund-raising prowess to work for them. And they will look to him to help motivate the party faithful, a must in off-year elections.
Clinton's office in New York declined to respond to repeated requests this week for information on his plans to help Democrats in this year's election.
But Terry McAuliffe, one of his closest friends and the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has said repeatedly that the former president will raise money and, where needed, raise the intensity of Democratic voters.
"There are few people who can do it as well as he can," McAuliffe said at a recent breakfast with reporters.
However, still unclear is the degree to which Clinton will be involved in the campaigns of his former associates, especially those involved in two high-profile races in the South:
* In North Carolina, where Bowles, who served as chief of staff in the Clinton White House, is seeking the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Jesse Helms.
* In Florida, where Reno, the attorney general in the Clinton administration, is seeking the party's nomination to challenge Republican incumbent Jeb Bush in the gubernatorial contest.
Old times in the South are not forgotten -- the personal misconduct that led to Clinton's impeachment is still a potent weapon in the hands of certain Republicans.
"Clinton may be a crutch for some Democratic candidates in the South, but he's a crutch that might break on them," said Merle Black, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta and co-author of "The Vital South," a book about how the increasingly Republican South has affected modern presidential campaigns.
Reno apparently understands that. Her campaign Web site makes absolutely no mention of Clinton, even as it boasts of her being the first female attorney general and the longest-serving attorney general since the Civil War.
Similarly, Andrew Cuomo, running for governor in New York, makes only a brief reference to his involvement in "the Clinton administration" on his campaign Web site.
The Cuomo Web site includes a gallery of 24 photos of the candidate with numerous celebrities and political figures, including model Christie Brinkley, talk show host Rosie O'Donnell, actress Susan Sarandon, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sens. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Joe Biden of Delaware, and former Vice President Al Gore.
There are no photos of Cuomo with Clinton -- who maintains his post-presidential office in New York -- or with New York's junior senator, former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Cuomo's campaign officials did not respond to telephone inquiries about Clinton.
"Clinton can help us in southern Florida, raising money and getting the vote out," said Frank Greer, a longtime Clinton confidant who is directing Reno's media strategy in Florida. "But we don't want him in (the Republican strongholds of) northern Florida or the Panhandle," he added.
Clinton carried Florida 48 percent to 43 percent over Republican Bob Dole in 1996, and he lost the state by just 2 percentage points to former President Bush in 1992. And, of course, Gore, Clinton's vice president, lost Florida to Bush's son, George W. Bush, by only 537 votes in 2000, according to the final official recount.
Clinton easily carried New York in 1992 and 1996, and Gore won it by 25 percentage points over Bush in 2000, more than double the 12-point margin of victory of Hillary Clinton over Rick Fazio in the U.S. Senate that year.
Bill Clinton lost North Carolina to the elder Bush by fewer than 21,000 votes in 1992 and lost by 5 percentage points in 1996 to Dole, whose wife, Elizabeth, is a North Carolina native and is seeking the GOP nomination to Helms' seat this year. Gore was never even competitive in North Carolina, losing by 13 percentage points.
But Bowles, despite having occupied one of the most powerful positions in American government, lacks the celebrity status in North Carolina that Reno has in Florida, the result of the central role she played in some of the pivotal events of the Clinton presidency, including the Elián González custody case that enthralled the state and the nation.
Consequently, Bowles may have to turn to Clinton for help at some point in the campaign, especially if the GOP nominee is Elizabeth Dole, according to Black.
"And that will be a difficult calculation," Black added, "because endorsements are, after all, a character reference, aren't they? And if you're a Democrat in North Carolina, do you really want Bill Clinton as your character reference?"
So far, though, Bowles has emphasized the "bipartisan respect" he earned during his years in Washington -- an indication, he says, of what he can get done in the nation's capital on behalf of North Carolina.
State Rep. Daniel Blue, a Raleigh Democrat who is challenging Bowles for the party's Senate nomination, has persuaded Clinton to stay out of the contest until the nominee is selected. Blue, a former state House speaker, was one of three co-chairmen of Clinton's presidential campaign in North Carolina in 1992.
But while Clinton has remained out of the race, one of the former president's closest friends, Vernon Jordan, has been actively raising money for Bowles.
In Democratic primaries where Clinton is not neutral, however, his support for former aides has put them far ahead of their opponents, at least in the crucial area of fund raising.
For example, a personal appearance by Clinton earlier this month at a fund-raiser for former White House senior adviser Emanuel helped put Emanuel over the $1 million mark in funds for his campaign for a congressional seat in Illinois. His closest competitor, former state Rep. Nancy Kaszak, collected just $214,000 during the same period.
Clinton, despite the public airing of his personal conduct, is still the most popular Democrat, according to the Battleground polls done jointly by Democrat Celinda Lake and Republican Ed Goeas.
The latest Battleground poll, completed in early January, had Clinton receiving a "strongly favorable" rating from 23 percent of voters, compared with 17 percent for Gore and 13 percent for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat. (By comparison, Bush got a "strongly favorable" rating from 54 percent; Vice President Dick Cheney, from 37 percent.)
Democrats, in general, "lack the credibility" to challenge the president's economic policies, Goeas said in his analysis of the polling data. Not so Clinton, who presided over one of the most robust economies in American history.
In fact, Goeas suggested that Republicans "take a page out of Bill Clinton's playbook," letting voters know "there is more to be done" on the economy. "After all, it was extensively tested by the Democrats."
scotts@coxnews.com
I'm laughing out loud.
To raise money you have to have something to sell. Clinton used to have something to sell. He doesn't have anything much to sell anymore.
Would I want him on my campaign? Tough call, minority voters flock to him and he is much loved here in MN.
Ugh...benefits aside, I think that it would be like rooting through filth looking for truffles.
bust--rust--rot... Realatarians have a lot to say about it--the bridge from Hell!
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