Gingrich bogeyman fails to faze California voters

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 15, 1996 | by Laurie Kellman

Republican Tom Campbell's landslide victory in a special election last month to fill a vacant House seat from California suggests that House Speaker Newt Gingrich is not nearly as juicy a target as President Clinton was in 1994, Republicans say.

Democrats tried to defeat Campbell, a former House member, by linking him to Gingrich in much the same way the GOP successfully tarred the association of incumbent Democrats with Clinton in 1994.

Despite the failure of the strategy in a historically Democratic district, Democrats vow to stick with it. "I think that Newt Gingrich is giving us one of the best toeholds so far for climbing back to the top," says Democratic campaign consultant Raymond D. Strother. "I think virtually every client I represent would benefit from running against him."

That view, repeated in virtually every corner of the Democratic Party, has been welcomed by triumphant Republicans. "If that's what they think works, God bless 'em," says Rep. Bill Paxon of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "The results will be as poignant and painful for them as . . . in California." Voters in the state's 15th District, west of San Jose, elected Campbell 59 percent to 36 percent over Democrat Jerry Estruth, a former San Jose City Councilman. Campbell has replaced Rep. Norman Y. Mineta, a 10-term Democrat who resigned to take a job in the defense industry

The 15th District leans overwhelmingly to the Democrats. Clinton beat George Bush there 46 percent to 30 percent and Bush lost Mineta's district to Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988. Since 1978, Mineta's reelection total never slipped below 57 percent.

Instead of promoting Estruth or contrasting his agenda with Campbell's, Democrats ran against Gingrich and the "Gingrich-campbell team." Their press releases were peppered with references to the speaker's control of the GOP agenda and legal questions pertaining to GOPAC, the political-action committee he once ran. In a two-page political tract released in early December, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee never mentioned Estruth, his political agenda or his differences with Campbell.

Nevertheless, Democrats say they achieved a "moral victory" by forcing Campbell, a Stanford University professor who touts himself as a fiscal conservative and social liberal, to spend more than $1 million and publicly distance himself from Gingrich.

"Democrat Jerry Estruth forced a debate on Newt Gingrich's extremist agenda," says Rep. Martin Frost of Texas, chairman of the Democratic congressional committee. "And in the process, the predicted blowout was transformed into a race that required Campbell . . . to run away from the titular and ideological leader of his party." From this, Frost concludes, Newt's agenda doesn't sell in California."

"Jerry Estruth and his national Democrat Party advisers had nothing to offer but fear and fiction," Paxon says. "If their strategy won't work in the strongly Democrat 15th District, it won't work anywhere."

Other House members say the truth probably is somewhere in between. Several Republicans who had been concerned that Gingrich's gaffes and ethics investigation would become a liability next year say Campbell's win infused them with new, but cautious, optimism. "The fact that [Democrats'] strategy failed in a Democratic district suggests that they're looking at a real stink bomb if they're going to try it nationally next year," says Rep. Mark E. Souder, an Indiana Republican and outspoken critic of Gingrich's volatile political image. "The anti-Newt message is about his personality. Voters agree with his policy agenda but they're uncomfortable with his temperament. Clinton is the opposite. He has an acceptable temperament but his policy has offended everyone from motorcyclists to smokers."

Rep. Gene Taylor, a Mississippi Democrat, says that, while Gingrich's conservative social agenda gives his party plenty of ammunition, national Democrats can't rely on the speaker for political strength. "You can't just count on the other guy to fumble," he says. "You have to stand for something."

Nonetheless, Frost vows to repeat the strategy in the 1996 elections. The difference, he says, is that members running for reelection next year, particularly the conservative 73-member freshman GOP class, have voting records that prove they stand aligned with Gingrich's principles.