House races look good for the GOP

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Oct 21, 1996 | by David Wagner

The Democratic spin machine is working overtime to return liberal leadership to the halls of Congress. Conservative Republicans, meanwhile, plan not only to duplicate their 1994 victories but to increase their majority by emphasizing that they have kept their promises.

Both major parties are confident in their predictions of how they will fare in House elections in November. Rep. Bill Paxon of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the GOP group in charge of electing Republicans to the House, claims that his party will rescue all of its incumbents, win more than half of the open seats and pick off a few vulnerable Democrats.

"Most of what the media are reporting about House races is Democrat spin ' an ebullient Paxon tells Insight. "Their spin is, they only need 19 pickups to take back the House, and that there are 74 vulnerable Republican freshmen. This ignores certain facts, such as there are at least 12 incumbent Democrats who are polling under 50 percent; there are 30 open seats where Democrats are retiring and where the electorate has moved toward the Republicans; and we have a recent precedent for reelecting all our incumbents 1994."

In a press conference held moments after Paxon's presentation, Rob Engel of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, said that 14 GOP incumbents are behind in the polls, and Democrats lead in five districts in which the incumbent Republican is retiring. A net gain of 19 for the Democrats would give them control, given that Rep. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, a self-described Socialist, would vote with the Democrats to organize the House.

DCCC officials did not return calls from Insight requesting details of this highly optimistic scenario.

While it's true that no GOP incumbents lost in 1994, it may be difficult to pull off that feat again when there are so many more Republicans to protect and some of them may be trailing. Insight asked Paxon to comment on Maine GOP freshman Rep. Jim Longley, who is now struggling for reelection against a strong opponent.

"The big unions poured half a million dollars into Jim's district this year," says Paxon, "calling him every bad name there is to call him and using every distorted argument they can get away with. As a result, Jim was down by 14 points at the end of the summer. Then we did one week of advertising for him, and in one week he regained seven of those 14 points. Now the race is even tighter. And that's before he and the others go on the offensive, which we'll do as soon as Congress gets out.

"The unions have spent $100 million on anti-Republican advertising ' continues Paxon, "and in spite of that, we've pulled ahead in the generic polls [where voters are asked what party they favor in their congressional race, without names of candidates]. As soon as people start to focus, our guys pull ahead. Jim'll be fine, and so will all the others.

"Another thing the Dems don't want you to write about," continues the voluble and enthusiastic Paxon, "is that at least 12 of their incumbents are trailing. Yet their optimism is based on reelecting them all. I'm not being any more of a cockeyed optimist than they are."

Besides Longley, four House Republicans from Washington state--George Nethercutt, Linda Smith, Randy Tate and Rick White--are facing close calls at best. In a multiparty primary in September, each garnered less than 50 percent of the vote (with more than 50 percent split among Democrats).

Campaign themes are fascinating. In an ideological role reversal, it is Democrats who are campaigning on the themes of caution and the need to go slow, while pinning on Republicans the label of revolutionaries. "They spent 18 months talking about themselves as revolutionaries," the DCCC's Engel said at his press conference, "and I think they scared the pants off the American people."

But Republicans are not finding such strong feelings about the GOP Congress--either for or against--in their districts.

Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey--one of a few lawmakers to earn scores higher than 50 both from the American Conservative Union and the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education--does not see much hostility toward the GOP Congress on the campaign trail, even though his district includes the overwhelmingly Democratic state capital, Trenton.

"The 'Contract With America' is not a factor--either for us or against us," Smith tells Insight. "Never was, to tell you the truth. We didn't win because of it in '94, and we won't lose because of it in '96. There's some concern about Medicare, but apart from that, the real doubts that I'm hearing are not about us--they're about Bill Clinton. The integrity issue in the presidential race is starting to gain some traction.

"I remind people about Joycelyn Elders," says Smith, "and they realize that's not what they want." Elders was President Clinton's first surgeon general, who eventually was forced to resign after advocating drug legalization and condom distribution in schools and making shrill attacks on opponents of abortion on demand.