Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 7, 1993 TAG: 9312100284
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: William Safire
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A local election in a television age has a national impact. The national fixation on presidential fortunes has an effect on the decisions of voters in local elections.
In the urban base of the GOP's 1993 triple play, Republican Rudy Giuliani was squeaking past Mayor David Dinkins on the crime issue. Then Bill and Hillary Clinton came in and turned it into an open ``race race'' with his inflammatory ``too many of us are still too unwilling to vote for people that are different than we are.''
That grated on my ears (he meant to say ``people who are different from ourselves'') but grated more coarsely on the ears of white New York liberals, fed up with a passive mayor, who did not appreciate the president lecturing them about how their anti-incumbent votes were motivated by racism. In this way, Clinton nationalized the city's election and magnified Democratic defeat.
In Virginia, a stone's throw from D.C., Republican George Allen ran against the ``Clinton-Wilder-Robb'' set, the Clinton tax double-cross, and the Clinton government-controlled health plan.
Local Democrats, afflicted with voter distaste at their national policies, were reduced to running against fear of the religious right; they succeeded only in knocking off a novice running for lieutenant governor. In the statehouse, Gov. Allen will help steer Virginia rightward in national races.
New Jersey was the big one.
The defeat of Democratic Gov. Jim Florio was rooted in the most national of issues - tax increases - and had the greatest impact. Liberals were saying for weeks that New Jersey was the key battleground this year because they thought a Florio victory would endorse Clinton's tax hikes.
But the winner, Christie Whitman, promised tax cuts for economic growth, and her victory is a blow to Clintonism. Her campaign strategist, Ed Rollins, was a card-carrying Reaganite; Florio's James Carville is Clinton's political guru, who should change his favorite sign to ``It's the taxation, stupid.''
What do this week's three-for-three GOP victories, added to three-for-three earlier this year, mean for national politics?
The impossible is now possible: Control of the U.S. Senate is within reach, which would effectively end the creeping centralization of government power.
Looking especially vulnerable are Democrats Robb of Virginia and Lautenberg of New Jersey. Wofford of Pennsylvania is shaky, as are Bingaman of New Mexico and Kohl of Wisconsin. Mathews of Tennessee, appointed to Al Gore's seat, is a GOP target, as is Jim Sasser, who also runs in '94. (Tennessee Republicans are eager to have the vice president nationalizing their campaigns; they think he can be as useful as Hillary Clinton was to Dinkins and as Janet Reno was in campaigning for Florio.)
Democratic open seats are Riegle's in Michigan, Metzenbaum's in Ohio and DeConcini's in Arizona; Republicans have a good shot at all three. Of open seats now Republican - Durenberger's in Minnesota, Danforth's in Missouri and Wallop's in Wyoming - only Minnesota is considered vulnerable.
What can turn a possibility into a reality? Events like Election Day 1993, for starters; as Dole says: ``Winning builds confidence. Winning helps us raise money and recruit candidates.'' Losing works the other way: In D.C. today, it's hard to tell a Democrat from a Redskins fan.
If Republicans, running as candidates of change, upset the status quo in the Senate in 1994, the recent statist drift would be corrected. Clinton would not be finished - the results of his foreign economic policy might save his political life - but all eyes would be on the likely Republican challengers.
California Gov. Pete Wilson is on the comeback trail; if re-elected in '94, he and Jack Kemp - both reach-out conservatives - will be front-runners in the primaries, putting the party in a win-win position. What about Bob Dole, who might then be majority leader - would he give up that power to run for president?
Dreamily, Dole says: ``That would be a nice worry to have.''
N.Y. Times News Service
by CNB