THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 29, 1996 TAG: 9604290127
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
Opposing wife-and-husband political pros, Republican Mary Matalin and Democrat James Carville, met Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press.
Their brisk exchanges showed that a few Republican disgrunts needn't have protested her becoming a volunteer in Bob Dole's campaign. (She offered to resign but will have the role, after all.)
Moderator Tim Russert asked if the objections didn't underscore the gender gap in the GOP.
Republicans, as well as Democrats, have Neanderthals, she said: ``They don't speak for the party. . . . I'm here to say there are lots of women in the Republican Party . . . more women running, more women serving and more women in that campaign than, certainly, in the fake diversity of the Democratic White House where there's nothing but white men in the inner circle.''
(Among the cavemen was Virginia GOP Chairman Pat McSweeney.)
Russert sought comment from Carville, who said that GOP women had reassured him: ``You can't discriminate against a woman based on who she's married to.''
Dole and his campaign, he added, ``missed an opportunity to say, `This is a merit-based party, a merit-based campaign and if that woman wants to come in and volunteer . . . we're glad to have her.' ''
``Thank you, Mr. Matalin,'' she said. From then on, they disagreed.
Carville said an increase in the minimum wage would cause very little job loss and that 101 economists and three Nobel Prize winners endorsed it. Opposing it has hurt the GOP, he said.
``It is hurting us politically because we have been, on many issues, overcome by their demagoguery,'' Matalin countered. ``While we're doing all the hard work in the Congress, they're demagoguing,''
Further, she said, Carville cites studies that bolster his opinion; others show that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage reduces employment among ``the very people you purport to help.''
Russert quoted GOP Chairman Haley Barbour that Clinton ``is the first president to be deposed on Sunday, then turn around and offer a crime package on Monday.''
Is that going to hurt politically? Russert asked Carville.
``No,'' he replied, ``any American that's subpoenaed to be a witness in a trial is not part of the trial. He's testifying on behalf of the defense.''
In Whitewater, the Clintons have done all the things they campaigned against, Matalin said, ``so it's all hypocrisy.''
Carville alluded to Dole's having said that if people had to choose a guardian for their children, they'd pick Dole, not Clinton.
He began to cite a Washington Post poll that found 57 percent picked Clinton; but, seeing where he was heading, Matalin, a lioness shielding a cub from a foe, began cuffing him verbally, managing to diminish the impact of his point.
Make way, cavemen! ILLUSTRATION: Republican Mary Matalin and Democrat James Carville don't let
their marriage get in the way of their politics.
by CNB