Wilhelm Predicts Whitewater Will Fade by Summer

Democratic National Chairman David Wilhelm predicted Saturday that President Clinton’s Whitewater troubles will subside by midsummer and will not be a major issue in November’s congressional elections.

“I think Whitewater will recede . . . because the President and the First Lady are cooperating with the special counsel,” Wilhelm said on CNN’s “Evans & Novak” show. “They’re answering the questions that are being raised.”

Wilhelm, who managed Clinton’s presidential campaign two years ago, said Republicans are using the Whitewater affair as “part of a political strategy designed to promote gridlock, to slow the President down.”

He acknowledged that news accounts detailing the Clintons’ investments in the 1980s when Clinton was attorney general and governor of Arkansas were not “helpful” in advancing the President’s agenda.

But Wilhelm said public interest in the Whitewater controversy will wane once congressional hearings are held on the Clintons’ partnership with the owner of a failed Arkansas savings and loan in the land development project.

The Clintons claimed they lost money on the Whitewater deal. Federal regulators and a special counsel are investigating whether federally insured deposits from the failed Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan may have been used to cover Whitewater losses and debts from Clinton’s 1984 gubernatorial campaign.

“You have a Republican Party that is obsessed with Whitewater and doesn’t seem to have a clue about what should be done to move the country forward,” Wilhelm said.

“But I think by midsummer, by the time the fall elections come around, the amount of attention will be lessened and the real attention will be focused on issues like health care reform, welfare reform and economic growth,” he said.