Democrat Hopefuls Told to Run on Clinton Record

Democratic National Committee Chairman David Wilhelm on Wednesday denounced Democratic candidates, including the loser in this week’s special House election in Kentucky, for not running on President Clinton’s record.

“The lesson here is that Democrats should run as Democrats,” Wilhelm said, speaking of the loss Tuesday of a House seat in Kentucky held by Democrats for 129 years. The defeat spurred increased concern among Democrats and enthusiasm in Republican circles about prospects in the fall elections.

The election results and Wilhelm’s criticism underlined a problem that Democratic congressional candidates will face in November as a result of their party’s conquest of the White House in 1992. During the 12 years of the Ronald Reagan-George Bush presidencies, Democratic candidates could tailor their campaigns to suit local tastes with minimal concern about the national party.

But now they have to answer for Clinton’s policies, too, and this could be a heavy burden, especially in the South and other conservative areas where neither the President nor his policies are popular.

In off-year elections, the party controlling the White House traditionally loses seats in the House, where Democrats hold a 256-178 majority. But professionals in both parties said circumstances of the Kentucky contest suggest that House Democrats this year face a particular difficulty.

Adding to their burden is the gradual but steady realignment of the South’s congressional districts, which have long been dominated by Democrats.

The special election to replace the late Rep. William H. Natcher was won by Republican Ron Lewis, a minister and fundamentalist-bookstore owner who received 55% of the vote to 45% for Democrat Joe Prather, a former state legislator.

A distant underdog at the start of the campaign, Lewis benefited from an infusion of campaign funds and advice from the national party and from a zealous organizing effort by conservative Christians. He centered his campaign on linking Prather to Clinton, even running a commercial that depicted Clinton’s face blending into Prather’s.

In a district Bush carried in 1992, Prather concluded that he should keep his distance from Clinton and from the national party, refusing financial support or any other type of help.

Wilhelm contended that Lewis and other Democrats would be better off running on the President’s record. They should be “proud of deficit reduction, proud of (creating) 3 million jobs,” and should not “pretend as if you were in a different party or your President was somebody else,” he said. But some independent analysts and Democratic consultants rejected Wilhelm’s argument.

“Right now, the President is not seen as an asset” in many Southern districts, said Merle Black, Emory University specialist on Southern politics. Democratic candidates in those districts “are stuck with Clinton and he has given them an unpopular agenda.”

Black suggested that, instead of trying to defend Clinton’s policies, Democratic candidates should stress the practical advantages they could offer their constituents because a President of their party controls the executive branch.

“There’s no doubt about it that in parts of the South it’s just very hard right now to run stride for stride with Clinton,” said Saul Shorr, a Democratic consultant for half a dozen Democratic House candidates in the South. “It’s going to be a tough year for Democrats.”

Times political writer Ronald Brownstein contributed to this story.