WASHINGTON INSIGHT

WHOSE PROBLEM?: A Republican National Committee TV ad now airing shows videotape of illegal immigrants from Mexico swarming across the desert at night, past a customs checkpoint and into the United States. The voice-over says President Clinton has been soft on illegal immigrants. Powerful? Maybe. Fair? Not according to the Clinton/Gore campaign, which unearthed a copy of the original tape of the border crossings. It was produced by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1992, while Republican President George Bush occupied the White House. Told about the source of the images on the GOP ad, Mary Crawford, the RNC’s press secretary, doesn’t see a problem. Is it deceptive? “Absolutely not!” she said. “It’s completely irrelevant. The video helps us tell a story. This isn’t a news story. It’s an advertisement.”

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SNIFFED OUT: Defense Secretary William J. Perry may be the father of radar-evading “stealth” technology, but he proved unable to make it to Saudi Arabia this week without being detected. Perry had hoped to take a discreet trip to Riyadh over the weekend after a stay in Australia, where he had gone to pave the way for expanding U.S. military exercises there. But when word of the Saudi mission leaked out, the usually mild-mannered Defense secretary reportedly become so irate that he nixed the Saudi trip and ordered his plane back to Washington immediately. While aides fudged the issue with reporters, a determined Perry quietly took off for Riyadh again early Monday morning--this time making it halfway across the Atlantic before word of the trip got out. Maybe the defense chief should have a drink with FBI Director Louis J. Freeh. The nation’s top gumshoe made it all the way to Riyadh three weeks ago before the trip was discovered.

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HELP WANTED: Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole plans to announce the name of his running mate a week from Saturday, as he heads into San Diego for his nominating convention. Dole aides have formally interviewed seven men for the job: former Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. of South Carolina, sitting Govs. Thomas J. Ridge of Pennsylvania, George Voinovich of Ohio, John Engler of Michigan and Tommy G. Thompson of Wisconsin and Sens. Connie Mack of Florida and Don Nickles of Oklahoma.

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PLAYING IT COZY: Ward Connerly, the University of California regent who pushed through the college system’s ban on affirmative action, once seemed a likely speaker at this month’s Republican National Convention in San Diego. But that was before presumed GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole--struggling to change perceptions that he is anti-woman and anti-minority--started backing away from Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action initiative on the California ballot. Connerly, co-chairman of the Proposition 209 campaign, will attend the convention as a delegate but says: “I’m not soliciting any [speaking] role. I think the Republican Party has more to gain by cozying up to Proposition 209 than we have cozying up to the Republicans.” Referring to Dole’s bleak standing in the polls, he adds: “We’re not behind 23 points.”

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DOING THE MATH: How formidable is a 16-point lead for Clinton at this point? To pull even, Bob Dole has to convert about 8 million to 9 million of the estimated 105 million people who will vote Nov. 5. Spread over the 96 days remaining in the campaign, that’s about 90,000 people a day. Every day.