For Clinton, Dole, Big Five States Hold Key to Election

Start on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River and head west--across Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan--then skip across Lake Michigan to Illinois’ furthest edge. Welcome to Main Street of Campaign 1996--the road President Clinton and Republican challenger Bob Dole will travel almost obsessively through the Nov. 5 election.

The Big Five states traversed by this 1,000-mile-long causeway provide 99 electoral votes, better than one-third the 270 needed to win the White House. And with the nation’s two most populous states, California and New York, seemingly denied to Dole as things look now, Republicans acknowledge that their standard-bearer must win at least three of the Big Five to defeat Clinton (Democrats claim that Dole needs four).

The good news for Clinton, coming out of last week’s convention here, is that based on recent surveys, he would sweep all five if the election were held today.

The hope for Dole rests on the reality that the election is still nine weeks off--and that either his own stratagems, some Clinton blunder or some unforeseen external event will turn the tide in his favor.

The importance of the Big Five not only will force both candidates to commit much of their resources within those borders, but also serves to tailor the issue agenda to suit the tastes of the states’ 52 million citizens.

In California, issues such as immigration and affirmative action may be the hot buttons. In other parts of the country, cultural issues, such as school prayer or gay rights, may dominate.

But here, more bread-and-butter concerns prevail--and shape the presidential debate.

“These states make up the great industrial heartland,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “The people who live there are common-sense, middle-class, solid citizens who look at New York and California as cultural extremes.”

“For people here, Clinton’s character is not a focal point,” said Terry Madonna, a pollster in Pennsylvania. “They are worried about providing for their families and crime and can they send their kid to college.”

To be sure, the high-profile sex-for-hire allegation that forced the resignation of Clinton’s top political strategist, Dick Morris, served as a reminder of the potential explosiveness of the character questions that still surround the president. But even Republicans conceded that it will take a revelation bearing more directly on Clinton to have significant impact on the presidential contest in the Big Five states or anywhere else.

“It’s not going to hurt enough, unfortunately,” said longtime Republican consultant Lyn Nofziger of the Morris case.

The candidates, of course, will extend their efforts outside this one sector of Northeast and Midwest states. Clinton is hoping to make inroads in normally Republican Florida; Dole continues to maintain a surprisingly strong presence in California. Still, the Big Five states are expected to be the setting for the campaign’s main show.

What adds to their importance is that in recent presidential elections, they have voted as a bloc. In the three elections of the 1980s, all lined up behind GOP candidates Ronald Reagan and George Bush. In 1992, all reversed themselves and wound up in Clinton’s corner.

In the time remaining before election day, Dole bears the burden of carrying the fight to the front-running Clinton. And as the Republicans see it, the target of choice for their candidate in the Big Five states is the economy, with his chief weapon his proposal for a 15% across-the-board cut in income tax rates.

“This is the weakest of five post-World War II recoveries, and two-thirds of workers have anxiety about their jobs,” said Richard Williamson, a former Reagan White House aide and campaign strategist who lost a 1992 Senate race in Illinois. “Bob Dole has to say, ‘Staying the course isn’t good enough.’ ”

But in Michigan, Dole “has to convince people that the tax cut is real and that it will work,” said independent pollster Ed Sarpolus, who is based in the state. “There is a lot of skepticism that it won’t happen, and also people worry that it will add to the deficit.”

Still another difficulty for Dole and the GOP in this swath of key states is the party’s emphasis on a traditional “family values” approach to social issues. That approach helped attract conservative Christians in the 1980s, but it may have boomeranged in the ‘90s, creating a perception of narrowness and intolerance.

To win Illinois, said Williamson, Dole first has to say: “ ‘I am not a captive of the intolerant religious right. I am not [Christian Coalition Executive Director] Ralph Reed. I am not Pat Buchanan.’ The swing vote in Illinois doesn’t want to vote for that perceived intolerance.”

Clinton faces his own challenges in the Big Five. “The president has to respond to economic insecurity that people in these states feel in ways that demonstrate he shares their values,” Mellman said.

More than likely, Clinton will reprise the themes of his convention acceptance speech--tick off the accomplishments of his first term, outline his agenda for the rest of the century and remind voters of his efforts to defend the safety net of government programs against the alleged depredations of the Republican Congress.

In Pennsylvania, for instance, “the 104th Congress was the difference between the public attitude in 1995 and now,” Madonna said. “Pennsylvanians looked at what the Republicans were trying to do and just decided, ‘This is not what we want.’ ”

Here is a look at the campaign’s current landscape in each of the Big Five states:

* Illinois (22 electoral votes): Clinton starts out with a potent base in Chicago, kept solid by Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley. And the president, who won the state in a walk in 1992, does well in conservative southern Illinois.

“Carbondale is closer to Little Rock than it is to Chicago,” said Clinton’s 1992 national campaign manager, David Wilhelm.

Dole’s top supporter in the state is Republican Gov. Jim Edgar. But in the eyes of one state GOP leader, Edgar “has tremendous popularity but no clout.” Dole is presumed to have narrowed the nearly 20% lead Clinton enjoyed in the most recent polls, but even Republican Williamson conceded that Clinton has to be favored in the state.

* Michigan (18 electoral votes): Dole trailed by about 10 points statewide in a poll conducted by Sarpolus just after the GOP convention in San Diego. A particularly troublesome aspect of the survey for Dole is that in the Detroit suburb of Macomb County, which Bush carried in 1992 even as he lost the state, Dole trailed Clinton by a hefty margin.

For Dole to win the state, Sarpolus said, he must start generating enthusiasm among Macomb’s blue-collar ethnic voters for his tax-cut proposal.

* New Jersey (15 electoral votes): This state’s suburban voters gave Reagan and Bush healthy majorities all through the 1980s. Clinton’s narrow win here in 1992 (his smallest margin among the Big Five) offered proof, Democrats contend, that the urban problems that caused the middle class to flee the cities had ultimately found new roots in the suburbs.

Dole’s best hope may be that the resentment of taxes stirred up by increases under former Democratic Gov. James J. Florio remains strong enough to rally support behind the GOP tax-cut proposal. But Rutgers University political scientist Cliff Zukin warned: “The same people who are gripped by economic uncertainty are the people who worry that when Dole talks about self-reliance, he means, ‘We are not going to help you.’ ”

* Ohio (21 electoral votes): Four years ago, traditionally conservative southern Ohio voters embraced Clinton’s message combining promises of economic revival with assurances that he favored individuals taking responsibility for their own lives.

The president’s major task is to hold their support. One potential problem spot, said University of Akron political scientist John Green is “a lot of unhappiness among core Democrats” in the Cleveland, Akron and Toledo areas about Clinton pushing through the North American Free Trade Agreement and signing the welfare reform bill. These Democrats might vent their anger by not voting.

Dole needs to win over suburban Ohio swing voters. “These people are concerned about the tax burden, so Dole’s economic message has appeal,” Green said.

* Pennsylvania (23 electoral votes): Dole’s problems here are pointed up by his weaknesses in two key areas. In the Philadelphia suburbs, normally a Republican stronghold, he barely edged Clinton in a recent poll.

And among Roman Catholic voters, who make up about one-third of the state’s electorate, Dole trailed Clinton by 18% in the survey.

Madonna said: “Pennsylvanians have trouble conceptualizing about campaign promises. But they do know about performance, and from observing Clinton’s performance, they are reasonably happy.”