Clinton Advisors Grasp at Strategy as Support Ebbs

Several Republicans--including three the White House had hoped to win over--Monday announced that they would vote to impeach President Clinton as his advisors grasped for new strategies to protect him.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers said that the only person who can change the dynamic in the climactic vote in the House of Representatives later this week is Clinton himself, who had little new to say Monday.

White House officials tried to stoke public outrage over the refusal of House Republicans even to allow a vote to censure rather than impeach the president. Some outside groups have begun an 11th-hour effort to lobby against impeachment. But the president’s advisors did not hold out much hope that those efforts would succeed.

Stripped of their usual tools for leveraging votes in Congress, White House officials appeared to be at a loss on how to reverse the apparent trend toward impeachment.

“The reality is there is less and less that can be done from here,” said Ann Lewis, White House communications director. “This is a somber place. We’ve got a very difficult challenge. I don’t want to kid anyone.”

But brief comments by the president, who was traveling in the Middle East on Monday, offered little to wavering Republicans.

“I have offered to make every effort to make any reasonable compromise with the Congress. . . . I’m still willing to do that,” Clinton said during a brief exchange with reporters while visiting Gaza.

But Clinton suggested that he has no plans to admit lying under oath about his relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky, a condition that some undecided GOP House members have said would enable them to vote against impeachment.

“I’ve said what I had to say about that,” Clinton said. The president returns to Washington today. The vote in the House could come as early as Thursday.

Vice President Al Gore flatly rejected the possibility that the president would resign, as some congressional Republicans have suggested. The vice president again denounced the president’s behavior as “terribly wrong” and for the first time said that Clinton should be censured but not impeached.

Gore’s remarks were part of an effort to build public pressure on Republicans to allow a vote to censure the president rather than impeach him. The GOP House leadership has argued that censuring the president would be unconstitutional. Giving moderate Republicans an option to vote for a the lesser rebuke might dilute the impeachment votes, something Republican leaders are determined not to do.

But for all those signs of eroding support for Clinton and White House gloom, vote counters on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill said it is far from certain how the House vote will turn out on four articles of impeachment. Enough lawmakers have remained silent on the issue to leave vote counters in doubt, strategists said.

3 Democrats for Impeachment

There are 227 Republicans, 206 Democrats and one independent in the House. Three Democrats have said that they will vote for impeachment and six Republicans have said that they will vote against it.

The pool of potential Republican supporters for Clinton was further drained Monday. The several who announced their support for impeachment included three GOP moderates whom the White House and their Democratic allies had considered potential votes for the president: Rep. Zach Wamp of Tennessee; Frank A. LoBiondo, the latest of a several moderates from New Jersey to support impeachment, and Charles F. Bass, who represents a New Hampshire district that has voted for Clinton in both 1992 and 1996. Also coming out in support of impeachment was Rep. George R. Nethercutt Jr. (R-Wash.), but Clinton allies had not been expecting to win him over.

More ominously, some of the six Republicans who at one time had been open opponents of impeachment appeared to be reconsidering their positions.

“If I had to vote today, I would vote against impeachment. But I am troubled by the president’s statements and his continued inability to tell the truth,” said Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) who has said in the past that the president’s conduct was offensive but did not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

In Jerusalem, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said that the president would meet personally with Shays, who requested a one-on-one session, and with any other member of Congress who wants to talk about the topic.

Another, Rep. Mark E. Souder (R-Ind.), an early opponent of impeachment, reportedly is reconsidering his position.

In an indication of how dismal the atmosphere has become, a rumor circulated that Bernard Sanders of Vermont, the only independent and the only socialist in Congress, also was changing his impeachment vote to a yes. Sanders’ office denied the report.

But besides trying to rally public opinion for the president, White House strategists seemed at a loss.

The usual tools that the White House has used to leverage votes in Congress--a promise to support a legislator’s pet program or a threat to veto a favorite bill--seemed unseemly and ineffective, tactics too heavy-handed for a vote of constitutional consequence.

“There is no war room [to coordinate White House lobbying efforts],” Lewis said. “This is not that kind of vote.”

Paul Begala, a senior political advisor, said that key moderates are already facing a great deal of pressure from their own party.

“One thing we want to guard against is the sort of tactics that some of these members see as too heavy-handed,” Begala said. “I don’t know if those kind of tactics would work anyway.”

Some outside advisors have suggested that the president make a public address to the House and take questions from members. But White House officials said it is too early to discuss any such option.

“That’s the big question: How does the White House change the dynamic between now and the vote later this week?” said a top House GOP aide. “Unless the president is willing to make a dramatic admission, I don’t think he can.”

Some Democrats said that there is little Clinton can do at this stage. “The president is just checkmated in terms of not being able to do much more,” said Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento). “Even if he admits perjury the way these moderates want him to, then one could argue, ‘Well, then, we really have to proceed ahead with impeachment . . . and it could even make matters worse.’ ”

There were signs that the public, seemingly apathetic to this point about impeachment, is beginning to react. Members of Congress have experienced a surge of phone, e-mail and faxed messages on the subject.

Telephone calls to the Capitol are coming at a rate of 14,000 a day--about twice the average, a House official said. E-mail traffic is up. House computer system officials have sent out a warning to its users that one of the House Web sites that provides public access to members has been slowed because of the increased traffic.

Although much of the outside lobbying on the issue has come from the pro-impeachment side of the debate, such as the Christian Coalition, anti-impeachment forces began mounting a belated counter-effort.

Radio Ads to Begin Airing Today

The liberal People for the American Way Monday announced that it would begin airing anti-impeachment radio ads today in three markets--Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio--that reach the constituents of several undeclared moderate Republicans. The ad features a man and woman expressing disbelief that Congress is actually going to vote on impeachment and fear that a Senate trial would paralyze the country.

“The congressional leadership is hoping the American people are too preoccupied to notice what’s happening in Congress,” said Carol Shields, president of the group. “But the people are proving them wrong.”

An Internet-based anti-impeachment effort, moveon.org, has collected more than 350,000 petitions against impeachment.

Although the American Civil Liberties Union has taken no position on the question, the Southern California chapter Monday called a press conference to denounce the drive to oust Clinton.

Although the trend appears to be against the president, the battle is not over, Republicans and Democrats agreed.

Some Democratic strategists said that the momentum against the president may seem exaggerated because any Republicans who are voting no may be more reluctant to go public before the roll is called.

“I still think we’re going to win,” said a top Democratic leadership aide. “But I don’t think my friends in the White House agree. They seem a little depressed.”

Times staff writers Alissa J. Rubin and Ronald Brownstein contributed to this story.

Times on the Web: You can let your congressional representative know your views on the possible impeachment of President Clinton with the Write to Congress service provided by The Times Web site: https://www.latimes.com/scandal

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