Clinton Scandal Cuts Both Ways for Candidates

Republican Tom Roberg and Democrat Jay Inslee, two challengers bidding for congressional seats this fall, each had new ads on the air within hours of the recent House vote to authorize an open-ended impeachment investigation of President Clinton.

It was not surprising that Roberg, running for a House seat in and around Raleigh, N.C., immediately assailed incumbent Democrat David E. Price for voting against the GOP proposal. More unexpected was the decision by Inslee, a former representative trying for a comeback against Republican Rep. Rick White in suburban Seattle, to rush out ads with an even more emphatic message.

In a dramatic television spot, Inslee insisted that Congress should censure--but not impeach--Clinton and attacked White for supporting the unrestricted GOP inquiry: “Rick White and Newt Gingrich shouldn’t be dragging us through this,” Inslee said in the ad. “Enough is enough. It’s time to get on with the nation’s business.”

Just a few weeks ago, the scandal surrounding Clinton’s affair with Monica S. Lewinsky appeared likely to exert a straightforward effect on this year’s campaign: It would inspire Republicans and force Democrats on the defensive. But the fact that both Roberg and Inslee see potential advantage in the impeachment vote shows that the crisis surrounding Clinton is actually affecting the campaign in unexpectedly diverse and complex ways.

In most of the closely contested races, candidates in both parties still are cautious, avoiding unequivocal statements for or against Clinton and generally playing down the scandal. But the issue is continuing to flare in some contests--and increasingly, it is Democrats who are as likely as Republicans to light the match.

Indeed, national Democratic strategists say that if Inslee’s ads prove effective against White, other Democratic challengers can be expected to inject similar messages into their advertising during the campaign’s final weeks.

“If it rains,” said one top Democratic campaign official, “it is going to pour.”

Indeed, late last week Democratic challenger Ralph Neas unveiled radio ads chastising Rep. Constance A. Morella (R-Md.) for her vote favoring the impeachment inquiry. Neas, seeking to upset Morella in a suburban district Clinton carried in 1996, says in the ad he favors “formal censure” of the president but argues that the GOP has gone too far in pressing the impeachment proceeding.

For Democrats, the swing Seattle-area district where Inslee and White are squaring off is a revealing place to test the power of an anti-impeachment message. Running through middle-class suburbs around Puget Sound, the district is closely balanced between the parties. In 1996, White--a fiscal conservative and social moderate first elected in 1994--carried 54% of the vote, not much more than the 51% Clinton garnered in winning the district against Bob Dole.

Despite White’s narrow margin last time, Inslee faces an uphill climb. In the state’s open primary last month--in which voters are free to select candidates from any party, as in California--White led Inslee by only 6 percentage points.

The electoral calculus is complicated by the presence of a third-party candidate, social conservative Bruce Craswell. Craswell’s candidacy means that it will be possible to win the district with less than 50% of the vote, which increases the incentive for Inslee to motivate his core supporters.

At a series of appearances last week, Inslee did his best to do just that as he unequivocally condemned the House vote on impeachment. “While we are in one of the greatest global financial collapses of all time, while we have potential military intervention in Kosovo . . . , we have a Congress that is engaged in other issues,” he declared at one stop. “We need to censure the president for his wrongs . . . and get on with the nation’s business.”

A sudden chirp of applause broke out and dozens of nodding heads bobbed around the room. The same thing happened two hours later when Inslee appeared at a candidates’ forum in Seattle’s Shoreline neighborhood.

“I think if you look, you will find he’s right. We are not addressing the needs of the country,” letter carrier Bob James said afterward. “I think there’s a mood out there that says Mr. Clinton did wrong but even with all the legal terminology, he did not do an offense against democracy.”

Brett Bader, a Republican political consultant working with White, said that for every Bob James, Inslee’s ads are also activating conservatives outraged at Clinton’s behavior. “The Republicans supporting White have been made angry, and they’re stepping up their efforts.”

No other Democrat has yet bet as heavily on an anti-impeachment backlash as Inslee, but several are moving in that direction. In California, Sen. Barbara Boxer, trying to parry intense criticism from GOP challenger Matt Fong that she initially failed to condemn Clinton after his admission of an affair with Lewinsky, argued in a Monday night debate for quickly concluding the investigation.

In a debate Wednesday with Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale), a key member of the Judiciary Committee, Democratic challenger Barry Gordon said Clinton deserves punishment for his “reprehensible” actions but not impeachment.

Gordon, running in a district that includes Burbank and part of Pasadena, went on to accuse Rogan and other GOP leaders of being consumed with Clinton’s downfall and ignoring more pressing national concerns, such as patients’ bill of rights legislation and campaign finance reform. “Apparently, [Rogan] would rather be talking to Sam Donaldson in Washington than to the voters here at home,” Gordon said.

Democratic pollster Geoff Garin said the Democrats most likely to employ this type of argument are those running in the 30 House districts that elected Republicans to Congress in 1996 but also gave a majority to Clinton. “In those districts, I think we will see more and more Democrats being willing to debate the Republicans’ handling of the impeachment process.”

One such district is in the Cincinnati area and is now represented by Republican Steve Chabot, a Judiciary Committee member who staunchly supported the GOP resolution. Chabot is being challenged by Democrat Roxanne Qualls, the Cincinnati mayor, in one of the nation’s most competitive races.

Yet Qualls exemplifies the tightrope most Democrats are walking on this issue. Last week, she welcomed into the district Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), a Judiciary Committee member who has clashed vehemently with Chabot and his GOP colleagues on impeachment. But Qualls has been considerably more circumspect herself.

Earlier in the week, during a tour of a downtown community center for seniors, she had no sooner finished telling a visiting reporter how insignificant the Clinton controversy has been in her race when Henry Houston, an 85-year-old retiree and Clinton supporter, lifted his head from his sausage and sauerkraut and raised the hot potato.

“You’ve got to keep him,” Houston said to Qualls, who knew full well who Houston was talking about. She crouched down next to him, grasped his enormous hand and never revealed her own feelings about the controversy. “I’m in a listening mode,” she explained later.

In an interview, Qualls said she would have voted against the GOP inquiry and in favor of the more limited Democratic alternative. But she seemed eager to change the subject and passed up the opportunity to criticize Chabot for his vote. “Obviously we have different views on the need for an open-ended inquiry,” she said tersely.

Qualls’ caution reflects the reality that in socially conservative parts of the country, anger at Clinton’s behavior remains a potential threat to Democrats. Most Democratic incumbents in such areas with credible Republican challengers moved to neutralize the issue by voting for the GOP’s inquiry resolution. One of the few who did not was North Carolina Democrat Price--a decision that’s left an opening for GOP challenger Roberg.

Roberg, a Raleigh computer company executive who lived in Los Angeles for 15 years before moving to North Carolina, is running a credible but underdog race: A newspaper poll released last week showed Price leading with 54% of the vote, a number still just below the comfort zone for an incumbent.

In early September, only a day after the report by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr reached Capitol Hill, Roberg began running radio and television ads urging Price to join him in calling for Clinton’s resignation.

When Price declined the invitation, Roberg’s ads got tougher: “This is not the time to be silent, Mr. Price,” he declared in a second ad.

After Price voted against the GOP impeachment resolution, Roberg’s ads turned up the volume another notch: “We’re disappointed, Mr. Price. You were unwilling to even vote for an inquiry.”

In fact, Price voted for the Democratic alternative. He opposed the Republican proposal, he said, out of concern that it could “stretch the inquiry out for months or years.”

Now Roberg is recalibrating his strategy. Though he says he will continue running a radio ad criticizing Price’s vote on the inquiry, he intends to shift his television advertising toward a spot touting his business experience. At a luncheon speech last week to the Woman’s Club of Raleigh, Roberg never mentioned the scandal and instead focused on education, Social Security and health care.

“People know where I stand and where he stands,” Roberg said, explaining why he had decided to de-emphasize the scandal. More pointedly, he added: “People are tired of it.”

Similarly, in the moderate San Fernando Valley district now represented by Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman, Republican challenger Randy Hoffman happily obliged when the host at a Monday night radio debate between the candidates declared the program a “Monica Lewinsky-Free Zone.”

In previous weeks, Hoffman has denounced Clinton for lying about the Lewinsky affair, calling him an embarrassment to the nation. But Hoffman has not criticized Sherman for his vote last week against the Republican inquiry. And during last week’s debate, the GOP businessman told listeners he had no idea how the scandal and impeachment debate might affect their contest.

“It’s not something we’re focused on at all in the campaign,” said Hoffman.

In both parties, the candidates challenging that judgment still remain the exception.

Times staff writers Ronald Brownstein in Washington and Phil Willon in the San Fernando Valley contributed to this story.