Sustained Fervor Over Impeachment Likely to Be Costly Lesson for Rogan

Look around the country for signs of how the battle over impeachment will affect the 2000 election and you won’t find a more revealing test case than the one brewing in the suburbs north of downtown Los Angeles.

In 2000, no congressional race anywhere may provide more of a referendum on this bitter struggle than the likely bid for reelection by Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale). In a district defined by moderation, Rogan has embraced the effort to impeach President Clinton as a crusade--and virtually assured that his race will become one of the nation’s most expensive and fiercely fought. “Any way you can say the word ‘target,’ ” says Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, “it will be in neon when it comes to Jim Rogan.”

Political consultants are vigorously debating whether voters in 2000 will specifically remember and vote on their legislators’ decisions about impeachment. That’s a key question, but it obscures an even more important point. The unwavering public opposition to Clinton’s removal is likely to change the electoral environment for Rogan and other high-profile impeachment Republicans, whether or not large numbers of voters specifically cast their ballots on the issue next year.

That’s because the rage among Democratic activists today assures that some of these GOP legislators will face better-funded and higher-profile challengers than they would have otherwise. And that alone changes the political equation.

That kind of early ferment is evident in San Jose, where even dissident Republicans are organizing opposition to GOP Rep. Tom Campbell, a moderate who backed impeachment. Georgia’s newly elected Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes has told party officials that he plans to make it a personal mission to find a top candidate against Rep. Bob Barr, the impeachment hawk who won only 55% of the vote in November against a Democrat who spent just $11,000. And White House sources confirm it wasn’t entirely coincidental that Clinton’s huge rally the day after the State of the Union address was held in the Buffalo, N.Y., district of Republican Rep. Jack Quinn, whose switch from opposition to support of impeachment helped trigger the avalanche in the House.

Nowhere, however, is the impeachment crisis likely to shape the next two years more than in the district represented by Rogan, one of the 13 House prosecutors. In a sign of their focus, national Democrats already are polling there: A survey in the district on Thursday found that Clinton’s approval rating stood at 69%, and 44% of voters said they were less likely to vote for Rogan because of his role in prosecuting the impeachment case.

It’s a combination of terrain and fervor that’s placed Rogan in the cross hairs. His district, which runs along the San Gabriel Mountains from Burbank and Glendale east through Pasadena and San Marino, was slipping away from the GOP even before the impeachment fight. As GOP consultant Allan Hoffenblum notes, more middle-class African American, Asian American and Latino families are moving in, even as the older white families who provided the Republican base are being replaced by younger, more socially liberal whites.

Although neither side has an insurmountable advantage, the balance is “trending more Democratic,” Hoffenblum says. Clinton carried the district in 1992 and 1996. In 1996, Democrats captured the state Senate seat and the two state Assembly seats that surround Rogan’s district--each of which had long been in GOP hands. In 1998, Rogan (who was first elected in 1996) won only 50.2% of the vote against an opponent he outspent more than 2 to 1.

Others might have taken that as a yellow flag. But since the election, Rogan has thrown himself into the impeachment drive, convinced, he says, that “there is a very strong case.” Indeed, in the Senate trial, Rogan has displayed a zeal--some would say a zealotry--for pursuing Clinton, exceeded perhaps only by Barr.

Rogan was at the forefront of efforts, so far unsuccessful, to summon as witnesses the “Jane Doe” women who testified in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment case. Assigned to present the House’s perjury case, he was meticulous but excessive. Displaying a Clintonesque gusto for parsing words, Rogan even accused the president of lying because he said he had been alone with Lewinsky “on occasion”--when he really had 11 sexual encounters with her.

That cool, confident and relentless presentation has transformed Rogan’s identity. It has tagged him as a rising star to conservatives. But it also has put him on the radar for Democrats. Barry Gordon, Rogan’s 1998 opponent, raised only modest sums in Hollywood, even though he was a former president of the Screen Actors Guild. Now, Westside donors are already pledging to open checkbooks for whomever Democrats nominate against Rogan. “I think Rogan will be the Bob Dornan of 2000: People are going to be enthusiastic about supporting his opponent,” says Lara Bergthold, political advisor to producer Norman Lear.

That opponent could also be more formidable than Rogan has faced in the past. National Democrats are hoping to recruit either state Sen. Adam Schiff or Assemblyman Jack Scott. Neither is yet ready to say they will run, but both insist Rogan isn’t representing the views of his district on impeachment--and Schiff, in particular, isn’t shy about attacking Rogan’s role. “His true colors have come out in this performance, and voters will have a much better idea of who he is,” Schiff says.

His words every bit as crisp as his shirts, Rogan appears unfazed by these salvos. He’s probably right when he predicts that the right will mobilize to support him as ardently as the left mobilizes against him. His personable manner may dilute some of the backlash. And, like other Republicans in the same situation, he’s using political jujitsu to argue that the very unpopularity of the impeachment effort should reassure voters that he will follow his conscience and not just “put a finger in the wind.”

Echoing what’s becoming a blood oath for the leaders in the impeachment drive, Rogan says he is “prepared to lose an election” over this cause. Far more Democrats than ever look eager to give him the chance.