Don’t Bet on Democrats in 2000 Elections

Democrats and others who believe the Republicans can best be described as “dead party walking” are going to be proved wrong.

There will be a shake-up in the 2000 congressional elections all right, but it’s the Democrats who are going to get their rear ends kicked, not the GOP. And House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), who decided not to risk seeking the Democratic presidential nomination because he can almost picture the gavel in his control, will have to continue coping with speaker envy awhile longer.

Yes, Bill Clinton and the Democrats are momentary winners, inasmuch as he will not be removed from office and the Republicans are reeling. But in the words of T.S. Eliot, who may have had the GOP in mind, there are no permanent defeats because there are no permanent victories. By the time the 2000 elections roll around, the Clinton White House will have drowned in its celebratory champagne and choked on its victory cigars. And, to the distant sound of the bongo drums, the Democrats will be dragged down in the process.

This is so because the majority of Americans are decent people who recognize Clinton as an indecent man, the polls on his job performance notwithstanding. When the impeachment trial is over and anger at the process inevitably subsides, the burden of bearing so immoral a leader will weigh heavier upon the people’s backs. While parents continue to teach their children the difference between right and wrong and most Americans go about their virtuous lives, Clinton’s continued presence as a poster boy for disgraceful conduct will gnaw away at their sensibilities.

Even more damaging will be the president’s inability to avoid further trouble during the two years remaining in his term. Unlike the cliche serial murderer who implores, “Stop me before I kill again,” the serial scoundrel in the Oval Office has no intention of stopping or being stopped. It has been demonstrated that it is not in his nature to reform his behavior.

There will either be revelations of new deplorable acts or new revelations of old acts, but either way it will deepen the public’s disgust. Honorable Americans who gave Clinton the benefit of the doubt in the wake of a good economy and an unpopular prosecution will finally turn against him. And they will also turn against the Democratic Party.

Despite the Democrats’ tut-tutting about the president’s escapades and cover-up, they will enter the 2000 campaign period wearing him around their necks like the Rock of Gibraltar. And the more shame Clinton heaps upon his office, the more the Democrats will be dragged downward. Republican congressional candidates, rather than hiding from the impeachment ordeal, would be wise to air TV ads featuring clips of Henry Hyde’s eloquent defenses of the rule of law. By the fall of 2000, the Republicans’ stand for principle and the Constitution is going to look a lot better to the voters than it does today.

Changing voter attitudes may also be bad news for the Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting, Al Gore. He doesn’t have Clinton around his neck; he’s attached to him at the hip. And there’s as much a chance of Gore trying to separate himself from Clinton as there is of Larry Flynt getting a Valentine card from the Republican National Committee.

Just as the British dumped Winston Churchill as prime minister in the post-World War II election, in part to rid themselves of every wartime vestige and start afresh, the voters’ revulsion at Clinton’s immorality may well mean they won’t want Gore hanging around as a reminder. The long, hot national shower the country will need to cleanse itself of Clinton may also wash Gore’s presidential aspirations down the drain.

Clinton, pumped up by the polls, has said he always puts his faith in the American people to do what’s right. So do I. That’s why I believe the voters will punish the Democrats in the 2000 elections in protest against the president’s knavery and his party’s ultimate defense of it. The conventional wisdom that the GOP is doomed is incorrect, and I’d be willing to bet my prized “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” coffee mug on it.