Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Like Sands Through the Hourglass

Monday October 23, 2000

The major story of the weekend is the alarm spreading throughout the Democratic ranks that the election, which looked so promising a scant month ago, is now slipping away like the sand beneath their feet, with the tide running out, at the ocean's edge.

The Democratic party is looking to Bill Clinton to bail it out. Gore, though, has made it clear he doesn't want Clinton anywhere near him. As reported in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on Saturday by Scott Shepard, Gore said, "He [Clinton] is president of the country and has a full-time job. That's not just a throw-away phrase."

Wait just a cotton-pickin' minute. How come Gore's position as vice-president doesn't qualify as a full-time job? Oh, I guess it WAS just a throw-away phrase.

Clinton's real full-time job is raising more and more of that pesky soft money for the Gore campaign and the rest of the Democrats.

I want to negotiate Clinton's deal. He should demand that Gore, at every appearance, thank Clinton as "a man I believe will be regarded in the history books as one of our greatest presidents." And it must be said in front of an open, working microphone.

One of the few polls which had not reflected the swing toward Governor Bush was the MSNBC/Reuters/Zogby poll, which has had Bush tied with Vice President Gore. As of yesterday, that poll has moved as well and now has Bush leading 45-41. Pollster John Zogby said Bush has "opened a 13-point margin in the crucial Midwest region, where many experts believe the election will be decided."

Tom Raum's AP report regarding polls: "Even in polls where the race remains close, Bush had a decided advantage in enthusiasm of his supporters, which has increased since the debates. The enthusiasm of Gore's supporters dropped off and that can affect voter turnout."

You don't think this election is beginning to solidify? Here are a couple of quotes:
   - Frank Rich, NY Times (10/21): "Democrats anticipating the worst
   are starting to look for scapegoats."
   - Al Hunt, Wall Street Journal (10/20): "Fearing the top of the
   ticket is going down the drain, [Democrats are] crying for
   a more active Clinton involvement to rally hard-core
   Democratic voters and make a better case against the
   Republicans."

The Houston Chronicle's R.G. Ratcliffe wrote an excellent overview of the state of the campaign for yesterday's editions. See it here.

Stop the presses! In an editorial which contained 1,328 tortured words, the New York Times, yesterday, endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham for Senator from New York. Part of the endorsement was the following:
   "Her health care task force failed to deliver the promised reform.
   The investigative literature of Whitewater and related
   scandals is replete with evidence that Mrs. Clinton has a
   lamentable tendency to treat political opponents as enemies.
   She has clearly been less than truthful in her comments to
   investigators and too eager to follow President Clinton's
   method of peddling access for campaign donations. Her
   fondness for stonewalling in response to legitimate
   questions about financial or legislative matters
   contributed to the bad ethical reputation of the Clinton
   administration."

A Washington Post editorial used 1,518 words endorsing Al Gore for President including these:
   "[Mr. Gore's] political clumsiness and know-it-all manner raise
   questions about his ability to inspire the country and
   work with Congress. His defense of President Clinton's
   indefensible moral and legal lapses, and his own role in
   the fundraising excesses of 1996, move into the realm of
   understatement Mr. Gore's characterization of himself as
   an "imperfect messenger" for reform. [sic] His bench --
   his team of advisers on international and domestic policy
   -- is unimpressive. There is a risk, too, that he would
   meddle in economic matters better left alone, and thereby
   derail growth."

The Times and the Post could have distilled their endorsements to the only five words that really count on West 43rd Street and on 15th Street Northwest: "Because she/he is the Democrat."

This may be the first time in American politics that the candidate NOT endorsed by a newspaper uses that paper's endorsement of their opponent in an attack ad.

For those of us who think the Washington Post occasionally gets things backwards, click here to see the actual, unretouched image from the Post's website as it existed at 12:15 pm yesterday:

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