Revenge for Lewinsky saga a winning strategy

ON the historic day that he was impeached by the House of Representatives, President Bill Clinton surrounded himself with Democratic supporters in the Rose Garden of the White House and urged 'an end to the politics of personal destruction'.

The president, often credited with having a memory sharper than all the elephants in Africa, seemed to have forgotten those poetic words in recent days. As is his wont, he was sitting with aides indulging in one of his stream-of-consciousness ranting sessions, when his thoughts turned to Congressional Republicans.

With his acquittal in the Senate already assured, Mr Clinton was thinking about the year 2000. He began reeling off statistics about the districts of vulnerable Republican representatives, and vowed to punish the party for the impeachment ordeal by helping Democrats win back both the House and Senate in 2000.

When The New York Times published details of Mr Clinton's tirade, the White House hurriedly moved to quell suggestions that he was on a crusade to extract vengeance. But it would take a politician with the virtues of a saint to ignore what the opinion polls are telling him.

What those polls are saying now - and have been saying for months - is that try as the Republicans might to crawl out from Kenneth Starr's dark shadow, impeachment is the one issue that dominates public opinion. There can be little doubt that if a national election were held now, the Democrats would have a strong chance of taking back Congress, not to mention holding on to the presidency.

But two years is an eternity in politics, and the challenge for Democrats will be how to take the public relations prize handed them by the impeachment saga and translate it into victory two years from now. For Republicans, the task ahead involves digging themselves out of the deepest hole they have found themselves in for a decade. From the glorious days of Newt Gingrich's conservative revolution of 1994, when the party won control of both houses for the first time in nearly two generations, it now finds itself rudderless and adrift in a storm which was partly of its own making.

The warning was sounded by record company mogul David Geffen, one of Mr Clinton's favourite celebrity fund-raisers, who said last week: 'After these years of Ken Starr, people are more energised than I've seen them since the 60s and 70s. Many of us are looking forward to spending time and money and effort to defeat James Rogan.' Mr Rogan, the House impeachment manager with the shakiest seat, is just one of many Republicans who can look forward to a Democratic onslaught. Mr Clinton is already slated to attend a national programme of fund-raising events which could net an initial US$10 million (HK$77 million) for the Congressional races. Meanwhile, Republicans will have viewed with dismay the recent decision of the Democrats' House leader Richard Gephardt not to enter the race for the White House. His decision not only frees the party to concentrate on Al Gore's candidacy, but means that Mr Gephardt can use his formidable campaigning powers to focus exclusively on re-conquering Capitol Hill.

There probably exists no Republican politician who does not rue the day he or she first heard of Monica Lewinsky. Those heady early days of the scandal, when it seemed as if the president's days were numbered, soon evaporated as Mr Starr's investigation dragged on and the public began to lose patience. Even after the Starr report laid bare the unseemly and borderline illegal behaviour of the president, the Republicans could not counter the growing perception that Mr Clinton was the victim of a cabal of right-wing conspirators. Opposite Paula Jones and her lawyers, Linda Tripp, Kenneth Starr and conservative literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, a scoundrel like Mr Clinton looked positively cuddly.

Torn between the bloodlust of their party's right-wing and the unease of moderate voters, Congressional Republicans were in an impossible position. Once they decided to take the high road and argue that it was their constitutional duty to pursue impeachment, their position was tenable only so long as they held home-base support.

But last November's disappointing election result showed that the Lewinsky scandal, far from being a vote-winner, was a chain around the party's neck.

Even now, there is evidence that party elders are still in shock at the realisation that, even though 70 per cent of Americans thought Mr Clinton guilty of the crimes for which he was impeached, the same percentage wanted him to remain in office. The president's continued high approval ratings are like Banquo's ghost, haunting and taunting Republicans.

The party realises, however, that it must immediately regroup and present an agenda which identifies it as much more than the anti-Clinton party. The problem is that the president already has an iron grip on the issues which most concern the voters - saving the social security system, reforming health insurance and improving education. The Republican movement's one Big Idea - a 10 per cent tax cut - is falling on deaf ears with voters, because they currently place more trust in the president to spend the budget surplus wisely. When a party cannot even seduce voters with promises of lining their wallets, they know they are in deep trouble.

'They're under a lot of pressure to move in our direction. We're not under any pressure to move in theirs,' according to Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. 'They're the ones who are in political trouble right now and need some achievements to rewrite their record as the party of impeachment.' Even Ralph Reed, a Republican strategist and former head of the Christian Coalition, is recommending that the party shift away from divisive issues such as abortion and focus more on voter-friendly policies.

It might be no coincidence that the two front-runners for the party's presidential nomination, George W Bush and Elizabeth Dole, represent just this middle-of-the-road approach. Neither has formulated an agenda of note, yet party strategists recognise the appeal of what Mr Bush has recently called 'compassionate conservatism'.

Both these two figures also have the distinct advantage of being untainted by the impeachment battle.

Close rivals, including Steve Forbes and Dan Quayle, have already derided the 'compassionate conservatism' catchphrase, ensuring that the Republican party's primary battle is going to be providing the real fireworks next year - especially when contrasted with the soporific prospect of watching Mr Gore waltz off with the Democratic nomination.

While there can be no doubt that the Democrats currently hold the political cards, and that Republicans will face a stiff task in defending their Congressional majorities, the White House race is far more open than most Democrats would like to admit. If Republicans want an incentive, they can find it by reminding themselves how Mr Clinton rebounded from his darkest hour - the 1994 mid-term elections fiasco - to coast to victory against Bob Dole only two years later.

The party needs only to get one thing right - selecting the best candidate. It failed miserably in 1996, a victim as much of a field of lacklustre challengers as of an uncharismatic front-runner. It would be an irony indeed if it took Mr Dole's wife to undo his mistakes and bring him into the White House by the back door. But the prospect of a Liddy Dole nomination - complete with the resulting siphoning off of female Democratic voters - must be causing Mr Gore's campaign sleepless nights.

Although none of Mr Clinton's character problems have rubbed off on the vice-president's image, neither is the Republican party's image as impeachment villain going to rub off on Mrs Dole.

Quite what all this means for the governing process over the next two years is anybody's guess. Mr Clinton may be a lame-duck president, but he is also one that badly needs to bolster his legacy before he leaves office. Meanwhile, the Republican leadership needs to balance its drive to start getting legislation passed with the public's wish that it work hand-in-hand with the White House. Both sides have promised to put aside the rancour of the past year and dedicate themselves to bipartisanship - but if the recent past is anything to go by, such promises are likely to disintegrate into partisan gridlock.

The Republicans are under a lot of pressure. They're the ones in political trouble and need some achievements to rewrite their record as the party of impeachment Simon Beck