|
Jewish World Review May 19, 1999/ 4 Sivan 5759
MUGGER
(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
There are the polls, which his advisers keep telling him are meaningless, that show him being clobbered—particularly among women, Clinton’s strength—by George W. Bush and even Elizabeth Dole. As Maureen Dowd wrote in a devastating column on May 16: “Embarrassingly, [Gore] is losing the women’s vote to [Bush], the same vote that Saturday Night Bill [a phrase Dowd filched from Dick Morris, by the way] kept solid despite sexual harassment charges, despite an affair with an intern, despite humiliating his wife, despite a rape accusation. Mr. Gore, ever the faithful husband, ever the champion of diversity, shows up with posies and chocolates and women voters slam the door in this face.” The Beltway media’s become infatuated by his lone challenger, the equally soporific Bill Bradley, speculating that the country is simply tired of the present scandal-plagued administration. Two weeks ago Gore’s wife Tipper revealed that she suffered from depression after their son was seriously injured in a car accident back in 1989. She didn’t reveal in a May 7 USA Today article what drugs she took or the exact nature of her treatment, but told The Wall Street Journal’s in-house liberal Al Hunt that “I finally reached the point I was comfortable talking about this openly.” Okay. I guess it’s just coincidence that this “point” arrived just as her husband is tanking in the polls. That doesn’t bother Hunt. He wrote on May 13, reacting to cynicism within political circles: “But so what? She’s hardly the first political figure, businessman or athlete to try to seek the most advantageous avenue for a sensitive story.”
But last week was certainly the low point of Gore’s campaign, at least so far. For starters, he tapped former California Rep. Tony Coelho as the chief strategist in his election effort. Coelho, of course, resigned from Congress after accusations of financial improprieties, although no charges were ever brought against him. Still, Coelho’s an odd choice for a man who’s neck-deep in accusations of campaign finance violations of his own. Stranger still is the fact that Coelho was recruited by Clinton in the summer of ’94 to oversee the Democratic Party’s battle against the GOP in that fall’s congressional elections. According to The New York Times’ Richard Berke in a May 11 article, “Less than two months before the election, Mr. Coelho told USA Today that 1994 would be ‘a normal, off-year election’ and not as devastating as many Democrats feared.” Obviously, prescience isn’t Coelho’s long suit: The GOP won the House for the first time in 40 years and caused an abrupt change of policy, more conservative, at the Clinton White House. To make matters worse, Clinton called Berke at the Times last Thursday night to acknowledge that while Gore’s been stumbling he “still expected [him] to win his party’s nomination in 2000.” Now that’s an enthusiastic endorsement! Clinton told Berke: “It is true that I have urged him to go out there and enjoy this. I have told him to go out and have a good time. I want people to know him the way I know him. I want people to see him the way I see him.” According to Saturday’s Washington Post, Gore, who was traveling in North Carolina, had no idea that Clinton would share his concern with the Times. The Post’s Ceci Connolly wrote: “‘People today are not in a good mood,’ said one Gore loyalist, describing the vice president as angry. ‘He was furious,’ said a Gore political adviser. A congressional Democrat, after speaking to a Gore adviser, described the story and stir it caused as a ‘disaster.’” Part of the problem is that Clinton, who’d be doing Gore a favor if he simply played golf for the remainder of his term, can’t reconcile the fact that ’96 was his last campaign. He’s best on the hustings, pressing flesh, remembering the names of obscure assemblymen and lapping up the attention from the dwindling few in this country who still want to suck up to him. Kosovo? Too much of a headache. China? That was on Bush’s watch. Naah, let’s get out and eat some chicken-fried steaks and win this thing for Al! The Boston Globe’s pair of blithering idiots, columnists David Nyhan and Thomas Oliphant, are trying to help Gore, but their opinions are so myopic and goofy that the Vice President would be better off if they went on sabbatical for the next year. Nyhan, on May 16, had a splendid suggestion for Gore: Why not skip all the suspense and just announce that he’s chosen former Sen. George Mitchell as his running mate? I really have no clue as to whether Nyhan is a victim of Alzheimer’s disease, but on the off chance he isn’t, you’d think he’d remember that elder statesman Lloyd Bentsen didn’t help Michael Dukakis a bit in 1988. As I’ve written before, if Gore wanted to shake things up, he’d select Maryland’s Kathleen Kennedy Townsend for his ticket; she’s an earnest legislator who’d be sure to narrow the gender gap. Not to mention grabbing what’s left of the Kennedy magic.
I’ve seen Oliphant on C-SPAN and he appears to be the most pleasant man in Washington, so my recommendation for an immediate lobotomy is made without malice. Does Oliphant really think that Gore being “at the apex of decision making” in Clinton’s disastrous and criminal administration is a positive for his campaign? There was one piece of good news, albeit slight, for Gore last week: Some of the press is tiring of Bradley’s Adlai Stevenson shtick. The strongest article was written by The National Review’s Jay Nordlinger for the May 31 issue. Nordlinger’s tired of Bradley’s sanctimonious sermons on race, claiming that the former basketball player thinks he has a monopoly on mixing with black people. He writes: “In Bradley’s mind, it often seems, drinking fountains are still separate, little girls in pretty dresses are being blown up in churches, and Bull Connor’s dogs continue to bark... At his best, [Bradley] is tolerable—even thoughtful. But at his worst, he succumbs to a vision of himself as the lone white knight in an odious and venal land. And when he gets into that mode, there’s no chance of reasoning with him: The rest of you honkies might as well be wearing sheets.” Dissent In the Midwest Some NYPress readers complain about the letters to the editor that come from conservative readers across the country, who read my column via the Jewish World Review website, which is linked on Matt Drudge’s page. By and large, unlike many Manhattanites, people in the heartland aren’t offended by my anti-Clinton rhetoric or libertarian political views. Last week, however, when I attacked Jerry Falwell’s absurd campaign against Anheuser-Busch for its advertisement showing two men holding hands, the tide turned. One correspondent wrote: “I usually enjoy your writing, and I get the impression you are conservative... I’m perplexed why you are disturbed about Falwell’s attack on Anheuser-Busch. Most people I know are opposed to the homosexual lifestyle. If God says it’s an abomination who is a man to argue?” And then this: “I see how you got your nickname MUGGER. You like to mug every religious leader in sight and all things religious... or is it just all things Christian. God will not be mocked.” This last fellow did write later to apologize for his hasty letter, saying it was just a “conservative knee-jerk reaction” on his part. Still. I’d like to clear up a few matters. Falwell is a buffoon. As is anyone who believes that homosexuals don’t deserve the same civil rights as heterosexuals. And to up the ante to my readers outside New York City: I’m pro-choice (with the exception of late-term abortions), pro-immigration and opposed to a return to the mythical 50s culture that Pat Buchanan, Gary Bauer, Dan Quayle and William Bennett seem to believe is possible. I don’t believe in censorship, and all the blather from politicians about clamping down on the entertainment industry for violent and sexually explicit films and television shows, while they accept campaign contributions from actors, studio chiefs and political imbeciles like David Geffen, is the most vile current example of hypocrisy. I’m an economic conservative who believes that the less government interferes with the lives of American citizens, the better. I’m against affirmative action and excessive gun control laws. I’m against punitive business regulations that liberals love to lash entrepreneurs and corporations with. I’m in favor of capital punishment. Finally, I’m against liars who reside in the White House. Pataki & Giuliani: Outfoxing Them All This is a minority view, but I believe that both Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Rudy Giuliani will emerge as political winners in their latest “feud.” At issue is the imminent abolition of the commuter tax, a decades-long windfall for New York City at the expense of suburban residents who work in the city and are taxed without representation. After desperately trying to raise his national profile in a vain attempt to launch either a presidential, or more likely vice presidential, bid, and getting nowhere, Pataki has returned to Albany and made the first positive decision since his reelection last year. In a bizarre coupling, Pataki has as his ally Sheldon Silver, the Democratic assembly speaker from New York City. A tax cut of any kind, as Pataki knows, is smart economically and politically. The city, which has a reported surplus of $2 billion, can withstand the $210 million or so, depending on what figure you believe, that will be returned to suburbanites.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Pataki and Giuliani colluded on this script. In the Senate race, no matter who his Democratic opponent is, the Mayor has to attract a sizable minority of city voters; strong rhetoric such as he issued on Friday only bolsters his image as a tough-guy pol who won’t let Albany boss him around. On the other hand, it also proves to his upstate and suburban base that he’s a fighter who will bring home the pork for New York once he gets elected to the U.S. Senate. The Post, in a quirky editorial last Thursday, came out against the tax cut. “If it becomes law,” the writer said, “New York City will survive. And ordinary New Yorkers, who already expect nothing in the way of leadership and intellectual integrity from Albany, won’t be surprised or disappointed by this cheap trick, either. But they deserve much better.” Excuse me? Didn’t the Post help Pataki get elected twice to the governorship? And since when is this paper against tax cuts? Seems to me that John Podhoretz is too rattled by goofballs questioning his military record to see the true value in this responsible legislation. The New York Times, predictably, is also against the tax’s repeal. The paper blasted both Pataki and Silver, editorializing on May 17: “Mr. Silver argues that the city has a fat surplus and can afford the loss. This shortsighted view does not recognize that the surplus is probably temporary while the loss of commuter revenue would undoubtedly be permanent... It is time to end the games. A very large city could get hurt.”
Yes, the city’s surplus might be temporary. And you can bet, Times
wisdom notwithstanding, that the commuter tax would be reinstated in a
flash, especially if a Democratic governor is in Albany, when the city’s
in a
05/14/99: Watch Out: There’s Someone’s Behind You
|