Condit has taken on the look of a hunted dog. His suits hang on him, and his trademark megawatt smile has dimmed to a flicker. Without any clues that might lead to Chandra Levy, the police are no nearer to solving the case today than they were when she disappeared 11 weeks ago.
Condit is the vehicle to keeping the story alive. (A widely reprinted cartoon shows camera crews lined up outside Condit’s home to thank him for the ratings bonanza.) Yet lawmakers are resisting the siren call of television and, with a few sorry exceptions, are wisely keeping their counsel. For them, there’s nothing to be gained in taking on the role of sex police, especially as the search for the missing intern has degenerated into an examination of Condit’s extracurricular marital life. Republican leader Trent Lott, appearing on one of the Sunday talk shows, came close to endorsing a litmus test on fidelity for members of Congress, a position that could empty the halls of the Capitol faster than a bomb scare.
Lawmakers won’t criticize Condit publicly for several reasons. Some are focused on self-preservation. Others are responding to institutional prerogatives. Condit has played a useful role in the House. A conservative Democrat, he serves as a conduit to Republicans. When the Blue Dogs (fiscally and socially conservative Democrats) want to cross the aisle and seal a deal, Condit is often the lead dog in making it happen. He has ideological soulmates in both parties, and the same charm that wooed all those women and racks up 75 percent victories in his district works on his colleagues, too.
Republicans have resisted scoring partisan points off of Condit’s double life. They’ve had their own problems with philandering in the past and are not eager to ratchet up the moral-integrity scale. It’s easy for people like former New York Republican senator Al D’Amato, who was defeated in 1998, to call for Condit’s resignation and claim it’s not about sex, it’s about lying and obstruction of justice. But such claims are all too familiar for those who lived through the Clinton impeachment, which-to the public at least-ultimately was about sex. Nor do voters like the lynch-mob mentality.
Lawmakers worry they’ll be tarnished by the revelations of Condit’s messy personal life. The life of a congressman-long periods away from the family, lots of travel, and the aura of power-are the conditions that invite infidelity. A former congressional aide who worked in the House Republican leadership speculates that two out of ten members of Congress fool around. That’s 20 percent, or 87 congressmen, on the prowl at any given time.
Few congressmen are purer than Caesar’s wife, and so they step aside to leave Condit’s fate in the hands of the voters in his district. “Without [Chandra Levy] showing up, he’s dead politically,” says a California colleague. Some media analysts think Condit should throw himself on the mercy of the public and have a wide-ranging press conference in which he answers every question put to him. That would be a banquet for the media but would prolong rather than end the congressman’s agony and do nothing to find Chandra Levy. If there’s anything voters hate more than a lying, philandering politician, it’s a bunch of self-appointed critics behaving like judge and jury.
DISPIRITED DEMOCRATS
President Bush’s popularity may be sliding, but House Democrats are not well-positioned to take advantage. Why? Democrats are dispirited. Attendance at the weekly meetings of the House Democratic Caucus is way down. “If 20 people show up, it’s a big deal,” says a key Democrat. “It’s really dysfunctional.” The meetings often become gripe sessions about how hard it is to communicate with the American people, a task made harder “now that Condit is taking up all the air time.”
Democrats cringed when party chairman Terry McAuliffe vowed in a speech in Indianapolis “to do to them [Republicans] what they did to Bill Clinton for eight straight years.” Hard-core Democrats like the red meat, but House Democrats trying to regain their majority think McAuliffe’s rhetoric is counterproductive. “He’s one of the few people we have who can get time on television, and he’s hurting us,” says one of the party’s best fund-raisers. “That’s not the image the Democrats need of somebody pounding away all the time.”
WILL BUSH CAVE?
Word that Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist, one of the GOP’s golden boys, supports embryonic stem-cell research should be enough to sway President Bush to support federal funding for the research. Frist is a former heart surgeon and is accustomed to making life-and-death decisions. He’s so highly regarded at the White House that if a short list existed for Bush’s running mate in 2004, there’s no doubt Frist would be on it.
Opponents of embryonic research are convinced that Frist sets the stage for Bush to cave on the issue. But there are no hosannas on the other side, at least not yet. One moderate Republican who favors funding is disgusted with the way the White House has handled this sensitive issue. “He looks Clintonian in the way he’s agonizing,” she says. “But in Bush, it’s even less attractive. At least with Clinton, we had a serious intellect agonizing. Bush is not a serious intellect. He’s just screwing around.”
Bush could have relied on Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, who is pro-life and wrestled with the moral implications as governor of his state before ultimately letting the research go forward at the University of Wisconsin. Instead, Bush elbowed Thompson aside, claimed the decision for himself and let it drag out so long that both sides are now dug in. At last report, the White House was still searching for a compromise that won’t anger the religious right too much, a task that is proving elusive.
