Some democrats still hope that the Iraq talk will boomerang on Tuesday and a hidden antiwar vote will produce a Democratic surge at the polls–much as the anti-impeachment vote did in 1998. But that appears unlikely.
Cynics suspect that once the election is over and the arms inspectors return to Iraq, Bush will shelve his invasion plans. They say the real war was for control of Congress. Bush’s political guru, Karl Rove, laid out the strategy last March in a speech before a Republican group in Texas. Rove said the obvious–that if concerns about national security and terrorism dominated the political debate, the GOP would do very well in the midterm elections.
“Republicans have played it extremely well,” says Stephen Wayne, a professor of government at Georgetown University. Wayne hastens to add that he is not suggesting Bush created the Iraqi crisis for political reasons. He takes Bush at face value, that he has a policy motive for wanting to remove Saddam Hussein from power. “But by keeping that on the front burner as long as he did seems to have had good political results.”
Images of Saddam and Osama bin Laden flicker across television screens in negative ads questioning the commitment of Democratic senators to protecting the nation. It takes real chutzpah to turn the advertising guns of war on South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson, the only senator with a son serving in the military, and Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, a decorated veteran who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam. Johnson may survive the assault–the latest polls show him up a few points–but the juxtaposition of Saddam and Osama with a voice-over intoning that Cleland voted against homeland-security legislation has scared Georgia voters enough to move Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss within striking distance.
Nobody can remember when there were this many races that could break either way. “People are just at sea,” says a Democratic Party official. “Everybody’ s running scared–Republicans and Democrats. Both sides are acting like they’re three points behind. Nobody feels confident there’s any sort of trend out there.” Democrats fretted that any emotional goodwill generated by Sen. Paul Wellstone’s death and the tributes to his principled politics may have been undercut by the rude partisanship displayed at his Minnesota memorial service. The spurning of Vice President Cheney’s offer to attend and the booing of Republican leader Trent Lott may have had a chilling effect on moderates and swing voters.
The House looks out of reach for the Democrats. Charles Cook, one of the best political number crunchers, counts 202 safe Democratic and leaning-Democratic seats and 217 safe-Republican and leaning-Republican seats. With 435 seats in the House, that leaves only 16 toss-up races. Democrats would have to win every one to reach the magic 218 to control the chamber; Republicans need only one to maintain control. The math is simply too daunting for the Democrats. The Senate looks like safer ground for Democrats. In these races, it’s the Year of the Retreads, with old Democratic pols called back into action. “Democrats are into recycling in more ways than one,” quips a Washington lobbyist. When word first circulated that former vice president Walter Mondale would fill in for Wellstone, Jennifer Palmieri, a DNC spokesperson, called it “the Democrats’ youth movement.” Mondale is likely to hold the seat for the Democrats, but he’ll be eating some words along the way. Mondale, who turns 75 in January, is the same age President Reagan was in 1984 when Mondale ran against him and said Reagan was too old and out of touch. Now Mondale is the butt of age jokes, and if he weren’t such an icon in Minnesota, Republican challenger Norm Coleman’s argument about the past versus the future would surely carry the day. But Mondale’s favorite-son status and former New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg’s old-shoe familiarity move two seats from the endangered column for Democrats to likely victories.
The party’s two biggest vulnerabilities are South Dakota, which has turned into a grudge match between Bush and Democratic leader Tom Daschle, and Missouri, where the election hopes of Jean Carnahan, appointed to fill her deceased husband’s seat, appear to be slipping away. Republicans are running ads on black radio stations featuring a black grandmother telling her grandson that Democrats have “hurt black people” and African-Americans shouldn’t feel “we owe them our vote.” Carnahan’s campaign countered with ads of prominent black Americans endorsing her. But the wave of sympathy that sent Carnahan to Washington in 2000 has dissipated, and Republican challenger Jim Talent is running ahead. The only thing that could save Carnahan is a high turnout among minorities.
If the Democrats lose South Dakota and Missouri, they could offset the losses with possible pick-ups in New Hampshire, where Democrat Jeanne Shaheen is outshining Republican John Sununu, and Colorado, where Republican Wayne Allard, an undistinguished senator and bland campaigner, is running even with Democrat Tom Strickland, who’s making his second bid for the seat. Arkansas, once considered a sure thing for the Democrats, is looking iffier as Republican Tim Hutchinson rallies against the once golden boy Mark Pryor, whose fuzzy positions on guns and abortions have invigorated conservative opposition against him.
Daschle is spending the last five days before the election working his home state of South Dakota. “This one’s personal for him,” says a friend. “He’s working it like his name is on the ballot.” If the Democrats lose the Senate, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who was the runner-up when Daschle got the top job, will challenge Daschle for leader. If the Democrats hang on to their majority and manage to win in states Bush carried by big margins–like South Dakota–Daschle will be vindicated and positioned to either run for president in 2004 or retire into private life. Having had a taste of the way the Bush clan plays politics, Daschle may not want a rematch.
