Abstract
The upcoming elections will determine which party controls the Senate and House of Representatives. There is a lot at stake; the Democratic-controlled Senate has been one of the few checks on President George W. Bush's actions.
The election will determine whether Tom Daschle or Trent Lott serves as Majority Leader and sets the Senate schedule, as well as whether Michigan's Carl Levin will continue to chair the Armed Services Committee and Delaware's Joe Biden the Foreign Relations Committee. There are similar implications in the House of Representatives.
The election is a toss-up, though, in every sense of the word. There are many close contests, including seven Senate races with no clear favorite. In another race, New Jersey Democrat Robert Torricelli had stated his intention to withdraw from his race, but at press time the legal issues surrounding the question of a replacement had not been resolved. Neither party has a commanding majority in the Senate or the House.
Two competing trends have been at work in the last weeks before the November 5 election. On the one hand, the party that does not control the White House normally gains seats during a mid-term election, especially when the economy is struggling. That should help Democrats. But counteracting that trend is the popularity of both President Bush and his war on terrorism.
The president has been traveling the country raising money for Republican candidates while simultaneously spreading his cloak of popularity over his fellow Republicans. Democrats have been eager to focus the election on their terrain–prescription drug prices, social security, the economy, corporate abuse, and denuded retirement accounts. Republicans, on the other hand, prefer to play in the national security field, an area in which they have traditionally scored much higher than Democrats.
In addition, the September 11 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon transformed George W. Bush from a humbler not quite up to the presidency to a wartime president rising to respond to the country's new challenges. His popularity with the public soared above 80 percent for many months.
While the old American saying is that politics stops at the water's edge, top Bush political adviser Karl Rove could not resist taking advantage of the president's newfound popularity. According to a January 19 New York Times article, “Karl Rove told the Republican National Committee's winter meeting that the Republicans could use the war as a partisan advantage in the 2002 elections.”
Ads attacking the Dem-ocrats began to appear soon after. In February, Republican candidates in New Hampshire began attacking Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen and House candidate Martha Fuller Clark because they had received campaign contributions from the Council for a Livable World or its PeacePAC affiliate. Republican Sean Mahoney suggested in a statement that Clark was “either na'ive or disingenuous” if she thought she could both work with PeacePAC and protect the survival of New Hampshire's Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
On April 3, the Minnesota Republican Party charged that Sen. Paul “Wellstone had been endorsed by “an ultra-liberal, anti-military organization that lobbies for deep cuts in military spending”–namely, the Council for a Livable World. A same-day release in Arkansas charged that Senate candidate Mark Pryor had received a similar endorsement.
Incumbent senators whose races are too close to call include (top row) Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas and Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, and (bottom row) Jean Carnahan of Missouri and Wayne Allard of Colorado.
(In the interests of full disclosure:
The hottest Senate races in 2002
Democratic seats
Georgia: Cleland (D) v. Chambliss (R). Cleland is favored.
Iowa: Harkin (D) v. Ganske (R). Harkin is narrowly favored.
Louisiana: Landrieu (D) v. several candidates. Landrieu favored.
Minnesota: Wellstone (D) v. Coleman (R). Toss-up.
Missouri: Carnahan (D) v. Talent (R). Toss-up
Montana: Baucus (D) v. Taylor (R). Baucus favored.
South Dakota: Johnson (D) v. Thune (R). Toss-up.
Republican seats
Arkansas: Hutchinson (R) v. Pryor (D). Toss-up.
Colorado: Allard (R) v. Strickland (D). Toss-up.
Maine: Collins (R) v. Pingree (D). Collins favored.
New Hampshire: Sununu (R) v. Shaheen (D). Toss-up.
North Carolina: Dole (R) v. Bowles (D). Dole favored.
Oklahoma: Inhofe (R) v. Walters (D). Inhofe favored.
Oregon: Smith (R) v. Bradbury (D). Smith favored.
South Carolina: Graham (R) v. Sanders (D). Graham narrowly favored.
Tennessee: Alexander (R) v. Clement (D). Alexander favored.
Texas: Cornyn (R) v. Kirk (D). Toss-up.
The Council for a Livable World–my organization–was founded in 1962 by nuclear scientist Leo Szi-lard, primarily to work against the dangers of weapons of mass destruction. It favors the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons, as well as chemical and biological weapons, and it helps raise funds for candidates who favor arms control. Suggesting that the Council's support indicates that a candidate is soft on terrorism, as the ads have done, is misleading, to say the least.)
The Arkansas spots, while technically not run by the candidate for reelection, Tim Hutchinson, were paid for by the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Arkansas Republican Party. The first ads were followed by many more. By mid-September, four versions of the same ad had been run. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee estimates that the Republican Party has spent more than $1 million just to attack the Council for a Livable World.
In South Carolina, the state Republican Party (whose Lindsay Graham is opposed by Democrat Alex Sanders) ran an ad calling the Council: “Hostile to our men and women in uniform. They call for deep cuts in the military budget–even while we are at war.”
Whether mentioned the Council or not, Republicans have focused overwhelmingly on national security rather than domestic issues.
In the Missouri Senate race between incumbent Democrat Jean Carnahan and Republican nominee Jim Talent, the Republican Party ran ads attacking Carnahan for not being strong on defense and for opposing Star Wars. In February, the South Dakota Republican Party cited incumbent Sen. Tim Johnson's votes against the B-2 bomber and national missile defense.
The national security focus intensified in September, when the White House launched a public relations blitz aimed at selling the idea of an invasion of Iraq. At a time when the Democrats were hoping to refocus the election on other issues, Congress and the public were forced to shift their attention to the possibility of a new war–which encouraged, in some cases, Republicans to run ads dredging up 11-year-old congressional votes on the Gulf War. In South Dakota, for example, Republicans criticized Johnson's pre-war vote opposing the use of force.
There is a deep irony in the political back-and-forth on national security issues. Democrats remain convinced that whatever the headlines, or the wishes of the president's political advisers, voters will make their electoral choices based on domestic issues. They believe that James Carville's 1992 mantra, “It's the economy, stupid,” still applies. Moreover, Democratic polling indicates that the attack ads in Arkansas and elsewhere are not working.
But Republicans are reading different polls. In mid-September, ads attacking the Council for a Livable “World and ads focusing on whether candidates were eager to invade Iraq were multiplying rather than disappearing.
Democrats believe Republicans are on a wild goose chase. Republicans contend that they have a winner. Who is right will be known November 5. •
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