Starr Leaks!!!!!
It's the End of the Beach for Malibu Ken!

IT'S YOUR CHOICE TODAY...

THIS...    OR THIS!

Election '98
Gingrich, Christian Coalition, Armey and Lott Renounced by Voters
America Rejects Impeachment Witch Hunts, The New Moralism and GOP Radical Conservatism

Wednesday, November 4th, 1998 -- NEW YORK-- American voters did not send a direct supportive message to President Clinton in yesterday's repudiation of the "New Moralism," authored in large part by William Kristol and the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

They sent a message to Congress: "We're not going to trust you to handle policy formulation for this nation, should you continue to push your 'values' on our families. Therefore, we will deny you additional troops to carry out your lynchings, attack on womens's rights, and kowtowing to the Christian Right."

Implicit within this rejection was another less direct message: "Lay off the Clintons. They suffer from the same human frailties as we."

This morning, Randy Tate, soon-to-be-ousted Executive Director of the Christian Coalition, took to the podium -- and surprisingly attacked the Republican agenda as a "non-agenda." Tate complimented the Democrats for pushing more liberal planks in its 1998 platform. They had done a better job he thought. Tate said the lack of a pro-family agenda by the GOP resulted in losses and failed gains for Republicans both in the House and the Senate. Tate, quoting a poll, said that conservatives who ignore his pap will perish. He claimed that this election was a referendum on morals in Washington.

"We turned out, but more would turn out if conservative leaders had pushed such things as the elimination of the marriage tax penalty," whined Tate.

Of course, he forgot to mention his group's opposition to abortion, oral contraceptives for teens and its disgraceful reliance on support from televangelists who buy media pulpits to prey on the weak and weak-minded for funding their 21st Century Crusades.

Tate was lying.

It was the homosexual-bashing and other hateful issues that he was angry about , and issues that no politician would publicly subscribe to. Tate claimed a one-vote pick-up on the issue of "partial birth" abortion. He read a list of pro-life Democrats and losing pro-choice Republicans. What a joke -- is he attempting to claim that the rest of the winning Democrats were pro-life? Then he read a few winners in statewide races that were pro-life, and asserted that there were successes for pro-gambling candidates because Republicans did not speak out loudly enough against gaming in their home states. He even had the gall to claim "victory" on the assisted suicide proposition loss.  Of course, he didn't mention that Dr. Jack Kevorkian himself opposed the proposition.

Tate doesn't get it -- or maybe he does and won't dare admit it: the American people are tired of listening to so-called Christians telling them what's best for them, their children and community. Americans have come to realize that everyone, Democrats and Republicans alike, think that preserving the family and Judeo-Christian principals are laudable and worthwhile. However, the generally independent-minded American voter doesn't like morality shoved down his or her throat. The Catholic Church learned this lesson in the 17th century -- but the Christian Coalition, which represents fewer than a half of one percent of Christian faithful in this nation, haven't seen the light more than three centuries later.

Tate said one half-truth. "Christian Coalition voters are up for grabs, they are not owned by either party."

The whole truth is "Christian Coalition voters are unwanted, by either party, if the price of their votes is the decimation of societal progress and the slamming of homosexuals, women who use birth control, women who choose abortion and people with very different definitions of family values than theirs (see Peddling Hatred in America).

Tate claims his membership is 2.1 million Americans, or 0.75% of the population. First, this is not true: filings by the Coalition show less than 400,000 members and shrinking. "Pro-family" Christians - by 24% - deserted the Republicans yesterday and did not even bother to show up at the polls. But clear-thinking minority members, women and moderates turned out in record numbers for an off-cycle election and jammed the Christian Coalition "Voter Guides" down their sponsors' throats.

Tate's reckless claim that he does not care who supports his agenda and that he is "non-partisan: is so repulsive a lie that reporters in the room couldn't help but laugh when he said just that. "It's Pro-Family we want." Yet the Coalition did not support a single Democrat candidate, save a few unimportant state candidates who would have won without their intervention.

Pundits, seeking to extend the mania surrounding the Lewinsky affair, attempted through the night and this morning to link the history-rejecting vote to the zeal of congressional Republicans' zeal to lynch Bill Clinton. What they missed in their nonstop "analysis" was that although this election will make it much more difficult for Gingrich and Hyde to continue, the Clinton problems were only one element in a laundry list of Republican goofiness and plain old derisiveness that have made Americans very nervous about allowing them to continue holding leadership roles in national government. In state races, Republicans do better -- and did well last night. However, state races normally surround family pocketbook issues such property taxes, state income taxes and crime. Here the Republicans outshine Democrats -- who themselves are getting more fiscally conservative, but not conservative enough to vote for wholesale elimination of safety nets for the poor.

That said, one need only look to California, where Barbara Boxer -- a moderate-to-liberal Democrat -- trounced Republican Matt Fong, who was linked to gay-bashing elements in the state.

Nationally, Democrats held their own -- and shocked the pundits by gaining 4 or 5 seats (with a few close races still not declared either way) in the House of Representatives, bringing them closer to re-taking the House in 2000. This was the first time in 64 years that the party controlling the White House gained seats during the second term of the President.

The biggest losses for Republicans came in New York, where Democrat Chuck Schumer beat Senator Alphonse D'Amato, who has held his Senate seat since 1980. In South Carolina, Senator Fritz Hollings won re-election in a heated contest against Republican House member Bob Inglis, and Democrat Jim Hodges defeated Republican Governor David Beasly. Democrat Roy Barnes beat Republican Guy Millner in the Georgia governor's race, to fill the seat being vacated by the term-limited Democrat Zell Miller.

In Alabama, Don Siegalman trounced Republican Governor and ultra-Christian rightist Fob James. Democrat Blanche Lincoln beat Republican Fay Boozman to take the seat of retiring Senator Dale Bumpers.

California was a rout for Democrats. In addition to Senator Barbara Boxer keeping her seat, Democrat Gray Davis soundly defeated Dan Lungren in a huge victory for Democrats. Senator Patty Smith defeated Republican Linda Smith in Washington state.

And congratulations to Russ Feingold -- who beat his well-financed Republican opposition without accepting big corporate PAC money. It was something that even we thought couldn't be done!

Although Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey were quick to point out that Republicans still control the House and Senate, the mood at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington -- a bastion for Republican rooters -- was like a morgue last night. The Gingrich-masterminded $10 million expenditure attacking Bill Clinton's morals was decidedly an abject failure. Gingrich had been warned more than once by campaign professionals and pollsters that using the Clinton scandals in House and Senate races could generate a backlash and mobilize Democrat voters, but the Speaker -- who still blames the President for his own felony problems and costly censure -- decided to attack anyway, for personal and ill-advised reasons, we believe.

Republicans almost unanimously agreed that the Democrats did a terrific job turning out their base. They decried methods used by Black churches and others to mobilize African-American voters -- but black voters saw the writing on the wall for at least a year as one after another Republican-controlled state-sponsored hate-legislative ballot issue cutting funds for the less fortunate appeared. Blacks also watched as California Republicans pushed ballot initiatives destroying thirty-five years of gain in civil rights.

Although Democrats gained 4 to 5 seats in the House (when they should have traditionally lost as many as 40), their real victory was in the Senate where they not only defeated D'Amato and Faircloth but denied Republicans the super-majority of 60 seats they need for a "filibuster-proof" majority. In short, the Senate -- no matter what the House recommends -- will not impeach the President.

D'Amato, most agree, made his biggest mistake when he mercilessly attacked and impugned Hillary Clinton in an attempt to make the First Lady the "issue" in the Clinton Administration. D'Amato failed to prove a single one of the trumped-up allegations against her -- and left a bitter taste in the mouths of women and Democrats statewide in New York.

One of the best House races was in the New Jersey's 6th District - only a few miles from my home. In that race, incumbent Republican Mike Pappas -- an arch-supporter of "Independent" Prosecutor Kenneth Starr and a Hitleresque conservative -- lost to challenger Rush Holt, a Democrat. Pappas was the moron who took the House floor and sang <I>Twinkle, Twinkle, Kenneth Starr</I> - an ode to the Grand Inquisitor.  To the horror of the House of Representatives and voters in his District who witnessed the spectacle simultaneiously brooadcast on CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN and networks covering the House vote for impeachment inquiry, Pappas sang the entire song -- and looked as if he had lost his mind. Holt commercials featuring Pappas singing his ditty ran non-stop on radio and television -- ending any future in politics for Pappas.

And if you think the President did not win last night, you're wrong: he was clearly the biggest winner in yesterday's voting. He and the First Lady were critical in boosting minority and liberal voter turnout. But more importantly, Republican leaders were nearly speechless with shock and shame as they mounted podia across the nation and stammered explanations of how they lost instead of gained seats in the House. Talk on Capitol Hill among Republican moderates is that a coup attempt on Newt Gingrich is in the offing. However, this writer thinks that the head of Dick Armey -- the House Majority Leader -- will be delivered to angry Republicans as a sacrifice. Who will take his place is an open question, but I wouldn't count out moderate John Kasich for the post -- although it's difficult to imagine Kasich working with Gingrich in any meaningful way.

Republicans are split on the issue, with most contemptuous toward Gingrich. Perhaps Kasich, like Bill Paxon before him, should take the chance and challenge the do-nothing Speaker.  We think he'd win hands down -- and America would get back to arguing the real issues.

Democrats already know their mantra: keep pushing attacks on HMO unfairness, bolstering educational opportunity and saving the Social Security Trust Fund for our children and grandghildren.

The big question on television and radio pundits' (alleged) minds this Sunday will be how this election will impact on the upcoming impeachment hearings in the House. Clearly, if the House recommends an impeachment trial, Senate Democrats are prepared -- and have the votes -- to block it. In a sense, Chairman Henry Hyde, himself an admitted philanderer, is in a box: if he listens to the voters -- and he should -- he will seek a compromise and slap the President's wrist. However, it will have to be a unilateral action. The President, being of the mind he normally is, will not -- especially after yesterday -- appear in Congress to be publicly censured.

Nor will he settle his lawsuit with Paula Jones.

Jones, in the end, may end up the biggest election loser of all.

In exit polls Tuesday, only about 30% of voters said Congress should impeach Bill Clinton. 40% said he should resign on his own and 40% said he should be censured -- although there is no legal mechanism by which this can be done. Thus, the choice for Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Hyde is whether to attempt to force Clinton's resignation by humiliating him non-stop for the next two years, or to let him off the hook with a "sense of the Congress" resolution which might survive a bi-partisan test.

Gingrich and Hyde had better pay close attention to the fact that more than 60% of voters think they are mishandling the investigation. This is a significant figure. Should Republican zealots continue their witch hunt, they spurn the American people who see this "investigation" for what it is -- a transparent political attempt to nullify the 1992 and 1996 elections and the voice of voters. Should Newt and Henry overplay their hand, the voters almost assuredly will turn scores of Republicans out of office in 2000.

Let me leave you with one other thought: Jesse "The Body" Ventura -- a wrestler of some renown -- is now the Governor of Minnesota, much to the chagrin of Republicans, Democrats and nearly 60% of Minnesotans who voted for the other guy. Ventura, who changed his name to Jesse "The Mind" Ventura, won the three-way race as an independent. Ventura's win may make some chuckle and others wince, but the truth is that he ran and won in the greatest tradition of American Democracy. He is a not a lawyer, nor what anyone could call a professional politician -- although he served as a city mayor for four years between 1990 and 1994. I saw Governor-Elect Ventura being interviewed this morning. Although unpolished and seemingly uncomfortable in what appeared to be a new dark suit and tie, he made a lot of sense.

Perhaps his win is just a glitch in electoral history.

Or perhaps it's a signal to both Democrats and Republicans --

did you know Abe Lincoln first ran as an independent?

Mac MacArthur