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MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, full coverage of the day after the election day, plus interviews with Secretary Cisneros and Senator Nichols, an other contests update, pollster Andy Kohut, and the analysis of Mark Shields and Paul Gigot. The other news of this day will be at the end of the program tonight. VICTORY
MR. LEHRER: After a night of projections and estimates, the real numbers of President Clinton's re-election came in today with 99 percent of the nation's nearly 189,000 precincts reporting; the President had 45.6 million votes, 49 percent of the popular vote. Bob Dole won 37.8 million, 41 percent, Ross Perot 7.8 million, or 8 percent. The remaining 2 percent went to a variety of small party candidates. The popular vote translated into a huge victory for the President in the electoral college. He won 31 states in the District of Columbia, for 379 electoral votes. Dole's 19 states gave him 159 electoral votes. President Clinton returned to Washington from Little Rock this afternoon. At a victory rally on the South Lawn of the White House, the Clintons and the Gores greeted hundreds of cheering employees. Mr. Clinton spoke to them after a spirited introduction by Vice President Gore
VICE PRESIDENT GORE: I said last night in presenting the President at the victory celebration that he is now on a very short list of history with the other Democratic Presidents who have been elected to two terms, and it is, indeed, quite an extraordinary list: Thomas Jefferson--James Madison--James Monroe--Andrew Jackson--Woodrow Wilson--Franklin Delano Roosevelt--and now William Jefferson Clinton. [applause] Last evening, modesty prevented me from listing the Democratic Vice Presidents who've been re-elected. [laughter among audience] But now my name--Al Gore--will be added to a list that includes Thomas Marshall--Daniel Thompkins--John Garner--and George Clinton. Hey, let's hear it for George Clinton. Come on! [applause] He was the first. So from George Clinton-- from Clinton to Gore. It's great to be able to--oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no--no, no, no, no, no, no--[crowd cheering]- -no, no. You misunderstand me. George Clinton 1805 to 1812 from New York, first Democratic Vice President to be elected. The other, I assure you, was just a slip of the tongue. [laughter among audience]
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I really appreciate that lesson in history from the Vice President. [laughter among audience] I'll tell you one thing. You remember what John Nance Garner said about the Vice Presidency--said it wasn't worth a worm--a kettle of spit or something like that. That's before Al Gore got ahold of it. Nobody will ever say that again--ever--ever, ever say that again. [applause] Last night, I had a chance to--to do something really quite wonderful for me. I was able to have a meeting with- -when I was home in Arkansas--with everybody who ever worked for me there, at least we invited them all, the people who worked for me 20 years ago, when I was attorney general, the people who worked for me during all my five terms as governor. And I told them something I want to tell you that is I have always been a very hard working, kind of hard driving person. I'm always focused on the matter before me. Sometimes I don't say thank you enough. And, uh, I've always been kind of hard on myself, and sometimes I think just by omission I'm too hard on the people who work here. And I just want you to know--all of you--from the cabinet to the staff--to the appointees--to all the others who are here--you should be very proud of this. This is not--[applause]--the--[applause]--this race was won because of the record we made and because of the plans we have and because we have established in the minds of the American people that it's more than talk with us, that we work at it hard every day, all of us. We work hard. And in the end, that's what sustained us--a vision, a strategy, hard work, and success. Two years ago, not many people thought we would be here, but I believe if we just kept doing the right things, kept trying to do 'em in the right way, and kept working hard and refused to be distracted by the things which dominate too much of our public life today, in the end, the American people will render the right judgment. I am profoundly grateful for what they did last night and very, very grateful to all of you for making it possible. Thank you and God bless you. [applause]
MR. LEHRER: In contrast to the celebrating at the White House, Bob Dole left his Watergate apartment this morning and spent the day at his campaign headquarters in downtown Washington. He was expected to fly to his oceanfront condominium in Florida for several days. There was a rush of leaked stories today about departures from the Clinton cabinet. Secretary of State Christopher, Defense Sec. Perry, Energy Sec. Hazel O'Leary, and Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor were among those mentioned in wire service source stories. The President told reporters he would hold a news conference in a few days to discuss cabinet changes. It was believed going in that the election would have a big impact on the new Congress but it did not. Kwame Holman reports.
MR. HOLMAN: When the new 105th Congress convenes in January, almost all of the members who wanted to will return to Capitol Hill. Republican Senator Larry Pressler, however, is one of the exceptions. The three-term incumbent from South Dakota, chairman of the Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee, lost a tight race to Democratic Congressman Tim Johnson. But Pressler was the only Senate incumbent to lose his re-election bid, and in the House, there were far fewer incumbent casualties than occurred in 1994's Republican Revolution.
SPOKESMAN: The first was to address my words--
MR. HOLMAN: Among the most notable casualties were ten-term Democrat Harold Volkmer from Missouri, three-term Democrat Bill Orton from Utah, three-term Republican Gary Franks from Connecticut, and two-term Ohio Republican Martin Hoke. Conservative firebrand Robert Dornan of California still doesn't know if he'll be back. Dornan currently leads Democratic challenger Loretta Sanchez by a few hundred votes, making a recount likely. Most House Republican freshmen targeted for defeat, particularly by the AFL- CIO, nevertheless, survived. Congressional Republican Campaign Chairman Bill Paxon stressed that point at his post-election press briefing this morning.
REP. BILL PAXON, Chair, GOP Congressional Committee: As we look down the list, again and again and again, at those folks who are targeted with the biggest expenditures by organized labor, people like John Ensen in Nevada, people like John Christiansen in Nebraska, people like Phil English in Eerie, Pennsylvania, or Frank Riggs, and they came through with flying colors. I think the message is very clear, that politics of scare and fear and negativism do not work in American politics.
MR. HOLMAN: But among those Republican freshmen who didn't survive were Andrea Seastrand of California and Dick Chrysler of Michigan. Runoff elections will be required in December to decide three Texas seats. Still, it's clear House Republicans will return in January with their majority intact, though likely slimmed down to 227 seats to the Democrats' 207 and 1 independent. That's a nine-seat swing in the Democrats' favor, less than they'd hoped for but an important shift, according to Democratic Congressional Campaign Chairman Martin Frost.
REP. MARTIN FROST, Chair, Democratic Congressional Committee: Again, we would have preferred to have won, to have won control, but we made a very strong showing, and I think it demonstrates a couple of things: one, that you're going to have to have real bipartisan cooperation during this next session of Congress in the House if you're going to achieve anything because the balance will be so close, uh, and particularly with a Democratic President. And I hope that you will have bipartisan cooperation. And it also, I think, demonstrates that the House is very much in play. This is something that I've been saying for the last two years; that for the remainder of this decade, the House is going to be in play every single election.
MR. HOLMAN: Senate Republicans actually made add two seats to their current majority and hold a 55/45 advantage over Democrats come January. But that's dependent on a victory in the still too- close-call Senate race in Oregon. Republican State Senator Gordon Smith and Democrat Tom Bruggere are locked in a struggle to succeed retiring Republican Mark Hatfield, and it appears a count of absentee ballots later this week will decide the outcome. Senate Republicans held on to their majority thanks to Southern victories by Strom Thurmond in South Carolina, and Jesse Helms in North Carolina.
SPOKESMAN: As I saw Dan Rather trying to avoid a--
MR. HOLMAN: Republicans also captured previously Democratic seats in Arkansas, where Congressman Tim Hutchinson succeeds retiring David Pryor and in Alabama, where Jeff Sessions succeeds retiring Howell Heflin. It could have been worse for Democrats in the South, but Max Cleland, the former head of the Veterans Administration, won the Georgia seat vacated by Sam Nunn. And Mary Landrew took the Louisiana seat of retiring Bennett Johnston. Farther North, the New Jersey Senate seat vacated by Bill Bradley was won by Democratic Congressman Robert Torricelli, while House colleague Richard Durbin will succeed retiring Democrat Paul Simon in Illinois. And in the hard-fought and high-profile Massachusetts Senate race, Democratic incumbent John Kerry had a relatively easy time defeating popular Republican Governor William Weld.
SEN. JOHN KERRY: As the Grateful Dead--as the Grateful Dead sang and wrote "what a long strange trip this has been."
MR. HOLMAN: Even though the new Congress will look much like the old one, today's Senate leader Trent Lott said Republicans will take a different approach in dealing with the White House.
SEN. TRENT LOTT, Majority Leader: Again, we have certain responsibilities as a majority to sort of have our agenda and have a schedule of when we will do things, but I think, uh, the President is sort of entitled to the first at bat. You know, we're not going to rush out there January the 8th and start trying to pass X number of bills in the first hundred days. Let's see what he has to say and see what he proposes. We will consider that, and, uh, where we can, we're going to--we're going to work with him, and if we don't like what he does, or we feel like it's--it's--you know, it's smoke and mirrors, or we don't feel like he addresses some of the serious problems adequately, then we'll do more.
MR. HOLMAN: Republicans expect to get their first firm indication of where President Clinton wants to go from his inaugural address after the 105th Congress is in session.
MR. LEHRER: The Republican and Democratic Party chairman had a cordial post-election encounter at the National Press Club in Washington today. Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Democratic Party, used the opportunity to announce he would be resigning his party post in January. He and Republican Chairman Haley Barbour talked and took questions about the future.
SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD, Chair, Democratic National Committee: So I think, frankly, the party's moving in the right direction. We're back, certainly more vibrant, more strong, more focused, uh, with good ideas, and certainly that was reflected by their excellent race that was run by the President and the Vice President over these past number of months. Now, let me mention an area, as well, that is of some concern--and I know Haley is--of course--will have a response to this when he has the microphone, but I'm going to reiterate the offer that I made the other day here, and that is that we voluntarily--since Bob Dole and the President both have committed themselves to eliminating any contributions of from non- U.S. citizens, uh, and of soft money, that I would make that offer again here today, that we ought to be able to do this. We could wait and change the law and go through an extensive debate--and there will be one on other issues of campaign finance reform that will be contentious and need to be worked out. But if there is agreement between the two parties that we ought to stop contributions from non-U.S. citizens and that we ought to end soft money, then it seems to me the two major parties in this country ought to be able to make that commitment to each other and to the American public and then work out the details of how you'd do it, if you want, over the next few weeks or month, so that it can be accomplished.
HALEY BARBOUR, Chair, Republican National Committee: It's clear we've had a mixed election in the century--elected a Democrat President--the first Democrat to be re-elected President since Roosevelt, the third President in our country's history to be elected twice without ever getting a majority, which is the case here. We've elected a Republican Congress, and it is incumbent on us and I think the outlook for this Congress is this--you start off with the understanding that the 104th Congress that just ended was a--was an active, productive, common sense reform Congress, with an outstanding record of achievement. The 105thCongress will be focused on solving the real problems that face America, including Medicare. And Medicare is going to be tougher now than it would have been because the American people have been subjected to tens of millions of dollars of negative, often false advertising as part of the union's lie Mediscare campaign. It's going to be harder, but the Republicans are not going to let Medicare go bankrupt, and I believe that Bill Clinton's not either, and we're going to have to solve this problem. You will see the Republicans dedicated to solving problems. At the same time, in closing, I have to say, the revelations during the campaign Chris talked about, along with the existing investigations of misconduct, are serious. And they must be taken seriously and acted on in a serious, fair, impartial, thorough way.
SPOKESPERSON: To Mr. Barbour, how do Republicans expect to work with a President at the same time they are trying to indict him?
HALEY BARBOUR: The power to indict lies exclusively with prosecutors, federal prosecutors, United States Attorney, special prosecutors. The Republican majority in Congress has no power to indict.
SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD: I would endorse that comment. That's a decision for--for obviously the people who are looking at these issues to make. I think, again, we're rushing to independent counsels and special prosecutors. As I said earlier, it was one thing when we--when we used to have differences of opinion. Then we began to politicize our differences. Now I'm fearful we're criminalizing our differences in this country. We've got to stop this. So that every time--facetiously teasing my friend, Haley--but for someone who's as strong supporter as I am of tort reform, it seems that everything that happened this fall there was a lawsuit being filed on it, and we've got to get away from that, it seems to me.
MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Secretary Cisneros, Senator Nickles, the other races, pollster Andy Kohut, and Shields and Gigot. NEWSMAKER - ELECTION '96
MR. LEHRER: Now further double visions of what yesterday's election results mean. The firstis that of the Clinton administration and to Elizabeth Farnsworth.
MS. FARNSWORTH: And joining us now for a Newsmaker interview is Henry Cisneros, the Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, and a key member of the White House political and strategic team during this campaign. Welcome, Mr. Secretary, and congratulations.
HENRY CISNEROS, Secretary, Housing & Urban Development: Thank you very much.
MS. FARNSWORTH: Were you surprised that the Democrats didn't take control of the House? Had you expected that to happen?
SEC. CISNEROS: I certainly had hoped that the Democrats would be able to win the House and expected that we would. I told the President a week or so ago from being out on the road that I thought we would win the House. The surge of the President's popularity about a week ago was strong enough that I thought he would bring a Democratic House. I think the Republicans used some of these finance issues effectively toward the end, effectively I say politically because they have some of the same issues affecting their party, uh, but they were able to use the issue in a way that I think flattened some of the Democratic surge in the last say week to ten days and was enough to prevent Democrats from winning the House of Representatives.
MS. FARNSWORTH: And now that the election has provided this divided result, how would you characterize the message that was sent by voters?
SEC. CISNEROS: Well, I think the American people said that they wanted Bill Clinton to be the President but that they also were concerned that there be sufficient checks on some of these questions. Um, I think that on the question of the presidency, there was a core truth about this election. I've discovered over the years that elections have a kind of a truth about them. There's a core of truth there that no amount of campaigning is going to change, no amount of sort of message massaging is going to change, and the core truth in this election was that Bill Clinton had a record that was sound and defensible and plausible and acceptable, as well as a sense of the future. And nothing that Bob Dole could do could break into that record because jobs were being created and inflation was low and interest rates were low, and crime is--coming down, and nothing that they could do could alter the sense that Bill Clinton had a better sense of the future. And as long as the President stayed on that ground-- his record and his future--and the future of the country, there's not much that the Republicans could do about it. So the people really bought that properly but then we had these other issues related to the House and Senate.
MS. FARNSWORTH: And do you think they were hedging their bets essentially--they were--they wanted to make sure that there were checks on both sides--they were--
SEC. CISNEROS: I suspect that that was a big part of it. I always felt--and I was talking to House members and Senators as I was out around the country the last couple of weeks--and many of them were- -Democrats--were really worried that--that message that the Republicans hit on about two weeks ago--that suggested that although the President probably was going to be re-elected, the American people ought to hedge their bets with respect to the House and the Senate--I suspect it was a message that actually had some effect, and, and worked to the Republicans' advantage in the end.
MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, you heard what, uh--the various leaders of Congress are saying about what's likely to happen. What do you think will happen? Do you think that there will be a cooperative spirit more like the last few months before Congress left this year, or--
SEC. CISNEROS: I certainly hope so.
MS. FARNSWORTH: --will it be like it was before that?
SEC. CISNEROS: I certainly hope it will be cooperative, and I expect this maybe a naive expectation--but I expect that it will be--and my reason for saying that is first and foremost that this election has kind of had a centralizing effect. The President for the last several years has been working very hard to define the vision that he had identified to the country in 1992, and it's a vision of focusing on jobs, the concerns really right at the heart of Americans and children, families, schools, education, safety in the communities, and that's been a centralizing dynamic, uh, and the Republicans, I think, have been chastened. They have--they came very close to a major disaster this election--and it was the fact that they abandoned some of their wilder extremist sort of notions, and toward the end of the session, built a record for themselves on welfare reform, on the pension portability, insurance portability, and so forth, that they could campaign in the center. So having seen both sides come to the center, the hope is that there is sufficient momentum to govern from the center for both sides. I think the closeness of the House, uh, assures that the blue dog Democrats and, and some of the moderate Republicans probably command the, the central momentum, and my sense is that that's good for the country. The President certainly has reached out in his comments last night. I thought he was very gracious, not only to Sen. Dole but also to the winning House and the Republican leadership, and one other thing I think will be a centralizing influence. I've been very impressed with the role that Sen. Lott has played. You notice that after Sen. Dole left the Senate and Lott became the majority leader. Uh, a lot of things got done because presidential politics was removed from the agenda, and he saw the need to produce. It strikes me that Sen. Lott, by personality--and this is just a personal observation--is a person who if he is the leader instead of Newt Gingrich, which was the case in 1994 and '5, if Lott's temperament is the dominant temperament, you heard him a moment ago say the President ought to have a chance to put his initiatives on the table--that can be a very positive thing. So for a lot of reasons I think this could be a productive working relationship.
MS. FARNSWORTH: And what will be at the top of the President's agenda?
SEC. CISNEROS: Well, the President has said over and over again that his focus will be to do those things with respect to budget and the economy that keep jobs growing, keep inflation low, interest rates low, maybe avoid the recession that otherwise would be typical at some point of the end of this economic expansion cycle. So that'll be very important to focus on jobs and prosperity for folks. I've heard the President say many times in small groups that he believes the single most thing an American President can do for the people in a time of change is to truly empower them with education and training and the access to colleges and universities, good quality starts for children, child care and Head Start, and so I think that will be a major priority for him. And then I think another that we didn't see as much the last term will be the focus on people who have been left behind in the cities and distressed areas, and the impetus for that is going to be that welfare reform is going to start in the next several years taking welfare checks away from people. And the President feels very strongly they need to be replaced with paychecks. But paychecks means corporations and businesses need to be drawn to the creation of jobs, and sometimes the public sector, and so I think you'll see a good deal of emphasis on that on the part of the President.
MS. FARNSWORTH: Now at the same time as you're celebrating the White House is going through some upheaval as cabinet changes are discussed and made. Um--a few questions about that. Are you planning to leave?
SEC. CISNEROS: Well, I wouldn't call it upheaval because it is normal at the end of an exhausting four-year cycle that folks would have personal plans and personal obligations and so forth. I've made no final personal decision. It's always a balancing between what the President wants and his desires for the cabinet and then what personal obligations people may have. That's something that's not sorted out in my case. But--but I noticed that there are today rumors about individuals and, and I would just say the President will take all of those under advisement over the next several days, and I think that sometime over the next week or so he'll make some definitive statement about the makeup of the cabinet. This has been an unusually collegial group. It's fascinating to have been part of a cabinet that has been very effective. Part of the President's success in this election was the fact that Sec. Christopher has kept us as peace in the world, and Sec. Perry has managed the Defense Department so soundly, and Sec. Rubin has done such a good job in managing the economy, along with others, and you haven't seen the sharp elbows and sort of the competitiveness of egos that has characterized past cabinets--lots of fodder for the news media. You haven't had it out of this group because of the collegiality, and I think that's a characteristic that the President will want to build into the next term as well.
MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for being with us. Congratulations, again.
SEC. CISNEROS: Thank you, Elizabeth.
MR. LEHRER: The second vision is that of the Republican leadership of the Congress, and Margaret Warner has that.
MS. WARNER: And that Republican vision comes from the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, Don Nickles of Oklahoma, the Majority Whip. Welcome, Sen. Nickles.
SEN. DON NICKLES, Majority Whip: Hi, Margaret. Thank you.
MS. WARNER: What do you think was the message that voters were sending in terms of what they--how they want the Congress to operate?
SEN. NICKLES: Well, I think they want Congress to do its job. They want us to be responsible. Some of the things the President said resonated, but frankly, some of his things don't really match up with the rhetoric of some of his actions, but we look forward to what the President proposes, but we're still serious about balancing the budget. We're still very serious about offering, uh, some, uh, tax relief for American families. The President talked about that. We plan on working with the President to make sure that it gets done.
MS. WARNER: Now, the President said today that he wanted to try to recreate in the next four years the same spirit between himself and the Congress that prevailed in the last few months, as opposed to say 1995. My question to you is: Are the more conservative members of your party in the Senate ready for the kind of--continuing the kind of real compromises that, in fact, they did make in order to get some of this legislation in the last few months?
SEN. NICKLES: Well, we made some compromises, but frankly, a lot of it was the President moving towards us. The President finally signed the welfare reform bill. I'm pleased that he did. He vetoed it twice. He finally signed the third one, but what a lot of people don't know is he also signed a ten-year waiver and exemption for the District of Columbia. We caught him on it, and finally he rescinded that waiver, but it just showed you he was trying to undermine the welfare reform bill the same time he signed it.
MS. WARNER: Let me try the question a different way--not looking to the past--and that's my mistake. We just heard Sec. Cisneros say that he thought this election would have a centralizing effect. And speaking of the Republicans, he said he thinks that centrist Democrats and moderate Republicans will command the central momentum.
SEN. NICKLES: Well, I don't know if I'd characterize it like that. I think you will find us very willing to receive the President's proposals and those that we think that are good for America, we will be happy to move forward on them, but we're still very dedicated and committed to balancing the budget. I think you'll see us early next year try to pass, for example, a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. The President doesn't agree with that, but we're still committed to do it, and we're still going to try and do it. And I think, uh, you know, some people say what difference does a vote make? We failed passing the balanced budget amendment in the Senate by one vote. We picked up one or two votes, I think, last night. We have to check everybody and on the Republican side, I think we're in good shape. If we don't lose any Democrats, uh, I think we can pass a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. And so that will be up pretty quick, plus then we still have to put the whole budget package together, uh, and that includes saving Medicare. You know, the President and the Democrats maybe really scored some political points in scaring senior citizens, not totally successfully, but they did scare some senior citizens, but it doesn't change the facts. We have to save Medicare, and it's spending a lot more money than it's taking in, and so he needs to put a proposal on the table that's going to help do that to keep the fund solvent, and he hasn't done that yet.
MS. WARNER: So are you saying that on the matter of entitlement reform, particularly Medicare and Medicaid, that you are expecting the President to take the first step?
SEN. NICKLES: Well, he should. You know, he blasted us and frankly, in my opinion, he wasn't responsible--certainly wasn't fiscally responsible, nor do I think their charges were even truthful. You know, when they say they're cutting Medicare and you and I know that it was growing over 7 percent under our proposal, his proposal doesn't have Medicare growing much more than 7 percent, but, uh, you know, they're score political points. But the facts are we have to save it, and you either increase payroll taxes, or you reduce the rate of growth of outlays. I think with a Republican Congress we don't want to increase payroll taxes, and so they're going to have to have--we're going to have to work together. It's going to take Republicans and Democrats working together to make it happen, but we're going to have to pass Medicare reforms to have it grow at about 7 percent per year to keep it solvent for some period of time.
MS. WARNER: Okay.
SEN. NICKLES: And we have to look at those--those problems, and to ignore 'em for political purposes, uh, I think would be very irresponsible.
MS. WARNER: All right. You mentioned that the President had managed to score political points on Medicare during the--during the campaign. The reason your savings--or he would argue the reason your savings in Medicare were higher than the Republicans was that you wanted to give a very large or larger tax cut than he did, and that's my question. Where are you now? Don't--if you would look ahead, where are you now in the kind of tax cuts you all will be pushing? Are you going to go for across-the-board tax cuts such as Sen. Dole wanted, or are you going to be content with much smaller, targeted tax cuts of the kind the President was talking about?
SEN. NICKLES: First, let me just mention that the demagoguery on, hey, they want to cut Medicare so they can pay for tax cuts is totally false, and they know it. We had a provision in our Medicare provision--proposal that said all the savings stayed in the Medicare trust fund, all the Medicare savings. It was my proposal, and it passed. It was part of our package, and we wanted to do that because we know Medicare was having financial problems.
MS. WARNER: But what about in the year to come?
SEN. NICKLES: Well, in the year to come, the President needs to put his proposal up. Now as far as the size of the tax cut, we haven't made the final decision on that, but the President campaigned for giving American families tax cuts--tax credit for children. What he doesn't say is his--his children tax cut stops at age 12--ours stopped at age 18. I still like age 18. We're going to try and pass it hopefully with the larger age so that it benefits more kids. Um, his proposal stops at a much lower income level. Some of us like to have it apply really to more taxpayers, so we'll have to, uh, debate that, and we also want to have a capital gains reduction. We want to make some changes that would help the economy. He has very targeted tax cuts that are very limited and also what he didn't tell a lot of people, it's his tax cuts--he has an equal amount of tax increases during those years, plus he has tax increases in the last year. The President's proposal on budget has a $107 billion deficit this year, and then in five years, it only goes to $87 billion--almost no deficit reduction--and then he has automatic tax increases the last year. That's not acceptable to us, and we're not going to have automatic tax increases in the sixth year to come up with a balanced budget. We should be reducing the deficit every year and provide some tax relief at the same time.
MS. WARNER: Okay. Let's turn to another issue--campaign finance reform. Before I think you got--um--in your place--uh--we ran a little clip from Chris Dodd, Sen. Dodd, saying that he though the two parties should agree now at least to [a] ban all soft money contributions to parties and [b] ban all--agree to ban all contributions from non-citizens. Is that something Republicans in the Senate could endorse?
SEN. NICKLES: We might be able to do that, but we also have to look at one other big source of, I think, really almost corruption in the system, and that is a lot of people--millions of Americans- -are finding themselves coerced or compelled to contribute to political campaigns and organizations they don't agree with. And that's organized labor. They're compelling members to contribute to campaigns, and many of them don't want to. And so a lot of us feel like a very essential part of campaign reform is that we need to make sure that no American is compelled to contribute to--to political organizations or individuals if they don't want to.
MS. WARNER: Are you--
SEN. NICKLES: Everybody should have the freedom to give or not to give. No one should be compelled.
MS. WARNER: All right. And are you saying Republicans would be unwilling to make other changes unless they got that?
SEN. NICKLES: Well, I think that's a fundamental--you know, when you look at organized labor is putting in hundreds of millions of dollars in these campaigns, we need to eliminate a lot of the San Francisco. We certainly need to eliminate a lot of the foreign money--if not at all of it. They have no business, and frankly, this administration I think is--is guilty of some real serious corruption with international money, primarily Indonesia and other places, coming into their campaign that we need to review, we need to find out what did happen. It looked like they laundered money. They had Gardner contributing a bunch of money. This is wrong. That needs to be stopped, but that's already illegal. I think they've already broken the law. You need at least to enforce--
MS. WARNER: All right.
SEN. NICKLES: --the law as it's written today.
MS. WARNER: Let's look a t that final issue very briefly in terms of investigations by the Republican Congress of this administration on all kinds of issues. Today, Sen. D'Amato said he thought at this point it was time for Congress to forget about further investigations of the President. He said, it seems to me we should leave that in the hands of a special prosecutor. Do you agree with that, or do you see these investigations as a continuing priority for, uh, Senate Republicans?
SEN. NICKLES: Well, Margaret, I think the Senate needs and the Congress needs to do its business, and that is passing a budget, uh, saving Medicare, passing some other legislation like highway reauthorization, superfund reauthorization, we need to do all of our business. But likewise, we still have a responsibility to make sure that the laws are carried out. Now, Kenneth Starr has his job, he should compete that job, and I hope that the White House is not foolish enough to start throwing a bunch of pardons around because if they do that, I think there'll be some real serious repercussions. But Kenneth Starr needs to do his work, but likewise, Congress has a real responsibility. Some of the election law violations that have, have allegations been made, we need to investigate that, and some people have made allegations against Republicans. We need to investigate both sides. We don't want to find out that you've had individuals inside the Department of Commerce raising millions of dollars illegally from, from foreign persons--
MS. WARNER: All right.
SEN. NICKLES: --and others. We need to--we need to investigate that.
MS. WARNER: Thanks, Sen. Nickles. We have to leave it there, but thanks very much.
SEN. NICKLES: Thank you. UPDATE - HOW THEY FARED
MR. LEHRER: Now an election results postscript for regular NewsHour viewers. As you know, we focused at various times on several specific congressional and referenda contests during this election. Kwame Holman reports on how each turned out.
MR. HOLMAN: Colorado's open Senate seat was the battleground for Republican Congressman Wayne Allard and Democrat Tom Strickland. Strickland called Allard an extremist, too conservative for Colorado. But Republican Allard prevailed in this battle over who was the true moderate.
REP. WAYNE ALLARD: We did it together, didn't we?
MR. HOLMAN: Still, it was close--Allard 51 percent, Democrat Strickland 46 percent. In House races, freshman Republicans elected in the 1994 GOP takeover were in the spotlight. Washington State Republican Randy Tate lost his bid for a second term to Democrat Adam Smith, whose campaign was bolstered by AFL-CIO ads that portrayed Republican Tate as too far to the right for this traditionally swing district.
AD SPOKESPERSON: It should be illegal to do something like that.
RICK WHITE: I'm doing just great. How's everybody doing there?
MR. HOLMAN: Rick White, another Washington State Republican freshman, apparently was successful in fending off charges he is a clone of Speaker Newt Gingrich made by Democratic opponent Jeff Coopersmith. Republican White focused on a theme of reduced federal bureaucracy and devolving power back to the states to pull out a four-point victory last night.
SPOKESMAN: How you doin'? Good to see you guys.
MR. HOLMAN: On the other side of the country, Pennsylvania Republican Phil English also won after distancing himself from the conservative agenda in Congress, including voting to increase the minimum wage.
REP. PHIL ENGLISH, [R] Pennsylvania: I think clearly the freshman class was depicted as being much more ideologically monolithic than it really was in the final analysis.
MR. HOLMAN: In Tennessee, the NewsHour tracked Republican freshman Van Hilleary, also an AFL-CIO target, who nonetheless handily defeated Democratic opponent Mark Stewart, and in a rematch of a tight race two years ago, Democratic Congressman Bart Gordon won a seventh term easily defeating Republican Steve Gill. Redistricting ordered by the Supreme Court gave some incumbents new territory and new problems in the 1996 campaign. In Georgia's new 4th district, Democrat Cynthia McKinney won her race over John Mitnick. In Texas, redistricting reshaped 13 races from Dallas to Houston. In a district with 11 candidates on the ballot, Democratic Congressman Ken Bentsen got 34 percent of the vote, followed by Republican Dolly Madison McKenna. The two meet in a runoff December 10th. Voters also decided a variety of local and statewide ballot initiatives yesterday, among them approval of California's Proposition 209, ending race and gender preferences in the public sector. But they rejected Proposition 211, which would have made it easier for people to sue corporations for stock fraud. Californians also voted against regulating HMO's. Californians and Arizonans also approved measures making marijuana use legal for medicinal purposes. And in Colorado, voters defeated a proposed state constitutional amendment codifying the right of parents to raise and educate their children. Opponents argued the measure would lead to increased child abuse and never-ending curriculum battles in the classroom. FOCUS - ELECTION '96 - PUBLIC OPINION
MR. LEHRER: We return now to the larger picture and to the decision of the country, a continued divided government in Washington, a Democratic President but a Republican-controlled Congress. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has more on that.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And those details now come--uh--with some of the factors underlying yesterday's vote. And we're joined by Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Andy, what have learned--what--is it almost 24 hours later now--not quite--about why people elected--re-elected Bill Clinton, Democrat, and a Republican Congress?
ANDREW KOHUT, Pew Research Center: I think the overall--the first factor is this was an electorate disposed to the status quo. They were contented by a 53 to 43 percent public--voters said last night the country was on the right track. Most said economic conditions were good, even though they weren't feeling them particularly in their pocket. They saw that the larger economy was doing well. And there was no--there was not a case to go out and seek change, and then the case wasn't made by the challengers, uh, for change. We talked a lot about how Bob Dole didn't make the case for change, but the same thing was true, I think, for the congressional Democrats. There was an interesting in the exit polls. There was a larger percentage of American voters this year worrying that the Democratically-controlled Congress would be too liberal than were worried that a Republican Congress would be too conservative. In other words, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know at a time when you're satisfied.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, are you saying that the public voted more for incumbency than they did for divided government? I mean, we heard Henry Cisneros say earlier on the program to Elizabeth that he thought the public was voting for a check on the President.
MR. KOHUT: Well, I have--I have had real doubts about it. I continue to have real doubts about it. The public was focused in congressional issues on local factors more than on national factors, while--while Newt Gingrich and the 104th Congress are not popular with--still not popular majorities in the exit polls said they didn't like Gingrich--60 percent--54 percent said they didn't like the 104th Congress. Most people told us throughout the campaign that they were thinking about local factors. And if you analyze the nature of the vote, the congressional vote, it--it really expresses the partisan, uh, parity in this country. 90 percent of the Republicans in the country voted for a Republican congressional representative. 90 percent of the Democrats--close to that--voted for a Democrat, and the independents broke, uh, slightly for Republicans.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, did any of your polling show that the public voted this way because they wanted a check on the President they regarded as untrustworthy?
MR. KOHUT: Well, there is--there is the notion that the President, uh--there is concern about, about the President. In fact, 50 percent of voters said--when asked to describe their reaction to a--to a Clinton win--and this is obviously an electorate that voted for Bill Clinton--they said that they worried that--that--or were scared in fact that Bill Clinton might make mistakes. But still, I think it's mostly the case that these inde- -that Democrats didn't make the case to these independents that, uh, they were going to provide--they were going to do better--do better things if--if they once again controlled Congress. Uh, I'm sure that there were some strategic voters but my guess is it's a pretty small number.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So what do the polls say about the mandates-- the President's mandate vis-a-vis Congress and the Congress mandate vis-a-vis the President?
MR. KOHUT: Well, perhaps to oversimplify it a little bit--
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And briefly.
MR. KOHUT: --and briefly--the public didn't have a lot on its mind. No one issue emerged with more than 20 percent in the exit polls. There wasn't--certainly there wasn't an ideological tone. The public said it wanted less government but it didn't like the 104th Congress.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So this notion that the public is going to press the Congress to get along with the President and the President to get along with the Congress to do something, as the President said last night--put our divisions behind them--may not be borne out in what the public is thinking?
MR. KOHUT: That doesn't follow. Yes, I think it may be borne out, because we found in July both the President went up and the Republicans did better in Congress after the passage of welfare reform and portability and, and, uh--in that stream of legislation. So cooperation and moderation I think will be--will benefit both.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Andy, thank you. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP
MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, some finally tonight words from Shields and Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. Paul, let's continue the discussion. Should we be looking forward to cooperation in moderation in the government of the United States as a result of what happened last night?
PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: Sweet reason, calm, the end of partisanship as we know it--no, I don't think so. I think there'll be some cooperation, but probably a lot less than the minuets that we're listening to now, if that's not mixing metaphors, but-- [laughing]--
MR. LEHRER: That's three metaphors right there in a row.
MR. GIGOT: He is I think a lot less than meets the eye right now. Uh--
MR. LEHRER: Why?
MR. GIGOT: Because I think this--the electorate sent a kind of- -seemed to send a message of ambivalence. It can't quite make up its mind, and I think that that indecision or ambivalence is reflected in the fact--reflects the fact that we're a deeply divided country right now. We have--we're divided on the role of government, in particular, and we're divided by gender, divided on that question by race, divided by region. We had the continuing Republican realignment go ahead in the South, but they really got hurt in the Northeast and in parts of the Midwest, where government is still a little more popular. Women in particular, unmarried women seemed to feel that the government is, uh--they like having the government as a last resort of economic security. Men are much more hostile to government. So I think those divisions are embedded in this election, and that ambivalence is going to play out in the next four years.
MR. LEHRER: A deeply divided nation, Mark?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Deeply divided, ambivalent, Jim. I mean, any time you send a mixed message, as we did, Democratic President overwhelmingly re-elected, and a Republican Congress kept--it was a continuity election--
MR. LEHRER: But what Andy was saying, it's been suggested by Henry Cisneros--less so by Sen. Nichols--is that if--it's a deeply divided--if it's deeply divided, it's deeply divided in the middle. That's not what Paul is saying.
MR. SHIELDS: No. I don't think it is deeply. I think the action in the--in the foreseeable future is not on either the left of the Democratic Party or the right of the Republican Party. The action, if there's to be one, is to be in the middle. Let's be very blunt about it. I mean, President Clinton, it was constantly asked, is he going to have the Great Society or New Deal revisited--he's constrained, Jim, by the pledge of a balanced budget as to what he can do. Uh, spending is not--is not in the offing in any grandiose plan, uh, and the one thing that argues for accommodation is that accommodation served yesterday's winners superbly.
MR. LEHRER: Every one of them.
MR. SHIELDS: The Republican Congress was saved and salvaged by the perception that they were working and cooperating and being productive and non-extremist, going in the election from Memorial Day forward in 1996, the President was saying--the President had been stymied in the first year, working with the Republican Congress, getting through parts of his program, working with them on, onwelfare reform, big issues, so the--the people who were penalized by that accommodation were the change people, the people who wanted change. Bob Dole wanted to run on change, had to change the presidency, and Democratic challengers in the Congress who wanted to change the Congress, the continuity accommodation consensus folks prevailed and did pretty well at the polls.
MR. LEHRER: Take that, Gigot.
MR. GIGOT: Well, the President is also constrained by the fact that he's out there campaigning to preserve all kinds of entitlements as we know it even as he's pledging for a balanced budget. So when I say the country's divided, what I'm saying is that--I mean, it seems to be a consensus that the New Deal and the Great Society eras can't go on the way they have, but there's no consensus at all about how to proceed in the future.
MR. LEHRER: Okay. I see.
MR. GIGOT: And that's where the Republicans were trying to make the argument that there is something to a smaller government, a better society, but they didn't have a candidate, and even Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress weren't making an argument that was persuasive to enough people about why it would be a better society. So they went with President Clinton's argument, which is, well, let's preserve, more or less, what we have. So there's no decision that came out of this election about where to move next. There's going to be some cooperation in the middle and some deals cut. What I'm saying is the country hasn't made a decision about where to move towards what I think is going to be a new era.
MR. LEHRER: And neither side can argue based on the results tomorrow we were elected on November 5, 1996 to do the following, that's what you're saying?
MR. GIGOT: I think the President was elected--can say I was elected to do--as Mark has said--the equivalent of valet parking- -uh, you know, some small things.
MR. LEHRER: Mm-hmm.
MR. GIGOT: The Republicans I mean--frankly, the Republicans just got over the finish line. I mean, they don't really have an agenda either, other than the remnants of what they proposed in the last Congress, and the balanced budget, itself, so I think--I think both sides are going to be scrambling here to come up with an agenda.
MR. LEHRER: Who has the opportunity? Where are the opportunities then for leadership, to get things done? Or are there any? Is it going to be status quo meaning nothing is going to happen?
MR. SHIELDS: No. I think there are opportunities, Jim. I think first of all, you've got a--any President who wins--and there is a honeymoon. All right. I don't care who the President is-- Richard Nixon in 1972--there is a sense of okay, this fellah just won, he just came back. He's been validated. He's had his ticket punched by the American people who said won--so his proposals--he's probably got a window I think as David Gergen said last night--I think he said eleven weeks--I'd say six weeks probably to--to lay out. I mean, if the--
MR. LEHRER: You mean after January, not right--not six weeks from now?
MR. SHIELDS: Six--if it isn't done by the middle of February of 1997--
MR. LEHRER: I got you, all right. Okay.
MR. SHIELDS: --big trouble. Uh, but what you have really are two rather chastened groups in charge of our two branches of government, political branches of government, our electoral branches of government. You've got a President who's elected as an agent of change in 1992, who won re-election in 1996 as--uh--as sort of a protector of continuity, of the status quo--a defender of government, rather than anybody who's going to have any--you know, really cosmic change. You have the Republicans who came here in 1994 with self-confidence so supreme they made Henry Kissinger look humble, uh, and they're chastened. They're now looking at their whole card--geez, we just won--whew--and they won on independence--they won on we can get things done. I mean, they didn't win--Paul's right. There was no agenda; there was no revolution; there was no contract on either side.
MR. LEHRER: What do you make of Henry Cisneros's statement to Elizabeth awhile ago that--that they see--he and the Democrats--he and the President see in Trent Lott opportunities that they might not have seen obviously with Newt Gingrich and whatever; that they looked to him to get things done--what do you think about that? Is that--
MR. GIGOT: I think Trent Lott right now--the most important Republican in Washington is no longer Newt Gingrich--it is Trent Lott. He has an expanded majority. He has a bunch of new Senators. He has a younger group that's coming in; there are 20, I think, 20 Republicans, it looks like, who have come into the Senate in the last four years, the last two elections. That's an extraordinarily new infusion. Um, it's a more conservative body than it was--or a more conservative Republican Party--the Democrats, I think, are more liberal. Trent Lott will try to get things done. He's a pragmatic fellow, but he's also a partisan, and I think that you will see him in some respects be more accommodating, less aggressive than Newt Gingrich, but he will be a formidable strategic foe in trying to increase that Republican majority in '98.
MR. LEHRER: Because, Mark, I mean, let's face it, the President may be working on his place in history, but there's nothing in that for the Republicans to help him have a really neat place in history, is it?
MR. SHIELDS: Uh, no, but I mean, the Republicans don't want to appear to be sniping or petty or, or all of those things either. Um, they'll try and deck their positions and their arguments sort of high moral rhetoric, which is the opposition party's approach usually to these things. I agree that, uh, the central Republican elected figure in Washington right now is Trent Lott. Uh, the Speaker was deflated by the experiences of the past year, and, uh, and by this past campaign. He's still--there's still enormous respect for Newt Gingrich among Republicans for what he was able to achieve, but the mantel of I think--certainly of Capitol Hill leadership--has passed to, to Trent Lott.
MR. LEHRER: Do you look for anything dramatic, uh, on the--in the Clinton cabinet, the new cabinet for the--the second term?
MR. GIGOT: Well, I think we'll see quite a bit of new blood come in. I think it'll probably help the President to do that, though I think that, more important than some of the cabinet positions-- and I would suggest it would be really interesting if the President reached over to some Republicans and brought them in, as was recommended the last time--but I think the White House chief of staff position is very important.
MR. LEHRER: Do you think it's likely he'll do that?
MR. SHIELDS: Uh, I think it'd be wise for him to do it, I really do, and I think, uh, you know, there are an awful lot of people-- whether Colin Powell or Dick Lugar, Senator from Indiana, and Gen. Colin Powell, Warren Rudman, the former Senator--and there--
MR. LEHRER: Sen. Cohen--
MR. SHIELDS: --are some able--Sen. Bill Cohen of Maine--
MR. LEHRER: --a possibility for CIA--
MR. SHIELDS: There's some able people, and I think it would. I think it would serve his administration well.
MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Well, you know what--why don't the two of you plan to come back every Friday night, and we'll talk about all of this.
MR. SHIELDS: Well, that's a nice invitation, Jim.
MR. LEHRER: Thank you both very much.
MR. SHIELDS: Thank you. NEWS SUMMARY
MR. LEHRER: In the non-election news of this day, Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordice remained hospitalized after being seriously injured in a traffic accident. Fordice suffered broken ribs, internal bruises, and a collapsed lung after his vehicle overturned yesterday. It happened near the town of Grenada, one hundred miles North of Jackson. Doctors said Fordice would be in the hospital for at least two weeks. In Russia today, President Yeltsin signed a decree reclaiming the presidential powers he turned over before his heart surgery. Doctors said the president was in good spirits and that he had been taken off a respirator. American heart specialist Dr. Michael Debakey spoke with reporters.
DR. MICHAEL DEBAKEY, Yeltsin Heart Consultant: I saw him this morning. He's quite alert. Uh, there's no question in my mind that his--his mental powers are there--uh--no reason why he can't make a judgment right now. So, I'm confident about his capabilities neurologically and--and, uh, from the standpoint of his mental alertness.
MR. LEHRER: Yeltsin also sent President Clinton congratulations today on his re-election victory. And that's the NewsHour for this day after the election. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.
Series
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
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NewsHour Productions
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NewsHour Productions (Washington, District of Columbia)
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cpb-aacip/507-183416th41
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Episode Description
This episode's headline: Newsmaker; Public Opinion; How They Fared; Political Wrap. ANCHOR: JIM LEHRER; GUESTS: HENRY CISNEROS, Secretary, Housing & Urban Development; SEN. DON NICKLES, Majority Whip; MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist; PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal; ANDREW KOHUT, Pew Research Center; CORRESPONDENTS: CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT; KWAME HOLMAN; MARGARET WARNER; ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH;
Date
1996-11-06
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Episode
Topics
Politics and Government
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Copyright NewsHour Productions, LLC. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode)
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00:58:30
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Producing Organization: NewsHour Productions
AAPB Contributor Holdings
NewsHour Productions
Identifier: NH-5693 (NH Show Code)
Format: Betacam
Generation: Preservation
Duration: 01:00:00;00
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Citations
Chicago: “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” 1996-11-06, NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed July 2, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-183416th41.
MLA: “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” 1996-11-06. NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. July 2, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-183416th41>.
APA: The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Boston, MA: NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-183416th41