The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the last day of campaign '96, with Dole, Clinton, and Perot speeches, final words from political reporters David Broder, Ron Brownstein, and Elizabeth Arnold, the last polls as explained by Andy Kohut, and a Betty Ann Bowser report on the congressional free-for-all in Texas, plus the MCI-British Telecom deal, and our summary of the other news of this day at the end of the program tonight. SERIES - WHERE THEY STAND

MR. LEHRER: We begin tonight this last of the campaign '96 with "Where They Stand" speeches by presidential candidates Dole, Clinton, and Perot. The first--Bob Dole at a rallyin Houston, Texas.

SEN. BOB DOLE: We've been in fourteen states during this marathon, and we have three more to go, and we'll end up in Independence, Missouri. You may remember President Truman. They used to ask President Truman to give 'em hell, Harry. He said, I'm not giving hell, I just tell 'em the truth; they think it's hell. And that's what's going to happen. [applause] Our message is very simple: First of all, I trust the people. President Clinton doesn't trust the people; he trusts the government. Secondly, that 15 percent is across-the-board, coupled with a $500 per child tax credit, and there are a lot of those up here, a little $500 credits running all over the place. And then to stimulate more jobs and more activity in the private sector, we're going to cut the capital gains rate in half, 50 percent. [applause] And that is just phase one. Phase two is to have a flatter, fairer, simpler tax, and end the IRS as we know it. [cheers and applause] And as President Bush says, it's really about your children; it's about the future. The future's always about the children and the grandchildren. It's also, as President Bush said, about duty, about honor, about country, about integrity, about honesty, and if you see what's happening in this White House now, you wouldn't believe it. You couldn't write a novel to say all these things would take place in the Clinton House but they have. And every day there's something new. Today it's something new. But I tell you one thing, that I will not violate the public trust when I am President of the United States of American. [cheers and applause] These are values we learned as children. These are values we try to instill in our children, and I believe they're important. I've never known such arrogance in the White House--and I've been there a while--as I witness almost on a daily basis with a Clinton White House. They don't--they say, well, we play by the rules. They don't have any rules. They make up their own rules. They play only by their rules. And I would say the Republicans or Democrats or independents or members of the Reform Party, if you're concerned about America, you'd better be concerned about what happens tomorrow in the election all across America. [cheers and applause] And if you're looking for someone--

PEOPLE IN CROWD CHANTING: Bob Dole, Bob Dole, Bob Dole--

SEN. BOB DOLE: Thank you. If you want a President who knows something about service and something about sacrifice, I'll be your choice, and I'll be proud to be your President. [cheers and applause] And if you want a President who can work with Congress and work with the governors, Governor Bush and other governors across America, I know how to do that. Now what I want to do is dust off the 10th amendment, which is only 28 words in length--it's about the size of my stories in the "New York Times" on a daily basis--but--and what it says is this: unless the Constitution gives the power to the federal government or denies it to the states, it belongs to the states and to the people and to the people. Well, let's give America back to the people, back to the people right here. [cheers and applause] Let's do what we should do for our children when it comes to crime, when it comes to drugs, and we will do it in a Dole-Kemp administration. So I ask you, go to work, give us your vote, give us your support, check with your neighbors. If they're us, take 'em to the polls; otherwise tell 'em the election's been postponed. But we are going to win. I appreciate the fact that I know now in advance that Texas will be Dole-Kemp country Tuesday evening. Thank you very much. Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: Bob Dole speaking in Houston today. President Clinton was in Ohio this afternoon. He spoke at a rally at Cleveland State University.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: You know that four years ago when Ohio put us over the top on election night, when they showed that map of America, and then the Ohio map started blinking, and my heart started palpitating. And they said, Ohio has gone for Clinton and Gore, they have the votes they need to win the White House. [cheers and applause] You remember that. You took us on faith then. But now you don't have to. You know whether their approach or our approach works. This state is better off compared to four years ago in every way--more jobs, higher incomes, more businesses, a lower crime crate, lower welfare reform rates--we are moving in the right direction. Do you want to keep going, and will you be there tomorrow to keep it going? [cheers and applause] Your vote will decide what kind of future we build. Will you say--will every one of you personally say for my children, for their future, for our country, this is my responsibility, and I will seize tomorrow to build America's 21st century bridge, will you do it? [cheers and applause] I--I want to thank Sen. Dole for something. He made a great speech for my reelection the other day. You know, we had a report, we were at 10 1/2 million new jobs in the last four years, and then last week it came out that we had another 210,000 new jobs for 10.7 million jobs--faster job growth than any Republican administration since the 1920's! [cheers and applause] And when that happened, when that happened, Sen. Dole said we had the worst economy in 20 years. Now, why is that a speech--because just two weeks before he said we had the worst economy in a hundred years. Now, who else do you know who could make up 80 years in two weeks? We're moving in the right direction. We're going to the 21st century. We need to bear down and go on. But now, folks, I have done all I can do. It's in your corner now, and you must seize the day. You'll decide whether we balance the budget and protect our priorities and invest in our future, or whether we adopt their risky scheme and wreck our economy. You will decide whether they were right, or I was right when I signed the family and medical leave law, and they--Mr. Dole and Mr. Gingrich- -led the fight against it. [cheers and applause] They said--they said when I signed it, this is a terrible thing, this will hurt the economy. Well, we know now 12 million people got to take a little time off from work when a baby was born or a family member was sick--we've had record new businesses, record exports, 10.7 million new jobs, incomes going up $1600 in the last two years alone. Family leave made us a stronger economy by helping people be happy at work because they knew their kids were all right at home. We did the right thing, and they were wrong. [cheers and applause] So you have to decide. I want to expand it because I think you ought to be able to take a little time off to go see your children's teachers twice a year and take your kids to the doctor. [cheers and applause] But they don't. Your vote will decide. Will you seize the day tomorrow and help us expand family leave?

CROWD YELLING: Yes!

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Will you seize the day and help us balance the budget?

CROWD YELLING: Yes!

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I have done everything I could. The responsibility now shifts to you, my fellow Americans. It is your country, your children, your future. Ithank you for giving me the chance to serve. I ask you to--I ask you to think tonight--I ask you to think tonight before you go to bed about what you want this great country to look like. We are better off than we were four years ago. When we cross the bridge into the 21st century, if we stay on this course, we'll be better off still, and we will do it together. Look at your children, think of your future, seize the day to keep your country moving in the right direction. Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton speaking today in Cleveland, Ohio. Ross Perot was also in Texas today. He spoke and took questions at St. Mary's University in San Antonio.

ROSS PEROT, Reform Party Presidential Candidate: Before you cast your vote, ask yourself what qualities the President of the United States should have because you're about to give him the most important job in the world. In a few years, you'll have sons and daughters. Right now, you are in this window, yourselves. The President of the United States can order you and in the future your sons and daughters to go to war. He can literally sacrifice your lives. Now, once you cross that threshold, I hope you'll get past the miscellaneous items and start thinking about the qualities and characters of the person you select. Shouldn't your President have the highest moral and ethical standards and be an example to our children and young people in this country? Ask yourself that question, please. Shouldn't his life make him a role model for your future children? Shouldn't anyone you elect to this office always keep his promises? These are pretty basic things. Most of you, I guess, are Catholics. You're in this great Catholic institution. And please remember that for any free society to thrive and survive, it must rest squarely on a strong moral, ethical base. Study history, and you'll see again and again that great societies collapse when their moral and ethical bases collapse. So certainly the person in this job should live in the center of the field of ethical behavior and hold himself to a much higher standard than is legal or illegal. The only question should be is it right or wrong? [applause] Thank you. And now we have a couple of questions.

MAN: The question we have for you to today is: What do you think about Sen. Dole's 15 percent across-the-board tax cut?

ROSS PEROT: If the 1993 tax increase, the largest in history, made sense, how can a tax cut in 1996 make sense? One or the other doesn't make sense. And yet we never force our people to say, wait a minute, pick one or the other but don't pick 'em both. You and I both know, if you think about it that long, this is a free candy thing. Trickle down didn't work, and this is nothing more than a flagrant appeal to your emotions to get a vote. I don't want to appeal to your emotions. I want to appeal to your intellect and to your patriotism and to your logic to get your vote.

WOMAN: Sen. Dole mentioned the issue of drugs in the first debate. He suggested that in the past year President Clinton beared some responsibility for the rise of drug use among teenagers in the United States. Mr. Perot, our question is: do you feel that Sen. Dole is right in this claim about President Clinton and why?

ROSS PEROT: All right. The facts are--and this is from President Clinton--the Department of Human resources says that teenage marijuana use has gone up 140 percent in the last four years. Well, when you have the President of the United States go on MTV, where you're talking to young people, and say, yeah, I smoked but I didn't inhale, is that the kind of role model you want for young people? I don't think so. Then they asked him if he ever had another chance would he inhale, and he said probably yes. No. You need someone in the White House who makes it clear to young people how damaging drugs are. I promise you this--if I am your President, there will be one war--President--if you don't like it, you don't want to vote for me--we will have an all out war on drugs. In contrast, we've got $120 billion a year of drugs coming across the border from Mexico, and the word has gone out to DEA to kind of stand back because Mexico needs those dollars to stabilize the peso. Hell will freeze over and become a glacier before you ever hear anything like that from me. [applause] And being a drug dealer may be the best business in the old USA today. It'll be the worst business in the good old USA today, because I am not going to let people destroy their lives, and drugs are poison. And any of you who are just out there using it and whipping it and sniffing it and smoking it, and feeling good about it, please go to the library and get the data, and you'll say, my God, I'm destroying myself, and I could be destroying my children. In closing, let me thank you all for coming. It's been a privilege to be with you, and more than anything else, I want to make sure you all study the issues, go to the polls, and vote your conscience tomorrow. You have that obligation as one of the owners of this great country. Thank you very much. Great to be with you.

MR. LEHRER: Ross Perot speaking today in San Antonio, Texas. FOCUS - '96 - CAMPAIGN NOTEBOOK

MR. LEHRER: Now some last day observations from three veteran political reporters who have been with us from time to time throughout this campaign: David Broder of the "Washington Post," Ron Brownstein of the "Los Angeles Times," and Elizabeth Arnold of National Public Radio, who joins us from Dole's latest stop, Lafayette, Louisiana. Elizabeth, the 96-hour marathon of Bob Dole is almost over. What impact has it had, do you think?

ELIZABETH ARNOLD, National Public Radio: Well, I think it's done three things probably. It's fired up the base. It's created a lot of energy and a lot of interest, which he needed--badly needed to do. Secondly, it's brought a lot of attention to the congressional races which Sen. Dole's been very concerned about, so he some key states where there were very close Senate races. And thirdly, I think this is a very important to Dole. It proves how committed he is. He's been traveling around--breakneck speed. We've had about five hours sleep in four days now. So that's a declaration of where I am right now, but it's really sort of energized the base. The problem is it really hasn't done much in terms of the undecideds. We pull into the airports at 4 AM, and it's pretty much the hardcore supporters who are there.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. David Broder, what do you think about this 96- hour marathon, what it says about Bob Dole that we should remember?

DAVID BRODER, Washington Post: Well, I think it says a lot that is admirable about him. The man is a battler. He has never worried about what the odds were in his legislative career, whether it was the task of trying to find one more vote for the balanced budget amendment or find one more voter out there on the campaign trail. I think it speaks wonderful things about his character.

MR. LEHRER: Now, has it changed the possible result tomorrow in any way?

MR. BRODER: Uh, nothing that I have heard, including the last conversations I had with the people in the Dole headquarters who suggest that they think he is about to pull a rabbit out of the hat and win the election. I do think that he may have moved some states from the Clinton column to the Dole column, but as Elizabeth was suggesting, they're all states which normally we have put in the Republican stands much earlier in the campaign than this.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Yes, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, you had something you wanted to add to that.

MS. ARNOLD: I was just going to say, you know, I covered Bush in 1992, and his campaign was sort of slow to start, just like Dole's was, but now at the very end turned into this breakneck race around the country. And it's interesting to me that back then Bush was sort of slow to realize that the economy was in dire straights and that people were really worried about it and by contrast, Dole has sort of ignored the fact that folks feel pretty good about the economy.

MR. LEHRER: So he had--he had just the opposite thing to deal with that Bush did?

MS. ARNOLD: Right.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Yeah. Ron Brownstein, you have spent some time in the last few days with President Clinton. What has his strategy been these last few days? What is he trying to do?

RON BROWNSTEIN, Los Angeles Times: Well, I think the Republicans caught his attention. I was out with him the week before last in the South, and he was sort of taking the victory lap before he had crossed the finish line. He was giving very sort of amorphous, gauzy speeches. He never mentioned the word "Dole" or "Gingrich" or "Republican" or "Democrat," for that matter. He talked about medical research and supercomputers. It was very kind of odd actually. In the last few days he's gotten a lot more poignant, as you heard on there. I mean, he--in the excerpt you heard from Ohio today, talking about, you know, the Republicans were wrong on family and medical leave, and I was right, reviving some of the Medicare debates, and I think that he's taken on a little water in the last few weeks with the revelations about the Democratic National Committee fund-raising, and he's very much conscious of trying to get over 50 percent, and I think he's trying to sharpen the message a little bit at the end to get him there.

MR. LEHRER: Why is getting over 50 percent so important to him?

MR. BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, has labored for four years under being a plurality president.

MR. LEHRER: He had 43 percent.

MR. BROWNSTEIN: 43 percent, which was no better than the Democratic average in the six previous elections, of which they lost five, and I think he's very conscious of trying [a] to build a new majority that can have some legs to show the outlines of the new Democratic political coalition both in geographic and demographic terms, and also because I think he feels that if he has a popular majority and has a big electoral vote, uh, majority, especially in states that Republicans have dominated, his hand will be strengthened in saying to Congress, look, you know, we gave the American people a choice, and they want to go in the direction that I want to go in.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. David, what do you think of the 50 percent figure? How, how important is that?

MR. BRODER: I don't think it's terribly important at all. What is important to the President is whether he can provide any help for these embattled Democratic candidates in the close House and Senate races, of which we have literally dozens going into tomorrow's voting, Jim. Uh, if he can build up his vote in a way that helps them, then it's important. Otherwise, I bet you three nights from now nobody will be able to tell you what the percentage of the popular vote was that President Clinton received.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. David--Ron--Ron.

MR. BROWNSTEIN: I would just say that I think he will probably be able to tell you. Um, he's had his eye on that for some time.

MR. LEHRER: What about Ron's other point, David, that, that the President has taken--to use Brownstein's colorful term--has taken on some water over this campaign financing thing?

MR. BRODER: No question about that. It seems to have affected two groups of voters particularly--independents particularly in the western states and across that band across the top of the country were clean politics model--Minnesota would be an example of this- -in Maine, where they just really don't have much tolerance for smelly political practices, and these have been pretty smelly political practices. It's also, I think, caused some second thoughts among some--what the Dole people call soft Republicans, who were not real enthused about Sen. Dole, have been holding out. A lot of them seem to have come back, particularly in the South and in the mountain states.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Elizabeth, is there some regret within the Dole campaign that they didn't go after the "character ethics" issue earlier? You know, it's only been in the last--I don't have to tell you--it's only been in the last three weeks or so that he's really gone after that. What's the feeling about that within the campaign?

MS. ARNOLD: There is some sense that if they had it a little bit earlier, they could have gone more positive in the end and that they made some inroads with women with some of these drug--uh--ads in the very end, and they wished that they had come out earlier on that issue as well.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. I think we need to explain to people that there's a political rally going on behind you. That is the music they are hearing. Yeah.

MS. ARNOLD: I wanted to make one point, if I could--

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

MS. ARNOLD: --in reference to the congressional races. Uh, there is yet to be sort of a debate that, that could have happened in this--in this campaign about the size of government, which is what Dole was after all along in talking about turning power over to the states, but he never really got--he never really connected that message, and Clinton sort of eclipsed it, but that is yet to come in terms of what happens with the House and Senate races.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Ron Brownstein, what is your feeling traveling with the President's people and et cetera about how important it is to him to have a Democratic Congress?

MR. BROWNSTEIN: Well, there are very much--you know, you got to look at two different tracks. On a policy front, it may be easier in many ways to have Republicans chastened with a narrow majority holding the Congress. Certainly, Democratic chairmen in the House would be much more liberal than Bill Clinton is. If the Democrats regain power, it would be very hard, I think, to pass that very austere budget he put out last year. On the other hand, if Republicans hold the chambers, they issue the subpoenas, and they have already suggested they're going to issue a flotilla of subpoenas next year on a whole variety of issues led by this fund- raising but not limited to that. So for that reason alone, I'm sure that he wants a Democratic Congress.

MR. LEHRER: So it's however he wants his poison, is that right, David?

MR. BRODER: I think that's very much the case. And the President has been--you know, he is a great consumer of polling information, and he was told early this year that the worst thing you can do is to go right straight out and tell people you want a Democratic Congress, that that sort of openly partisan appeal would be likely to boomerang on him. So, instead of that, he's had to go state by state and now recently district by district, saying, I want this person in Congress who happens to be a Democrat, and the design was that in the end we would add up the numbers at some point tomorrow night and discover voila, there's a Democratic Congress.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. So, do you think it's working? Do you think his strategy is working?

MR. BRODER: I think it had a pretty good chance of working until all of this financial mess unfolded, and I think since then, as Ron said, he's been taking on water.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Look, starting with you, Ron, there's been much said about this campaign. For instance, there were stories today in every newspaper I saw--and I saw several of them--which essentially said nothing really happened over the last several months. I mean, the campaign began with these two men separated by certain things, and, and we're sitting here the night before the election and nothing--everything's pretty much the same. Do you agree with that?

MR. BROWNSTEIN: Well, it's a little unseemly to begin the autopsy while the body is still twitching.

MR. LEHRER: I know. I know.

MR. BROWNSTEIN: But I think broadly that it's true.

MR. LEHRER: Now I don't mean about win-lose. I just mean about- -did--nothing really happened.

MR. BROWNSTEIN: No. I mean, in that sense there was--I mean, there's obviously a series of events. Bob Dole kept trying to shake up the race. He quit the Senate. He proposed a 15 percent tax cut. He reached out to Jack Kemp, an enemy during the 80's, who had been very much estranged from the party, but the basic structure that was locked into place last winter around the budget fight really has been, you know, extraordinarily difficult to dislodge. I mean, we're all looking at a race that in many respects very much resemble what we had in January, February, and March, so in that sense, nothing changed, although I do think that the way the debate evolved with be very important for next year. I think Elizabeth was saying before we didn't get the debate on government, but it was partly because Dole felt that he could not run on completing the revolution of '95; that had lost some of its steam. And that points to me to suggest that both parties next year, if we have divided government, are going to see a lot of incentive to make some deals and get some of these issues behind them. Both sides have found a promising revolution as Clinton did in '93, as Gingrich did in '95, is not necessarily the way to success.

MR. LEHRER: Elizabeth, what do you think about what this campaign has done or not done?

MS. ARNOLD: Well, coming after what Ron said, I do think there's a very large debate ahead over the size of entitlements and that that's going to come and face both parties real soon, and they're going to have to deal with that. But I would disagree that nothing happened. I actually think that something very interesting happened in the Republican Party, and that's just from being out here on the road, there have been a lot of Reagan folks around, Reagan people saying what should be done, morning in America, these kinds of things, and it didn't work, and I see also a lot of younger Republicans out, very frustrated by that, saying, look, we need to go in a new direction, we need the Republican Party to be something else and stand for something else, and I think that that revolution, that's going to start moving forward. I think a whole new generation of Republicans are going to get involved. I talked to a lot of kids at rallies, college kids at rallies who are frustrated by the fact that Dole is their candidate, um, sort of felt like, well, we had to have him as our candidate, it was his turn, that kind of thing, and they're ready now, um, for some new blood.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah, David, your thoughts about the campaign generally.

MR. BRODER: Uh, Jim, from the voter's point of view not much did happen. I think most voters made their decisions very early this year. I went to Verona, New Jersey, to a couple of swing precincts right after Labor Day, particularly interested to see whether Sen. Dole's economic message was going to resonate in areas which have gone from supporting Democrats for governor in Congress to supporting Republicans in the most recent elections. What I found there was, one, they didn't really believe Sen. Dole's promise that you could cut taxes 15 percent and still balance the budget, and two, that it was very hard to find undecided voters. The only people that I could find who were undecided were people who said, I don't like any of these people. I don't know what I'm going to do. I may not even vote. And I expect a lot of these people tomorrow unfortunately will probably end up not voting.

MR. LEHRER: What about the Ross Perot factor, David? Has he--is he a factor in this election?

MR. BRODER: He's a factor because for those who didn't really want to vote for either Bill Clinton or Bob Dole, he's there now in there. He's raised his visibility enough to the point that they say, oh, yeah, there's another guy there. And I think the reason that we've seen his numbers come up, you know, perhaps from high single digits to low double digits in the last few days has been that he is the alternative option. It's not so much that they're voting Perot. It's that they're saying, give us a better choice.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Well, David, Ron, Elizabeth, thank you for being with us tonight and throughout the campaign. And Elizabeth, I appreciate particularly your fighting the, the band and all that to be with us tonight from Lafayette, Louisiana. Thank you all three very much. UPDATE - CAMPAIGN '96 - PUBLIC OPINION

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the latest polls, the congressional free-for-all in Texas, plus the non- politics news of the day, including the MCI-British Telecom deal. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has the polls story.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The newest poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press was released yesterday. Among likely voters, 49 percent supported President Clinton, 36 percent Bob Dole, 8 percent Ross Perot, and 7 percent didn't know or were voting for other candidates. We get the details behind these numbers now from Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. Andy, thank you for joining us again. What are the details behind those numbers?

ANDREW KOHUT, Pew Research Center: Well, the details are pretty simple. Not much changed between mid-October and this final weekend of the campaign, and not much has changed between early September and mid-October, as the last--as some people said in the last segment, nothing much has happened with the voters. And that's borne out by these survey numbers. And if you look behind just the survey numbers, themselves, the horse race numbers, we find every reason to believe that Bill Clinton has a very solid lead. People are saying they strongly support him at the same level and said that about George Bush in 1988 when he went on to win, as said that about Jimmy Carter in '76, so the strength and support is there, in addition to just the, the width of that lead.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And where is the strength?

MR. KOHUT: Well, the strength of it is in terms of Bill Clinton pulling together a strong Democratic coalition. He's getting close to 90 percent of Democrats--88 percent of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic say they're going to vote for Bill Clinton. That's very unusual. Democrats are generally much more fractious. He's getting good support from labor, from minority groups, and poor people, plus unusually for presidential candidates, Democratic presidential candidates, he's carrying the white vote, he's carrying the suburban vote, he's carrying the middle class vote. And, uh--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And I think when we talked earlier, you said something about the gender--particularly there was a huge--

MR. KOHUT: Oh, a huge agenda cavern. I think the--the figures that we had were something like a 53-29 margin among women, and a very close race that's in favor of Clinton, a very close race among men.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And your polls are not showing any spillover from the water that we heard referred to that, that the campaign finance scandal or charges were taken on.

MR. KOHUT: Well, we used to hear about Ronald Reagan is the Teflon President, boy, this is the Teflon President. We found only one in five voters say that they were paying very close attention to these allegations about campaign finance irregularities, and when we asked Clinton-backers if these charges or allegations raised any doubts in their minds, only 7 percent of the people who will say they're backing Bill Clinton said it raised any doubts in their minds.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about some of the other polls? I mean, some of them have Clinton--you heard the discussion about the magic 50 percent number--your poll, I think, had Clinton at what, 49 percent?

MR. KOHUT: 49, yeah.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And a couple of the others, ABC, CBS, New York Times, had him at 50 and 53.

MR. KOHUT: Right. Well, all of these polls, five of the six leading independent polls are all very, very close to one another, showing small digit--double-digit leads for Bill Clinton. There's barely a difference in statistical terms between ABC, CBS, Gallup, our survey, and the NBC Poll. There's one poll with a somewhat unorthodox approach that has a very narrow lead, but generally like Bill Clinton's unmovable lead, there's been more consistency in the polls than we typically see. And when we take our survey--our survey and allocate our undecideds, we get 52-38-9--52 for Clinton, 38 for, for Dole, 9 for Perot--as our best estimate of what's likely to happen on Tuesday, which would put him over the 50 percent mark.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you have a higher list of undecideds than the others--than the other two polls that we're talking about.

MR. KOHUT: That generally in polls reflects how hard you push the undecideds. The CBS/New York Times poll, for example, asks a few questions in front of the horse race question that we don't, but pretty much the, the analysis of, of our undecideds suggested that there's no--there's no hidden vote for Dole or Perot, and particularly among undecided voters.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I was just going to ask you about the Perot factor, because he--the polls--this, your poll and the other two polls I cited having been in the single digits, but last week he was in the double digits, and you heard David Broder refer to double digits for Perot. What's going on there?

MR. KOHUT: Well, there was a little boomlet. Actually, our polls showed a 2-point increase for, for Perot, which I wouldn't make of, except it was some confirmation that last week in some of the other polls, but that boomlet isn't going very far because we find as many as 74 percent of the public were not supporting him, saying that there's no way they're going to support him, and only another 7 percent saying that they might support Ross Perot. So I don't think it's going very far. But I want to add one little caution here. Perot surprised the pollsters in '92. He got better support on election day than he did in the polls. If there's anything that's at all uncertain about these numbers, from my point of view, it might be the percentage Perot--he might spill into double digits.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Briefly, are the polls indicating any avenue for a Dole upset?

MR. KOHUT: We've seen no movements since September. It would be hard to, to fathom a movement overnight. If the polls are wrong now, it's going to make the miscue in 1948 look like a minor fumble because there's such consistency and the margins are so wide and deep.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We discussed a moment ago the water that, that Clinton was not--that was not affecting Clinton in terms of the campaign financing allegations, but Ron Brownstein said that it might be affecting the congressional races? But is it as far as the polls are showing now, and what else are you seeing there?

MR. KOHUT: It may well, because there are a lot of Republican-- there are a lot of independents who are on the fence on the--in the congressional races. We have 48 percent inclined to a Democratic candidate, 44 percent inclined to a Republican candidate. That's too close to call to say that the popular vote will go to the Democrats, and the margin of error on the generic measure is, uh, greater in presidential years than in off years, and I would say we're not going to know about the popular vote until tomorrow night. Uh, I don't--I don't have as much faith in this number as I do in the presidential numbers. First of all, the national polls are all over the lot on that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Andy Kohut, we'll see you tomorrow.

MR. KOHUT: Okay. FOCUS - FREE-FOR-ALL

MR. LEHRER: And speaking of congressional elections, now, why this election won't be completely over everywhere tomorrow. Betty Ann Bowser reports on the most unusual congressional elections in Texas.

MARJORIE ARSHT, Republican Activist: Thank you all for coming.

MS. BOWSER: Eighty-four-year old Marjorie Arsht, a Republican Party activist, can still recall a time when the grand old party in Texas wasn't all that grand.

MARJORIE ARSHT: You see, I remember when we couldn't find one Republican town.

MS. BOWSER: But tomorrow, there will be a total of eight Republican candidates all trying to defeat incumbent Democrat Ken Bentsen in Texas's 25th congressional district. That's because last June, the U.S. Supreme Court declared three congressional districts in Texas had been unconstitutionally drawn based on race. A three- judge panel redrew those districts and in a controversial move changed ten neighboring ones as well. The judges then threw out the results of the primary elections in all 13 areas and opened tomorrow's election to any candidate who wished to run. In most districts, only two or thee new candidates got into the race, but in Houston's 25th, Ken Bentsen's district, nine new candidates jumped in. There's a former radio talk show host--a businessman who brags he can water ski barefoot--there's a perennial office seeker who's never been elected to anything--and that's just for starters. All in all, there are two Democrats, eight Republicans, and a Socialist in the race. Leaders in both political parties say this has all been very confusing for voters. Sue Schechter is the Harris County Democratic campaign coordinator.

SUE SCHECHTER, Harris County Democratic Party's: It's like a free-for-all primary, is basically what it's like, uh, and for voters, it's like learning about ten new folks that they've never heard of, that they've never been involved in the political process, and that suddenly they're on their ballot in November.

MS. BOWSER: Polls show it's unlikely any of the candidates in District 25 will get 50 percent of the vote. The same is true in at least two of the other contested districts, so there will have to be runoff elections in December. And if control of the U.S. House of Representatives is within two or three seats after tomorrow, the nation could have to wait until after the Texas runoffs to learn who has the majority. Political scientist Bob Stein.

BOB STEIN, Rice University: Consider this; that on November 5th, we might elect a President, but we won't know who the Congress-- which party will hold the Congress. There's a lot of guessing in this game, and it's imprecise, but the good numbers are that there will be three seats in Texas for which they'll be runoffs.

MS. BOWSER: There hasn't been such a free-for-all in Texas politics since 1961, when 71 candidates entered the U.S. Senate race to replace Lyndon Johnson, who'd been elected Vice President. In that race, there were so many Democratic candidates that they splintered the party vote, and when it was all over, John Tower found himself the first Republican U.S. Senator from Texas since Reconstruction. Marjorie Arsht was a speech writer for Tower in those days. Since then, she has watched the Texas Republican Party grow and gain power. Now she worries that the Republican vote could fracture like it did for Democrats in 1961.

MARJORIE ARSHT: Today, uh, the party, of course, has flourished, and it is beginning, I think, to show the same signs of disarray, if you want, that the Democrats did for so many years.

MS. BOWSER: Rice University Political Scientist Stein says having so many Republicans in the race will likely help Bentsen.

BOB STEIN: All this does, of course, is spread the Republican vote out and doesn't necessarily let the most competitive candidate against Ken Bentsen emerge. Again, I think it suggests something of a national problem for the Republicans. Even though they are strong, particularly in the South, they have an ideological split that does not allow them to win in general elections or put forward that candidate that can draw not just from the brace of--base of Republicans, but draw from undecided, independent, and possibly ticket-splitting Democrats.

MS. BOWSER: Dolly Madison McKenna, the most moderate Republican in the group, hopes to draw from those kinds of voters. She has twice run for Congress from the 25th but did not run in this year's primary because she felt religious conservatives would defeat her the way they did in the 1994 primary.

DOLLY MADISON McKENNA, Republican Candidate: This for me is a very positive situation because it's not a primary. Being in open election, you're going to have a lot more voters and a lot more centrist voters, and that's to my benefit.

MS. BOWSER: Religious conservative Judge John Devine got into the race to keep someone like McKenna from getting elected and because he didn't think he could win in a primary either. He's conducting a massive phone and mail campaign, targeted specifically at religious conservatives.

JOHN DEVINE, Republican Candidate: We looked at the field of candidates that the Republicans and the Democrats had to offer in the 25th congressional district, and it became obvious to me that there was no true conservative in the race, uh, particularly on the Republican side, who had the political strength to beat Ken Bentsen.

MS. BOWSER: Perhaps the most unhappy Republican in the race is the would-be nominee Brent Perry. He won the primary by putting together a coalition of religious conservatives and moderates, people like McKenna and Devine, who are now hurting him.

BRENT PERRY, Republican Candidate: Honestly, each one comes at me from a different perspective, and they pick at a different part of the coalition that I've built up, but each one of them sort of picks at a different part of my base and, and makes it hard to get a tremendous number of votes, enough votes to show me as a real strong contender.

MS. BOWSER: The job of trying to keep all of these factions together falls on the shoulders of Gary Polland, chairman of the Harris County Republican Party.

GARY POLLAND, Harris County Republican Party: And I've requested all the candidates to sign a pledge to endorse the eventual nominee of the party in this race, and all of them have done so, because if we're not together, we can't beat Bentsen.

MS. BOWSER: As for Ken Bentsen, all he could do this summer was stand by and watch as the judges reshaped his district from one that favored Democrats to one that slightly favors Republicans. Bentsen thinks he can still win, though, in spite of the disadvantage.

REP. KEN BENTSEN, Democratic Candidate: And I'm running on my record. It's a record that fits this district. It's common sense, fiscally moderate to conservative, socially moderate. That's where this district is. I fit it very well, and I've continued to run on it.

MS. BOWSER: Bentsen has only one challenger from within his party--former City Councilwoman Beverly Clark. She's a religious conservative who could pick up votes from Republicans.

BEVERLY CLARK, Democratic Candidate: I offer them, uh, my grandmother's values. And I hate to see people tag them Democratic or Republican values. What I own are values that were given to me by my grandparents, my mother--as far back as I can remember. So I don't think any party has entitlement to them.

MS. BOWSER: Most analysts agree that with so many candidates fighting for conservative votes, Bentsen is likely to make the runoff just by getting most of the Democratic vote. But the bad news for Bentsen is in the runoff process. University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray.

RICHARD MURRAY, University of Houston: Without question in Texas, runoffs [a] call fewer voters back, Republican voters, who are better educated, probably following the news more closely, maybe feel more passionately, they get back to the polls. That's how we got Sen. John Tower way back in 1961, when Texas was a very Democratic state. Republicans have a long history in this state of winning special elections when there's low turnout.

MS. BOWSER: And if, indeed, the fate of who controls the U.S. Congress is left to be determined by a few districts in Texas, Murray says one can expect hundreds of activists from both political parties and special interest groups to flood the state after tomorrow.

RICHARD MURRAY: We'll see the AFL-CIO that's got their troops scattered over seventy-five districts collapse them into three districts. We'll see on the Republican side every ounce of political muscle and cash that the NRA and the Christian Coalition can muster flowing into districts like the 25th.

MS. BOWSER: The expected runoffs are scheduled for December 10th. FOCUS - BT - MCI - BIG DEAL

MR. LEHRER: Now to the other news of this day, beginning with a very big deal in the telephone business and to Elizabeth Farnsworth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: That very big deal is the merger of the American company MCI and British Telecommunications. With BT, as it's called, purchasing MCI for around $21 billion, it's the largest foreign acquisition ever of a U.S. corporation. It's also the second biggest telecommunications combination and the third largest takeover in U.S. corporate history. And here to explain it is Catherine Arnst, an associate editor at "Business Week," covering the global telecommunications market. Thanks for being with us, Ms. Arnst.

CATHERINE ARNST, Business Week: [New York] Thank you.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Give us some background on these two companies and why they're merging.

MS. ARNST: Well, BT is what AT&T once was in the U.S.. It is the former national phone company. It was privatized in 1984. And it owned--it bought 20 percent of MCI two years ago and I think has indicated that evidently always in the back of its mind it wanted to buy the whole thing primarily to expand its global reach. It desperately needed a larger foothold outside of the UK, although it still has 90 percent of the market out there; it doesn't have as large of an international presence. As for MCI, they are--of course have been very successful going up against AT&T. They initially were the ones who started the ball rolling to break up AT&T by bringing a suit to open up the long distance market--always been very entrepreneurial, very aggressive, has about, uh, 20 percent of the long distance market in the U.S.; however, now they are trying to expand into local calling, now that that market has been opened up to competition, or will be soon. And that's a very expensive process, so they desperately needed some capital. And ultimately, I think both companies realized that to be a player in a global telecommunications universe, they both needed to have more clout and to be much larger.

MS. FARNSWORTH: You said MCI needed capital to really compete in the local market. Why? What do they have to do that they haven't been able to do?

MS. ARNST: Well, getting into local calling is very different than long distance calling, um, because in order to really compete, well, you can either resell, you can buy capacity from the baby Bells and the other local phone companies that are out there, but to be effective in that market, you have to build your own network, and that's much more expensive than building a long distance network because you have to have a wire going to every home and business. Uh, for long distance, they just depend on the local phone companies to complete their calls, but obviously, if you want to be a local phone company, you have to own those wires yourself. And that's an extremely expensive process. It took a hundred years to build the phone network the way it is now and to replicate it is going to cost billions and billions of dollars.

MS. FARNSWORTH: So they idea is they can use the capital that this huge British company has generated to be more competitive locally.

MS. ARNST: Right. They've already planned to spend a billion dollars to build out networks in 25 cities, and those are just the bare backbones of a local network. They're going to need a lot more money than that.

MS. FARNSWORTH: So is this how the American consumer will be affected by this--basically, they will see competition at the local level?

MS. ARNST: Yes, ultimately, um, this gives MCI the clout to really go after the, the local phone companies, to go after their markets, um, and to build facilities and not just to resell service, so they can offer lower prices. It should also possibly result in lower international rates because, um, BT will put press- -will be able to offer, uh, lower rates to the UK and other countries in Europe, and that's going to pressure other international phone companies to lower their rates, at least in Europe.

MS. FARNSWORTH: This will really be the first global telephone company, right?

MS. ARNST: Well, you could say that AT&T is also a global phone company. It has, you know, operations in 200 countries.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, how would you compare this then?

MS. ARNST: Um, clearly, this is a very significant presence in the U.S. and in the UK, whereas AT&T, although it has a huge presence--the biggest presence of anybody in the U.S.--in the--in other countries it's still relatively small. Um, this--AT&T will still be bigger than the combined BT-MCI, but the two will be fairly equal in being able to go after international customers.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What does this--what does this tell us about the global telecommunications industry? We've seen a lot of other mergers, at least here in the United States, with NYNEX and Atlantic Bell and that kind of thing. What does it tell us? What's happening? Why is it happening now?

MS. ARNST: Well, it's happening now because deregulation is sort of rolling around the world, uh, led by the UK and the U.S., and New Zealand is also a very open market, but those are the two main ones. Um, and every country around the world is beginning to realize that they have no choice if they want to particularly attract international businesses but to lower their phone rates and to have more efficient systems, and the only way they can do that is by allowing in competition. So that opens up the doors for foreign phone companies to enter, uh, countries around the world. It's a very different model than we had for the last 100 years, where most phone companies were state-owned monopolies. Uh, now you're really seeing competition all over the world.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And are we talking about, especially in this country, um, MCI being able to build fiberoptic wires so that all of these interactive kinds of media will be available, is that part of what they want to do?

MS. ARNST: Well, yes, really they want to build a state of the art network, which would involve fiber--it would also involve wireless, either cellular or other kinds of digital wireless. It would involve using the Internet. It would involve, uh, cable networks using--incorporating cable and video into the networks, so ultimately all the phone companies want to offer a bundle of services that includes video and entertainment and Internet and wireless, local calling, long distance international, and that's what all these mergers are--are aiming to provide in the long run.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. Catherine Arnst, thanks for being with us.

MS. ARNST: Thank you. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Now to summarize the other, other news of this day, the Supreme Court refused to revive a Mississippi law allowing student-led group prayer in public schools. The Justices left intact rulings that declared the 1994 law unconstitutional. The Supreme Court barred school prayer sponsored and led by public school officials in 1962. In Iraq today, an American F-16 pilot fired a missile at an Iraqi anti-aircraft site. This was the second firing in three days. Today's incident in the Southern no-fly zone was about 25 miles from the one that took place on Saturday. Iraq denied it had provoked either incident. Today, Defense Sec. Perry explained what happened.

SEC. PERRY: In both cases--[no audio]--backed by a missile system, and, therefore, appropriately, according to our rules of engagement, they launched a HARM Missile, a radiation-seeking missile, towards the source of that radiation. That happened on both occasions, very similar circumstances. Because the collateral information we have has not provided full support as to exactly what happened, we have begun an intensive investigation of that.

MR. LEHRER: Perry said Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had a very clear warning from the 100 sorties a day U.S. planes fly over the no-fly zone of Southern Iraq. In Russia today, Boris Yeltsin's doctor said his heart bypass surgery can be performed within days. His medical team met near Moscow, but an exact date was not set for the operation. American heart specialist Michael DeBakey was there to help with that evaluation. A Russian doctor will perform the actual surgery. In Eastern Zaire today, Tutsi rebels declared a three-week cease-fire in their battle with Zairean troops. United Nations officials want to move a million Hutu refugees living in Zaire back to Rwanda and Burundi. Many Rwandan Hutus fled deeper into Zaire last week to escape the fighting. We have more in this report from Lindsay Hilsum of Independent Television News.

MS. HILSUM: In Rwanda, they're putting up tents, ready for the one million Hutus who remain in Zaire to come home. This transit camp would be their first stop. The Hutus fled after some of their number took part in the genocide of Tutsis two years ago. They fear that if they return, they will all be punished. Those who do return spend just a day here before they're transported to the hills they left two years ago. Some are imprisoned, but the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the majority of those who've come home so far are living in peace and they're calling for a humanitarian corridor to enable the Hutus to get back to Rwanda. Some aid agencies are realizing that their massive effort to help the refugees in Zaire has prolonged the crisis by encouraging people to stay there. Humanitarian aid has become a major element in Africa's endemic conflicts and crises. As regional leaders prepare to meet in Nairobi tomorrow, there may be some recognition that's what's needed now is a political and military solution. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: And that's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with the NewsHour and then our special coverage of election night '96, with our full NewsHour team plus many other added attractions. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.