The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Jim Lehrer is away. On the NewsHour tonight a look at a key battlefield in these elections; the week's politics with Shields & Gigot; a new discovery about the brain; a Susan Dentzer update on AIDS, and homegrown monsters. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday.% ? NEWS SUMMARY

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: New economic figures released today prompted President Clinton to call the US economy the strongest in a generation. The latest Commerce Department numbers showed the Gross Domestic Product was up 3.3 percent during July through September. The gain was spurred by consumer spending, which outpaced a continued decline in export sales and business investment. The President said the economic success came in spite of overseas financial turmoil. But he said the United States had to help struggling foreign countries if it wanted to continue to prosper.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Over the long run, if America's economy is going to continue to grow, the economies of our trading partners must continue to grow. In a larger sense, if America's devotion to freedom and openness is to be met with success, we must put a human face on the global economy, or the most vulnerable people in the emerging countries when they face hard times.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The world's richest countries today endorsed a plan put forward by Mr. Clinton earlier this month to help those up and coming markets. Leaders of the major industrial nations agreed to back a US proposal for speeding up emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund. The group also supported a $90 billion replenishment for the IMF. $30 billion could go immediately to Brazil, the latest country hurt by nervous investors. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 97 points at 8592. The advance left the Dow up nearly 10 percent in October, historically a bleak month for the market. It was the strongest one-month showing in 11 years. John Glenn and six other "Discovery" astronauts had a full day of work in space today. They began a series of experiments studying the effects of weightlessness on the human body and how it relates to aging on earth. They also released a small communications satellite. Early this evening, the astronauts held their first news conference from space.

SEN. JOHN GLENN: It's been a great first day. We're well into the second day now in space, second 24- hour period. And I think almost everything is right on time line so far. And we just want to keep it that way and make sure we get back all the - as good results as we possibly can on all the research experiments that are on board, for that's the main reason we're up here.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Back on Earth, residents in Perth, Australia attempted to turn on every light in the city tonight as the shuttle passed overhead, just as they did for Glenn's first orbital flight in 1962. The crew will return to Earth one week from tomorrow. There was news today about human brain cell growth. American and Swedish researchers have discovered people develop new brain cells during adulthood. And scientists at Harvard Medical School have devised a new way to grow human brain cells in laboratories and transplant them into mice. Both findings might someday be used to treat damage caused by alcoholism, Alzheimer's, strokes, and other such afflictions. Both studies appear in the November issue of the journal "Nature Medicine." We'll have more on brain cell research later in the program. Overseas, 60 people died in a fire last night at a dance hall in Gorteborg, Sweden. We have a report from Mark Austin of Independent Television News.

MARK AUSTIN: It was a Halloween holiday party for youngsters intent on having fun. But by midnight, it had become one of Sweden's worst fire tragedies. An explosion led to the blaze that spread so quickly that dozens of teenagers had no chance to escape. Most choked to death in the thick smoke. Others were trampled in the fear-stricken rush to the exits. Inside we saw the pathetic debris of sheer panic. Licensed for 150 people, 400 were in here, the room completely burned out. And one of the two exits was apparently blocked by larger hi-fi speakers.

BOYANYA VANOVICH: The windows just exploded and --

MARK AUSTIN: Boyanya Vanovich escaped with his life, but showed me how others broke their legs jumping from second-floor windows.

BOYANYA VANOVICH: Everybody was just shocked and just pushed on each other to get out, and there was no -- everybody just kept thinking, oh, my God, I'm going to die.

MARK AUSTIN: Friends and relatives of those who died gathered at the scene today to share their grief and to lay their flowers.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Tropical Storm Mitch moved slightly west today, dumping more rain on already flood-stricken Honduras. Two days of rain and wind eroded the Atlantic coastline and swept away houses. Honduran officials say 15,000 homes have been destroyed, and thousands of people remain in shelters. The death toll in Honduras and neighboring Nicaragua has risen to 99. A federal judge cited 24 instances of grand jury leaks by the Office of Independent Counsel, Kenneth Starr. According to court documents released today, US District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson has been investigating allegations Starr's office illegally passed secret court information to the media. The information released today says Johnson found apparent violations of grand jury secrecy rules beginning January 21st, the first day the Monica Lewinsky story appeared in news reports. Johnson ordered that an outside expert be appointed to help determine whether laws were broken by Starr's office. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to some close races in Wisconsin, Shields & Gigot, good news on the brain, bad news on AIDS, and who needs Halloween.% ? FOCUS - ELECTION '98 - WISCONSIN

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We have a two-part look at the elections now just four days away. We begin with this report from Kwame Holman on several hotly contested races in Wisconsin.

KWAME HOLMAN: Wisconsin's Republican Governor Tommy Thompson is seeking an unprecedented fourth term in office. Public opinion polls show him nearly 30-percentage points ahead of his Democratic challenger, Attorney Ed Garvey. With his reelection almost assured, Thompson never even mentioned his campaign during a business awards luncheon last week in Milwaukee. In fact, Thompson has invited other Wisconsin Republican candidates to join him on his get-out-the vote bus tour this weekend so that they might benefit from his widespread popularity. And some of those candidates can use Thompson's help. Several elections in Wisconsin next Tuesday could go a long way toward affecting the balance of power in Washington and the Senate race, in particular, polls say is too close to call.

SPOKESPERSON: We take questions now to the candidates for U.S Senate--

KWAME HOLMAN: The race features Russ Feingold, the first-term Democratic senator, best known as co-sponsor of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill.

RUSS FEINGOLD: So this really is a battle to see whether money or people will pick the next U.S. Senator from Wisconsin. That's why I need your help. And I don't want your money. I know you don't have a lot whole lot of it. I want your vote!

KWAME HOLMAN: Early on, Feingold vowed to stick to the principles of his campaign reform bill by refusing to accept unregulated, unlimited soft money contributions from the National Democratic Party. Under current law, that money could be used to produce television ads attacking his opponent. Feingold admits some party leaders were concerned his decision not to take the money was political suicide, that could lead to an even bigger Republican majority in the Senate.

RUSS FEINGOLD: My friends in my party do care deeply that we keep this seat, and they want to keep me in Washington, and they were concerned when I indicated that I, unlike all other senators, was going to limit my spending and was not going to accept soft money ads by the party. And they tried several times, politely, but then one senator said to me, "I've never questioned a senator knowing his own state better than a senator from somewhere else." And so the Democratic Party has respected my wishes.

KWAME HOLMAN: Feingold's opponent in the senate race is Mark Neumann, a second-term Republican representing Wisconsin's first congressional district. Neumann did not make the same pledge Feingold did.

MARK NEUMANN: Effectively what's happened is he's come out looking basically like a hypocrite on the issue because he's out whining about Republican Party spending money here in the State of Wisconsin, while the AFL-CIO Washington union bosses are running all kinds of ads on his behalf. AFL-CIO AD: An elderly patient needs more hospital time but her doctors are overruled by bureaucrats. Still Representative Mark Neumann voted against an HMO reform law that would have banned these abuses. Call Neumann and tell him to stop protecting the HMOs and start protecting patients.

KWAME HOLMAN: He has said that he would prefer that the AFL-CIO didn't run those ads.

MARK NEUMANN: Well, I would prefer they would all leave the state, so we're together on that. That's great.

KWAME HOLMAN: So would you support that part of campaign finance reform that would prevent these issue ads or restrict them?

MARK NEUMANN: Well, as you know, the Constitution prohibits us from restricting the AFL-CIO type ads, so if you're not going to restrict them, I'm certainly not going to support unilateral disarmament in the campaign. If it's not stupid, it's at least foolhardy.

KWAME HOLMAN: Mark Neumann is a former math teacher. And campaigning around Wisconsin, he relies on old classroom techniques, using an over-head projector to highlight his positions in favor of tax cuts, reductions in federal spending, and saving Social Security. Those positions have earned him a reputation as one of the fiercest budget hawks in Congress.

MARK NEUMANN: This election should not be about personalities. It should not be about Russ Feingold or Mark Neumann. What it should be about is how we cast the vote on your behalf in Washington DC for the next six years. And we are going to vote very differently.

KWAME HOLMAN: Congressman Neumann says the biggest difference between Senator Feingold and himself is their positions on so-called partial birth abortions.

MARK NEUMANN: And I am willing to stake the election on the fact that the majority of people in this state would find it -- a vast majority of people in this state would find it to be totally unacceptable to have a healthy ninth month of a woman's pregnancy -- a healthy baby partially delivered and have that child's life ended.

KWAME HOLMAN: The issue prompted a prolonged discussion at this small town meeting in Fort Atkinson. Some of those attending sided with Mark Neumann.

MAN: It seems to me that's murder, isn't it?

KWAME HOLMAN: Others supported Russ Feingold's stated position that such a procedure should be allowed when the health of the mother is in danger.

ANOTHER MAN: Why are you opposed to including that exception -- because that bill, I think, would pass at that point and there's no -- the President has also made it clear he would not veto it at that point.

KWAME HOLMAN: The gentleman made the point that the legislation had the health exception, but you don't think that that would be appropriate.

MARK NEUMANN: Well, there is an exception in the bill for life of the mother, but I don't want to see the bill watered down that we do nothing but sound good to our constituency. We want to see the job actually get done, that we actually end partial birth abortions in the United States of America.

KWAME HOLMAN: Is he making abortion a central issue? Is it going to be a central issue, and does that hurt you?

RUSS FEINGOLD: He's tried everything. First he said that he wouldn't have run for the Senate if I had voted differently on the balanced budget amendment. He said without a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, we could never balance the budget. We haven't heard him say a thing about that in the last few months. Then he said it was the gas tax, that I voted for the gas tax. Then he said it was that I voted against cutting taxes, and now it's abortion and the flag. In other words, he's flailing around trying to find what will upset people about me. What he doesn't want to address is the fact that I have brought this U.S. Senate seat back to Wisconsin, taken it away from the big money powers. He doesn't want to talk about that because his campaign is financed by one of the most brutal assaults of soft money issue ads in the history of our state.

GOP AD: Feingold wants our taxes to pay for his silly political commercials. He even voted to keep this abuse of tax dollars a secret. Tell Feingold no, we don't want higher taxes; we want you to stop joking around with our money.

KWAME HOLMAN: For most Wisconsin voters, the Feingold-Neumann Senate race might be enough to satisfy their political appetites, but voters in southern Wisconsin are getting a bonus -- tight races in side-by-side congressional districts. Traditionally, the political party occupying the White House has lost seats in the House of Representatives in off-year elections. Democrats hope they can cut their losses by picking up two seats here in Wisconsin. Wisconsin's First and Second Congressional Districts include the industrial cities of Kenosha and Racine -- and Madison, the state's main college town. Dozens of smaller, picturesque communities are spaced throughout mostly rural counties, surrounded this time of year by acres of harvested corn fields.

LYDIA SPOTTSWOOD: [at nursing home] And you'll see I'm the only Lydia on the ballot.

KWAME HOLMAN: The Democrat running in Wisconsin's First district is Lydia Spottswood. One morning last week she was hard at work seeking votes at a Kenosha nursing home.

LYDIA SPOTTSWOOD: And I'm running for Congress because I want to work improve our children's schools. I want to work to expand health care to save Medicare.

OLDER WOMAN: You take all this?

LYDIA SPOTTSWOOD: Yes. I want to work for all of these things, especially for our Social Security. But I need your vote.

OLDER WOMAN: Oh sure.

LYDIA SPOTTSWOOD: Will you be voting?

OLDER WOMAN: Oh yeah!

KWAME HOLMAN: Many of these nursing home residents will vote by absentee ballot, and Spottswood is especially sensitive to the importance of each and every vote. Two years ago, when she was president of the Kenosha City Council, Spottswood came within two percentage points of defeating Mark Neumann in what she described as a nasty campaign.

LYDIA SPOTTSWOD: My opponent then was actually very hostile and overtly hostile when he would see me, which was rare. I don't think he was interested in seeing me very often. This time at least overtly there is a much more cordial atmosphere in the joint appearances that we've had.

KWAME HOLMAN: Spottswood's opponent this time is a political newcomer -- 28-year old Paul Ryan. He spent five years in Washington D.C. working for Republican causes before returning to Wisconsin to help run his family-owned quarry business and run for Congress. Also campaigning one day last week, Ryan spent part of his morning shaking hands with workers at an envelope manufacturing plant in Kenosha, meeting nearly as many Illinois residents -- who can't vote for him -- as Wisconsin voters -- who can.

PAUL RYAN: Where do you live - in Illinois?

WORKER: Yes.

KWAME HOLMAN: Ryan's campaign message stresses the same tax and spending issues that twice helped Mark Neumann get elected in this district.

PAUL RYAN: I want you to keep more of your own money!

CYNTHIA BUTLER: Yeah so do I!

PAUL RYAN: I appreciate that sentiment. I tell you. You know your FICA taxes that you pay and your Social Security, they're using that money to spend on other ridiculous government programs.

CYNTHIA BUTLER: Oh, yes! Do you realize I have to put away 75 dollars a week to pay my property taxes and saving that 75 dollars I have to pay taxes on the interest for saving it

PAUL RYAN: Hey, I appreciate this. We agree. Thank you. Nice to meet you!

KWAME HOLMAN: Ryan insisted that, if elected, he wouldn't participate in the kind partisan politics that has typified Congress recently.

KWAME HOLMAN: Does that mean you're not interested in what the GOP leadership has to say?

PAUL RYAN: To tell you the truth, I've been running my own campaign, talking about what I believe in, my own ideas. I haven't really been paying attention to all of the talking points, all the battles. I'm paying attention to what the people here in the first district of Wisconsin are saying.

KWAME HOLMAN: Wisconsin's political landscape virtually is assured of historic change on election day-- if not from the results of the 1st district congressional race -- then certainly from the vote in the second.

JO MUSSER: And we need everybody who was here tonight to tell 10 people that they have to get to the polls rain, sleet or snow, whatever, November in Wisconsin.

KWAME HOLMAN: Jo Musser -- the former State Insurance Commissioner -- is the Republican candidate in Wisconsin's 2nd district. State Representative Tammy Baldwin is the Democrat.

TAMMY BALDWIN: You have a chance to really participate yourselves and figure out what a difference you can make.

KWAME HOLMAN: Despite being the first state to ratify the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote, Wisconsin never has sent a woman to Congress. But that will change on Tuesday.

JO MUSSER: What I bring to Washington as Wisconsin's first congresswoman is an understanding from a woman's perspective how families live.

TAMMY BALDWIN: And understanding that women in this society have historically played a unique role of juggling work responsibilities and family responsibilities and perhaps understand those issues in a way that many of those holding power and sitting in Washington right now don't.

KWAME HOLMAN: With four-term Republican Scott Klug retiring from Congress this year, Democrats also are anxiously eyeing this seat as a potential gain. Baldwin is considered a liberal. She pushes for the same kind of universal health care coverage President Clinton was forced to abandon three years ago.

TAMMY BALDWIN: I believe we can in a very fiscally responsible manner provide health care for all and it has to do with whittling down the administrative complexities of medicine.

KWAME HOLMAN: Musser is considered a moderate, ho ruffled state party leaders by opposing fellow Republican Mark Neumann's position on late-term abortions.

JO MUSSER: I don't believe that the legislature has any right to interfere with our medical decision making. On the issue of reproductive health and on the issues specifically of abortions in any stage of the pregnancy.

KWAME HOLMAN: The fates of all these Wisconsin candidates -- like those in close races around the country -- are said to hinge on whose voters get motivated to turn out. Wisconsin residents' reputation for independent-minded voting makes Tuesday's results all the more difficult to predict.

KEN GOMBER: The best person. That's what counts. The best person. I don't care what party they are. If they can't do the job right for the people, I'm all for getting them out. I don't think parties mean so much anymore.

KWAME HOLMAN: And that could be a key. On Tuesday, Governor Tommy Thompson's name will be at the top of the ballot in the Republican column. And with Thompson's broad support, Democrats hope Wisconsin voters are willing to split their tickets and vote for some Democratic candidates as well.% ? FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now Shields & Gigot and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: For analysis of the campaign in Wisconsin and other matters political we turn to syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist, Paul Gigot. So Mark, this Feingold-Neumann race is turning out to be one of the most closely-watched in the country. What's your take on it?

MARK SHIELDS: My take on it is whatever either one of them says, you can disregard, because it is going to be a referendum in the country on campaign finance reform. That's what it is. And Mitch McConnell, the chairman of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, has gone in there, both feet first, and has already confided to one colleague that by Christmas, Les Feingold be dead meat. You don't have to worry about campaign finance reform. And that's how the race is going to be read nationally. Whether voters decide on that, that's another question. That's how the results will be read. Right now, Feingold has improved his position over last week. He now has a slight lead, but it's certainly within the margin of error.

PAUL GIGOT: That race is going to be read that way by my friend but not by me. I bet you there aren't more than a handful of voters who are really going to vote on that election on campaign finance reform. People don't vote on it. It's fourteenth or fifteen on the list of serious issues. Mitch McConnell wants to win that raise because he wants to win that race. He wants to increase the numbers in the Senate. Russ Feingold's problem as an incumbent, in what should be a good incumbent year, isn't all of this soft money that's coming in, because in the end Russ Feingold is going to spend an awful lot of money himself and have other people on his back. His problem is he wasn't defined in the state in any other way, except on campaign finance reform. That's the one thing people kind of identify with. You get a lot of press attention, a lot of good editorials in the New York Times. But that doesn't translate to things like partial-birth abortion, spending, are you for less or more taxes, Social Security? And those are the issues that Neumann then came in and defined Feingold on and told voters a lot of information they didn't know.

MARK SHIELDS: Paul's numbers, I think, are a little bit misleading. At the very least, according to independent judgments, reporters, news reporters, and academics in Wisconsin, it's going to be $2 million more in soft money going in to Neumann over and above. What Feingold did was limit himself to $3.7 million.

MARGARET WARNER: Didn't they both limit themselves - their personal spending?

MARK SHIELDS: They both limited themselves. He, Neumann, the Republican challenger, agreed to Feingold's limitation. But the reality is that's what the campaign is about. It is about campaign finance reform. And that really is how this - I'm not talking about what I believe. It's how that race is going to be read. You're not telling me, Paul, that on Wednesday morning Mitch McConnell is going to stand up and say if Russ Feingold wins, well, campaign finance carried the day, and if he loses, they'll say, boy, that proves there's one-half of McCain-Feingold, what happened to the second half of McCain-Feingold, and the argument will be, Margaret, this, that if you can't win on campaign finance reform in a state like Wisconsin, with a progressive reform tradition, what's it mean for Louisiana, Texas, Pennsylvania, and other states without that same kind of tradition? And the reality in Russ Feingold -- and a lot of Democrats are very angry at him, very angry at him because they think he's put his career at risk, he's put Democratic seat at risk, and he's put the issue at risk, but if all the guy does is stand up on an issue he believes and bets his career on it, it's pretty tough to criticize him.

MARGARET WARNER: Hasn't Mitch McConnell chosen a few other races also in the country that he particularly is channeling money to?

PAUL GIGOT: Yes, he has, but he's chosen the races where the Republican challengers have a chance to win. I mean, that's what he's done above all. I mean, yeah, there are two that probably in the back recesses of his mind he'd really like to win, yeah, he'd like to take out Russ Feingold and he'd like to win in his home state of Kentucky against Scotty Baesler, the Democrat who has tried to make campaign finance reform something of an issue, although when I called his press secretary up, when I said, how big a theme is this for you, he said, it's not a big theme, nobody votes on it. This is Scotty Baesler's press secretary - that's what he said. And that's why this isn't a referendum on it.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's talk about another - a new political front that opened up this week, which is that the Republican congressional campaign committee on Wednesday for the first time released some ads that referred to the Lewinsky scandal. Then, of course, today the Democrats released two of their own. First let's look at a sample of each. We should say that these ads are running in a very limited number of media markets. The Republican ad we'll see, for example, is airing in just three congressional districts.

REPUBLICAN POLITICAL AD: In every election there is a big question to think about. This year, the question is: Should we reward Bill Clinton? Should we make the Democrats more powerful? Should we reward Democrat plans for more big government, more big spending? Should we reward their opposition to more welfare reform? And should we reward not telling the truth? That is the question of this election, reward Bill Clinton, or vote Republican.

DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL AD: This is no ordinary time. Republicans have made removing the President from office their top priority. They want to waste millions of our tax dollars on endless investigations. Democrats believe this election is about solving our real problems, protecting Social Security, patients' rights, smaller class sizes, more teachers. Haven't our families and our children had enough partisan investigating? Republicans - so intent on attacking the President they have forgotten about us. Next Tuesday, vote Democratic and tell Congress we're ready to move on.

MARGARET WARNER: So Paul, why did the Republicans decide to do this? And is it true that Newt Gingrich, himself, masterminded this?

PAUL GIGOT: You mean the Rasputin of this exercise? It's no surprise Newt Gingrich had a role in this. I mean, John Linder, the Republican congressional campaign committee head, is a Georgian, a Newt Gingrich choice. I mean, sure, he's going to playa role in this just like Dick Gephardt had a lot to do with that Democratic ad; I can bet you that. They didn't run it without him looking at it and saying, yes, I think that's okay. This is an attempt by both parties to get out their base. Republicans have had a strategy in this campaign, which is, we don't need to talk about issues very much, because our voters are angry enough, we're going to get our vote out. So we don't need to take a lot of policy risks. And what they found out after the budget fiasco of a couple of weeks ago is that their base wasn't as enthusiastic as they thought. So they want to remind people about Bill Clinton, give them a reason to vote. The ad we saw, that ad is only running in three districts: Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, where Bill Clinton's unfavorables among white voters are 65, 70 percent. So that' ad's going to play pretty well there. The other ads that are running - the other versions are more softer, and they're really -- don't give the President a blank check message - you need us to stop what Bill Clinton and the Democrats will do if they get all the power. I think it's a pretty good ad.

MARGARET WARNER: So was this a smart move by both sides?

MARK SHIELDS: It was a dumb move by the Republicans. It's only being run in three congressional districts. It's just been seen in 435. It's seen in 435 -- you don't want that congressional district being shone anywhere in the Northeast - that ad - you don't want it. I mean, it's a get out the vote ad, because once - in every front page of every paper in the country I checked today this story was out there. And there's Newt with his heavy -- you don't need Newt in the last 46 hours - you know, out there - as the face of the Republican Party.

MARGARET WARNER: Did the Republicans know this was going to get this national notoriety?

MARK SHIELDS: I don't think they thought it would get the free attention that it has gotten. I mean, I don't -- I really don't. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think it's an absolutely legitimate thing and especially in Carolina and Georgia to raise the question, do you want to reward Bill Clinton, and that's a great way to generate your base, and it's a legitimate question to ask, but you don't want that question, but out in California or places where Bill Clinton is sitting involves the Wall Street Journal poll this week showed him with the highest job rating of his presidency. And the euphoria of John Glenn's trip and the Middle East peace accord, I mean, all of these things -- you don't need that if you're national. You need it selectively. And unfortunately for them it wasn't selective.

MARGARET WARNER: I noticed that both the President and the Vice President came out and really attacked the Republicans. The Vice President was doing it on the ads, but the President more broadly on Republicans in Congress. Are the Democrats at the end trying to nationalize this election?

PAUL GIGOT: To the extent that they can -- they notice the Republicans, in those ads, they don't talk about impeachment; they talk about a check on Democratic power, a check on Bill Clinton. The Democrats talk about impeachment. The Democrats immediately turn these adds into impeachment ads. And this is about railroading Bill Clinton out of office to gin up their base. It's really just a flip side of what the Republicans are trying to do. That's why I think both sides are right. You know, in politics sometimes both sides can be right, particularly in low turnout elections. I would have done exactly what the Democrats did but I disagree with Mark, the Republicans were looking at not doing as well as they thought. And they had to do something.

MARK SHIELDS: Paul's right. The last week in every single race I have checked the Democrats have improved their numbers over the week before.

MARGARET WARNER: Even the ones way down.

MARK SHIELDS: Way down. It's been a good week for the Democrats. I mean, some of them obviously are still going to lose, but I mean, it's been an improvement. And in every single -- across the country there are three issues that are cutting. They are Social Security; they're education and they're health care, all of which by a two to one margin, Democrats have an edge over Republicans. And I would say if in real estate the three principal elements are location, location, location, in a mid-term election it's turnout, turnout, turnout, anything you can do to get your own voters out you want to do, and I think that's what this is about. I think the mistake was you've got a little wider distribution.

MARGARET WARNER: And your point, Paul, is that the Republicans didn't have counter themes, counter substantive themes that they've developed?

PAUL GIGOT: Look! It's perfectly legitimate to run as a check on Bill Clinton. I think that's good, sound strategy and a lot of Republicans bouncing off the walls, waiting to get to vote on Tuesday. There is a problem, though, that Republicans have, which is they haven't given voters enough of a positive agenda. They ran a run-out-the-clock strategy. A four-corner Dean Smith, North Carolina stall - saying, let's not take any policy risks because our people are going to come out anyway. What they're finding is that they're still going to come out but not in the wave or the advantage that they had hoped originally, and that's why they're trying to get this strategy ginned up a little more, because it's really the only game they have.

MARGARET WARNER: So what's the most interesting thing you see out there, you looked at this nationwide, if you thought about where you thought it was going say a month ago and where it is now?

MARK SHIELDS: I think there's - two quick things. First of all, this is a Mr. Magoo election. Mr. Magoo is the cartoon character, nearsighted, always bumping into things, voice of Jim Baccus, the actor. It's an election with no vision. I mean, I think it's fair to say. Neither party has cornered the vision market in this one. But I think the governor's races are interesting. We're going to see Republicans with huge victories in states that have traditionally been fiercely fought to states like Pennsylvania and New York and Texas, and what that does to the congressional races, especially the tough ones is open to real question. I think Democrats are nervous there. The biggest surprise is the ease with which Gray Davis, the lieutenant governor of California, a Democrat, is cruising - and pointing out that his wife will become the first Democratic first lady of California in 32 years come next Wednesday.

PAUL GIGOT: The most under reported part of this election is the governors. At the national level we got a pudding without a theme. You know, it's really a kind of dispiriting election. At the governors level you have referenda on performance, and Republican Governors, most of them are Republican, but there's some Democrat -- Jean Shaheen in New Hampshire -- they're really getting votes on what they did. And you're talking about ideas there. I was out in Texas, and George W. Bush, is actually saying something. He's standing on his record, and that's happening in a lot of different states. One of the surprises for me, just to pick one individual race, is the kind of mistakes that Al D'Amato has made in New York, he --

MARGARET WARNER: The New York Senate Race.

PAUL GIGOT: The New York Senate race. Al D'Amato - say anything else about him - but he knows how to run - knows how to campaign. And he has let his opponents set the agenda too often. And he's made mistakes that have really hurt him.

MARK SHIELDS: Let me just add to that, I think Al D'Amato doesn't have a wind-up pitch, a closing number, attendance, and Chuck Schumer's missed attendance, bad attendance record, is not the kind of homerun, which I expect from Al in the ninth inning, and I think Paul is right.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. We're in the ninth inning. Thank you both very much. See you next week.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, regenerating the brain, an update on AIDS, and goblins and ghouls.% ? FOCUS - GROWING BRAIN CELLS

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Phil Ponce has the brain story.

PHIL PONCE: For years, conventional wisdom held that after birth, once brain cells died off, they could never be replaced. But now a new study shows just the opposite, that the body can, in fact, produce new brain cells. Joining us to talk about findings is Fred Gage, a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. Professor Gauge was a lead author of the study, which is published in the November issue of the journal "Nature Medicine." Welcome, Professor. First of all, what did your study find?

FRED GAGE, Salk Institute: We found that, in fact, new cells can be born in the adult neurosystem, in particular, regions of the brain.

PHIL PONCE: And this was something that simply had not been believed before, that the brain was capable of generating new cells?

FRED GAGE: I think there was a dogma that had developed over time that grew out of some assumptions that have not been experimentally tested. And what we did was to determine or experimentally test whether or not this phenomena really was true or not.

PHIL PONCE: And, Professor, what kind of cells are you talking about?

FRED GAGE: Well, we're talking about an era of the brain called the hippocampus, which is a structure that's involved in learning a memory, which has a specific layer of cells called the granule cells. They are the primary relay station for information coming in from the cortex, and these cells, along with the other cells in the hippocampus, are involved in organizing information as it comes into the brain before it's sent out back to the cortex, where it's stored.

PHIL PONCE: And, Professor, give us an example of the kinds of things that this part of the brain - what kind of a function - an example of the kinds of functions that this part of the brain performs.

FRED GAGE: Well, the brain is a - the hippocampus, as I said, is the structure that's involved in learning and memory, and it involves processing new information, as opposed to storing information. And I think this is where some of the confusion may have arisen in the past, was the idea that the brain couldn't add new cells because it may disrupt existing circuits and perhaps disrupt existing memories. The hippocampus is a unique structure and not involved necessarily in the storage of information but more in the processing of new information.

PHIL PONCE: Professor, you talk about the cells - you just mentioned the term "circuitry," for example. These nerve cells - I read one article that referred to them as helping to form what is considered the circuitry of the brain. Is that a fair characterization of the kind of cells you're talking about?

FRED GAGE: Nerve cells are a unique cell population in that they connect with not just the cells that are next to them, but they have processes that elaborate and result in communication with cells quite a far distance away. So when we talk about circuitry, we talk about the processes - we mean the processes that extend from the cell and connect one cell with many other cells within the brain.

PHIL PONCE: Professor, I understand that you discovered that this was happening - and I wrote this down just so I could get it straight - you established this through autopsy specimens, people who had been given a drug that leaves a marker on new cells, and you found these markers in the brain. What was your reaction when you realized what you had found?

FRED GAGE: We went into the study with the plan of using this methodology, which was being used both experimentally in experimental animals to find out whether or not and to study how these cells were being born in experimental animals. At the same time this rug was also being used in patients to mark cells that were undergoing cell division. So what we decided to do with our colleagues in Sweden - P.D. Ericson and his colleagues - was to attach our study to an existing study that was already trying to mark the rate at which tumor cells were dividing in these patients, received permission from the patients to obtain autopsy material so that we could assess whether or not the cells that were born at the time of the injection would subsequently have developed into neurons. This required -

PHIL PONCE: By neurons you mean nerve cells?

FRED GAGE: I mean nerve cells exactly.

PHIL PONCE: And given the conventional wisdom that existed before this, a bit of a surprise, I take it?

FRED GAGE: Yes. I would say that we were - we were not confident that we would absolutely find these cells, and that's why did the study - was to determine whether or not we would.

PHIL PONCE: So, Professor, the medical implications one hears about possible ramifications for people with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or brain damage due to trauma, how do you assess the possibility of that?

FRED GAGE: Well, for us, the major task ahead is to find out how the brain actually allows for these cells to persist. And they're persisting in a very immature state until they differentiate into neurons. And we need to learn how they survive, how they go through the process of differentiating into neurons. If we can learn the cellular and the molecular controls that allow this process to occur, we might be able to apply that information then to situations of nerve degenerative diseases or trauma. But it will be predicated on really understanding the underlying mechanisms involved in this process.

PHIL PONCE: Professor, we reported earlier in the show that another report of Harvard scientists - who've developed a new way to grow human brain cells for use in transplants - and by the way we incorrectly - we gave the incorrect source for that. It's actually the publication "Nature Biotechnology." But, does this reflect perhaps a view that there is a change in the way the brain is being perceived, as perhaps more malleable, more subject to manipulation?

FRED GAGE: I think you're absolutely right. Over the last 10 years there has been a striking amount of information that has been gained about the brain, and it has resulted in our changing views of the brain and its ability to adapt, to changes in the environment. We use a term "plasticity" as a description of the adaptability of the brain to its - to its environment. And this growing knowledge allows us to actually discover the mechanisms within the brain that are changing as a function of our interaction with the environment.

PHIL PONCE: What do you say to people who perhaps have Parkinson's or have had brain damage, who look at these studies and think, great, something is on the horizon?

FRED GAGE: Well, I think that people can take heart in the fact that there are many investigators now that are taking very seriously the idea that the adult brain retains a lot more ability to attempt to repair itself. And as we gain more knowledge about these changes in the brain, we hopefully will be able to aid in this repair process ourselves.

PHIL PONCE: Professor Gauge, thank you very much.

FRED GAGE: You're welcome.% ? UPDATE - AIDS

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, developments this week in the fight against AIDS. Joining me is Susan Dentzer of our health policy unit, a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.Susan, the UN released a new report this week. Tell us about it.

SUSAN DENTZER: Well, Elizabeth, the United Nation's population division released a report where they took into account new numbers available on the rate of infection of AIDS around the world. And they produced a very startling and very tragic analysis which essentially shows that in Africa, where now currently 26 million people are infected with AIDS, there is going to be an absolutely cataclysmic impact on the make-up on the structure of the African population for the foreseeable future as a consequence of this, with life expectancies falling to the levels that have not been seen in Africa since the 1950's, with the population growth rate diminishing, and with overall 47 million people expected to have died of AIDS in Africa from 1986 until the year 2015.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why this new information? Has something changed, some kind of access to figures?

SUSAN DENTZER: In fact, what happened earlier this year is that the six agencies that participate in the umbrella group -- called the UN AIDS -- came into possession as a consequence of analysis and other things of some drastically higher numbers about the prevalence of AIDS worldwide and specifically in Africa, where 86 percent of the - 86 percent of the AIDS - HIV-infection rates worldwide exist. As a consequence, they were able to - UN population people were able to take these higher AIDS numbers, which had become available in part because certain countries in Africa had finally faced up to the reality of the infection rates within their borders and finally we're producing realistic estimates, estimates that came much closer to those that private researchers had been saying for some time must have been true. The population projection - people at the UN, as I say, were able to take those new numbers and essentially run them through their models - their computer models - and forecast this enormous shift in the population.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Tell us some specifics.

SUSAN DENTZER: In fact, let's take some examples of a country like Botswana in sub-Saharan Africa - one of the thirty-four countries of sub-Saharan Africa. It's a nation of about 1 1/2 million people. It's about the size of Texas, and it happens to be a place where one out of four adults is now infected with HIV. As a consequence of that, life expectancy is shifting dramatically there. Life expectancy at birth was about 41 years in 1950 that peaked out at about a little over the age of 60 in 1993 and it is now forecast a plummet back to the levels of the 1950's, presumably as early as the year 2005. So, dramatic, dramatic change.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And how about population growth decline, specifics on that?

SUSAN DENTZER: Similarly, take another country, South Africa, next door to Botswana, much larger, 42 1/2 million people. Again, the population growth rate in South Africa had been declining, as one would expect, as the population, in effect, as the country became wealthier. We know over time birth rates fall as countries become healthier. And we would expect the population growth rate to decline in the case of South Africa. In fact, as a consequence of AIDS, it has declined dramatically. And we see this big gap now as a consequence of AIDS in how much the population of South Africa will grow in the future.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Are any African countries having any success in fighting AIDS?

SUSAN DENTZER: Yes, some, but very few. There are countries where the authorities have become enlightened. For example, Uganda, where the president, Urere Musavany, has taken a personal interest in fighting AIDS. I'm told that if you land in - get off an airplane in Uganda now, you will see all over the place posters basically designed to raise AIDS awareness. Infection rates, for example, among pregnant women, in urban areas of Uganda, have dropped as much as 40 and 45 percent as a consequence of education, prevention, and, in particular, delaying the onset of the first sexual activity among women, which has been an important aspect of the prevention strategy. There's hope now for going a step further. The World Bank is among many organizations looking at, for example, administering to pregnant women certain of the anti-viral drugs like AZT, a popularly known one, to basically reduce the rate of transmission of the HIV virus from pregnant mother to fetus and also to unborn infants. So there's some potential that some of that may take place in the future. But, overall, the situation is very grim, as I say, with as many as 47 million deaths expected over the next several decades.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And I know this would be a long conversation, but just briefly, why is the situation so desperate in sub-Saharan Africa?

SUSAN DENTZER: Largely because AIDS and the HIV virus is believed to have emerged in Africa. It is believed that the virus came - made the jump from monkeys to human beings somewhere perhaps in the 1050s or 1960s. We know that the virus has a long period of incubation, sometimes as much as ten and fifteen years. So Africa, having been the place of - the tragic birthplace of HIV, in fact, has been living with this for a long time. And it's known now that as early as the early 1980s there was a band of HIV infection across West Africa. Now, we're finally seeing the full flourishing of this. Africans have basically been living their lives amid this problem, and 90 percent of the cases in the developing world of HIV transmission are heterosexual cases of transmission, so Africans have basically just been living their lives in the context of this dread disease.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Some other developments this week, some new information about the cocktail, as they call it, of drugs that people who can afford to get drugs take.

SUSAN DENTZER: Yes, indeed. This is an example of the kind of parallel universes in which the global AIDS epidemic plays out. In Africa, we're talking about trying to stave off millions and millions of deaths. In the US, by contrast, as in other rich industrialized countries, we've been very successful in actually causing the death rate of AIDS to decline. It declined, for example, last year by half, as a consequence, and part of some of these new therapies. The one you mentioned is known as an AIDS cocktail. That makes it sound much more pleasant than, in fact, it is. What is really at stake here is treatment with several - perhaps as many as four - relatively new antiviral drugs taken in pill form on the order of twenty-five to thirty pills a day over a period of many years. Notwithstanding unpleasant side effects that result from these, these have been successful in basically eradicating to a large extent the presence of HIV among many people who take these medications. The recent studies, the studies that were unveiled this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, basically shed light on something that people had been wondering a great deal about, which is, can you take a very intensive course of these therapies and then stop and actually see the virus not come back - that was the burning question, because we know in many other diseases - tuberculosis, cancers - sometimes a similar therapy works. In fact, as a consequence of these studies, we now know that in at least a certain percentage of patients, that doesn't work. If you stop the treatment, in fact, the virus comes back, so the studies basically indicate that we have less hope for reducing these therapies to what is known as a maintenance level. In fact, people on them will have to stay on them at heavy doses for a long time.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And finally, the President announced an initiative on AIDS this week. What was that?

SUSAN DENTZER: The President, as have others in Congress, have become increasingly concerned about another aspect of the parallel universe of AIDS here in the United States, which is the prevalence in the minority population, basically African-Americans and Latinos. African-Americans constitute 45 percent of all newly-diagnosed AIDS cases, and, in fact, there's a great deal of concern that in very poor African-American and Latino communities with substance abuse and other things the rates could go even higher in the years to come. As a consequence, the President announced that as part of this year's federal budget an additional $156 million will be made available to strategies specially targeted on prevention, in particular, among these minority populations. So a range of activities are going to be undertaken at this point - more substance abuse - treatment made available, in particular, to Latino and African-American women. In one instance divinity school students at the historically black colleges will be trained to go out and talk in their communities about AIDS prevention and so forth, an entire range of things designed to make this tragedy a lesser one than it looks like it might be.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Susan Dentzer, thank you very much.

SUSAN DENTZER: Thanks, Elizabeth.% ? FINALLY - SEEING GHOSTS

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Finally tonight, the demons are out. We have two visions of Halloween - then and now. First, NewsHour contributor Robert Pinsky, Poet Laureate of the United States.

ROBERT PINSKY: In the 16th century the poet Fulke Greville wrote a poem that gives a convincing psychological analysis of why we see or pretend to see or believe we see spooks and goblins. What's more, Greville's rational analysis also retains the mystery and scariness of the phenomenon, even as he explains it. "In night, when colors all to black are cast, distinction lost or gone down with the light, the eye, watch to inward senses placed, not seeing, yet still having power of sight, gives vain alarms to the inward sense where fear, stirred up with witty tyranny, confounds all powers, and through self offense doth forge and raise impossibility, such as in thick, depriving darknesses, proper reflections of the error be. And images of self-confusednesses, which hurt imaginations only see - and from this nothing seen tell news of devils, which but expressions be of inward evils."

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Speaking of news of devils, essayist Roger Rosenblatt considers that subject.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: You'll have to break it gently to the children, but there will be no Halloween this year. The Bureau of Ghouls and Horrors - no - and that isn't the IRS - has decided that the year has been frightening enough without designating one more night to scare the wits out of the people. It's a responsible civic gesture when one thinks back on some of the terrors in the news.

ANCHOR: This investigation has never been "just about sex."

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Linda Tripp - Lucien Goldberg - Monica, of course, and Monica's lawyer - William - "It Came From Outer Space" - Ginsburg, whose tour de force performance before he was fired had grown men hiding under their beds - or the two main characters who have been showing up at our door all year. Here's an image to make your blood run cold. You open your door on Halloween, and there are all the lawyers who have paraded before us. They stand with their hands out, as usual. Robert Bennett, trick or treat - David Kendall, trick or treat - why pretend there's a treat? Then come the lawyers who have been representing everyone from Paula Jones to Sox the cat. Then come the lawyers who have been explaining the other lawyers on TV. Picture the zombies in "Night of the Living Dead," relentlessly coming, coming. Yikes! The great old actor, E.G. Marshall died this year. He brought lawyers to television with the "Defenders" in the 1950s, a show that made lawyers look useful and honorable. E.G., you chose a good year to make your exit. It gets more horrifying still if one imagines oneself opening the door with cookies and corn candy at the ready and finding the new breed of TV personalities born out of Monica, Monica's monsters. The frantic shouting men and women on MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, and Fox threaten to blow your house down. Boo! Mrs. Bates, is that you? In the past, comedians could make a living by yelling at their audiences. Don Rickles and Sam Kinison come to mind. They both would go broke on cable these days, too much competition. These guys are smart and quick, but they mean business. Ahoo! And who would dress up as a witch in a year when everyone has been on a witch hunt? The Internet teems with petty inquisitors digging up the dirt on 30 year old affairs involving white-haired men. Is there a skeleton in every closet? Worry not, Dr. Frankenstein. The grave diggers keep digging. Why celebrate Halloween, one mere night, when witches convene, when we can devote the whole year to exposing the vulnerable and private lives of congressional representatives? Why stop at Washington? Wasn't that you who flirted with the waitress in Muncie, Indiana, in April 1975? Wasn't that you who went bump in the night? No, sorry, kids. There will be no Halloween this year. Put away your masks and costumes. Stay home and watch television if you really want to be scared. Think of television as Halloween. It's midnight. The wind is howling like a banshee. The shudders bang against the house wall, and you are all alone. Suddenly, there's a knocking at the TV set. Trembling, you turn it on. [screams in background and TVanchor] Thanksgiving anyone? I'm Roger Rosenblatt.% ? RECAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Friday, the Commerce Department reported the Gross Domestic Product was up 3.3 percent from July through September. The world's richest countries endorsed a US plan for speeding up emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund to vulnerable emerging markets, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 97 points at 8592, capping a 10 percent gain for October. It was the strongest one-month showing in 11 years. Jim Lehrer returns on Monday. Until then, we'll see you online. Have a nice weekend. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.