The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MAC NEIL: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Monday, Margaret Warner reports on the race for the U.S. Senate in Virginia, Doris Goodwin, Michael Beschloss, William Bennett, and Haynes Johnson take an overview of the 1994 election campaign, and an Alzheimer's researcher updates the search for answers about that disease. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: This was the last day of the 1994 midterm election campaign. President Clinton was out there on behalf of Democratic candidates in Minnesota, Michigan, and Delaware. He urged Democrats to focus on uncommitted voters in the final hours of the race. He also criticized Republicans for the tone of their campaign. Here's what he said this afternoon in Flint, Michigan.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: What these guys say is, our opponents, they say, be mad about it, be frustrated about it, be cynical about it, and put us in because we are going to play on your fears, your frustrations, and your cynicism. That's their argument. Their argument is, look, nothing good has happened, and if you find something good that happened, it did not happen because the President was there, it did not happen because he had partners in the Congress, it happened in spite of that. Well, you know what, folks? Where I come from, people say if you find a turtle on the fence post, it did not get their by accident.

MR. LEHRER: At stake tomorrow are all 435 seats in the House, 35 of 100 seats in the Senate, and 36 governorships. Republican leaders are predicting they will gain control of both Houses of Congress. We'll have more on the elections right after this News Summary. Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: The judge in the O.J. Simpson case will allow cameras to remain in the courtroom during the trial. Superior Court Judge Lance Ito made his decision after hearing from attorneys representing the media. But Ito made one exception. During witness testimony the cameras must be operated by remote control. Simpson has pleaded innocent to killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

MR. LEHRER: Nearly all of the 7800 U.S. ground troops will be home from Kuwait by Christmas. A Pentagon spokesman said today President Clinton has already signed the order. He said more than 100 U.S. warplanes will remain on alert in the region. On the Haiti forces, about 6,000 of the soldiers stationed there will return to the United States by the end of the month. Some 9,000 will remain.

MR. MAC NEIL: Rescue efforts continued in Southern Europe today, following three days of torrential rains. More than 60 people were killed over the weekend in the worst flooding to hit the region in 80 years. Most of the deaths occurred in Northern Italy. We have more in this report from Vernon Mann of Independent Television News.

VERNON MANN, ITN: It rained, residents said, like it had never rained before. The resulting flash floods and landslides plunged Northwestern Italy into chaos and tragedy. The death toll included four people who died when a landslide swept away their home on a hillside near Asti. The last body was recovered from the mud there this morning. Up to a hundred people are still missing. Environmentalists blame the disaster on deforestation. The government was criticized too for not reacting quickly enough in sending men and rescue equipment. Many of the victims drowned when water seven feet high tossed their cars about like match boxes. Countless roads were washed away, great gaping holes where there once were highways. Floodwaters immobilized the region's rail network, undermining tracks in dozens of areas. And as the floodwaters began to subsidize, villages were left with streets of mud, often mixed with diesel fuel from fractured underground tanks. There are thousands of homeless, their houses either destroyed or badly damaged. More storms are said to be on the way.

MR. MAC NEIL: South Korea lifted its half-century ban on trade and investment in North Korea today. South Korean President Kim Young Sam said the policy change was made possible by the nuclear agreement between the North and the United States. That agreement was signed last month in Geneva.

MR. LEHRER: A U.N.-brokered peace plan in the African nation of Angola was scrapped today. It followed the death of some 500 rebel soldiers in battle with government forces. The scheduled signing of a peace treaty next week between the two sides will not happen. The civil war in Angola has been underway for 19 years. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Virginia U.S. Senate Race, a campaign '94 overview, and an Alzheimer's update. FOCUS - FIGHT TO THE FINISH

MR. MAC NEIL: As campaign '94 winds to a close, we look first tonight at one of the races which might determine whether the Republicans gain control of the Senate. It's also one of the most contentious races this midterm election. It's the Virginia Senate race. The Democratic incumbent, Sen. Chuck Robb, faces twochallengers, Republican Oliver North and independent Marshall Coleman. Margaret Warner has our report.

MS. WARNER: During the 1960 presidential campaign there was a bumper sticker that read: "Be Thankful Only One Of Them Can Win." That's the way many Virginians feel about their Senate race this year. This old dominion state, birthplace of so many founding fathers and early Presidents, is faced with a choice that's testing the civic pride of even the most devoted Virginian.

TOM MORRIS, Political Scientist, Emory & Henry College: In essence, the voters are presented with two closed-end candidates. You know, you have to hold your nose and vote for one of them.

MS. WARNER: The incumbent candidate, Democratic Senator Chuck Robb, has admitted partying in dubious company and getting a nude massage from a Virginia beauty queen. He's also engaged in a long, divisive feud with a fellow Democrat, former Governor Douglas Wilder.

NANCY REYNOLDS: I certainly don't think I want to say this is a wonderful person, the Senator from Virginia, kids, this is someone you should emulate, these are the kinds of values that I respect.

MS. WARNER: The Republican challenger, Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, won instant notoriety testifying before Congress in the Iran-Contra affair. He was convicted of three felonies for his Iran-Contra role, but they were overturned on appeal.

BILL WILLIAMS: If justice was served, Olive North would be pulling time right now for what he did.

MS. WARNER: A third candidate is independent Marshall Coleman, a one-time Republican attorney general. He has lost three statewide elections and had three different views on abortion in the last 13 years.

BOYCE JORDAN: Coleman is like a wind thing on top of a building. Whichever way the wind blows, that's the way his nose points.

MS. WARNER: Some of the campaign commercials in this race seemed pulled from the pages of the National Enquirer.

AD SPOKESMAN: [first campaign commercial] Chuck Robb lived a lie. He violated his oath of good faith to the people.

AD SPOKESMAN: [second campaign commercial] Chuck Robb has a proven record of public service, while North's public record includes putting himself above the law.

MS. WARNER: And the threshold question for many Virginia voters has become whose character flaw they can more easily excuse.

SANDY JORDAN: What character? [laughing] I'm afraid we have a serious problem if you want to vote for a person with character.

MS. WARNER: Robb's supporters say they can more easily forgive someone who sins in his personal life than in his public one.

JERRAULD JONES, Virginia House of Delegates: I'm much more concerned about how Chuck Robb performs in Washington or how Oliver North will perform in Washington than I am in dwelling on some little titillating story coming out of the bedroom.

MS. WARNER: North's supporters argue that at least his motives were patriotic.

MIKE FARRIS, 1993 Republican Lt. Gov. Nominee: His heart was always trying to do what he thought was good for the country, for freedom, for the country, for freedom, for American hostages, as opposed to Chuck Robb's ethics issues, where he was trying to have a good time with some drug folks and hot chicks.

MS. WARNER: Facing such choices, many Virginia voters say they will just stay home, but although it's turned off lots of voters here, this race has drawn national attention because it reveals important political changes underway in the South and in both political parties. The political landscape of Virginia is a conservative one. For nearly a century after reconstruction, Democrats dominated Virginia and most of the South. But this Southern Democratic power structure was segregationist, anti-union and anti-government. Then as integration and an influx of new residents began to change the state, a political center started to emerge. Both parties won elections with candidates who were conservative on fiscal issues but moderate on social ones. Now that consensus seems to be unraveling. Economically, the Northern Virginia suburbs around Washington, D.C., are booming. But farther South, the state is reeling from defense cutbacks. And the state's small towns and rural areas seem stuck in a low-wage economy.

DAVID BROWN, Charlottesville Democratic Chairman: A lot of people really don't have a good feeling about the direction their live's going to take, and their taking it out on, you know, who else is there to take it out on?

MS. WARNER: A cultural gulf is widening as well between the state's more urbane residents and its socially conservative ones.

MAN: [coffee shop] There you go.

ANNE SMISKO: I've watched some of the daytime morning shows, and some of these programs where these teenagers are having babies, no regard for anything -- they're -- I mean, it's a sin. It really is. This country's going haywire.

MS. WARNER: Political scientist Tom Morris is president of Emory & Henry College in Southwest Virginia.

TOM MORRIS: People feel good about being able to vote against much of what they've seen going on for the last 20 years, that the old value system, the biblical values are no longer, are certainly not accepted by the mainstream, by those inside the beltway. And Ollie North gives them that opportunity.

MS. WARNER: North's most fervent support comes from Christian conservatives who are outraged by the Clinton administration stands on social issues like abortion, gun control, and gays in the military. That was readily apparent last month at a North event, sponsored by several churches in Central Virginia.

BOB MELVIN: We are at war. A war is being raged against traditional family values and against our rich, God-honoring heritage, and it matters a great deal in this case whether we win or lose.

MS. WARNER: North is saying what Christian conservatives have been longing to hear, and he's tapping their resentment at being shunned by the political elite.

OLIVER NORTH: Those who criticize us for our strongly felt faith ought to consider this, that since this nation abandoned any hope in our maker and turned to government for every solution, that this country has gone straight down the tubes as a consequence.

MS. WARNER: But North also has support from conservatives who aren't part of the Christian movement. They respond to the more traditional Republican parts his message: term limits, a defense build-up, and a balanced budget amendment.

OLIVER NORTH: The people of Virginia are sick and tired of Bill Clinton and his liberal cronies on Capitol Hill and want someone who's going to stand up against an ever more powerful, more intrusive, and more expensive federal government.

MS. WARNER: Other voters simply like his vow to shake up Washington.

CHADWICK GORE: Part of what attracts me to him is it's almost like poking an eye in the establishment in Washington, poking 'em in the eye, and I think that it's time to do that.

MS. WARNER: His hard core supporters don't seem troubled by charges that he misled Congress.

CATHY HAYDEN, North Campaign Organizer: This was a liberal Congress that was trying to bring down President Reagan, and Ollie North was pretty much a scapegoat atthe time, but he was standing up to them. And, you know, to see somebody with that kind of courage, it was just wonderful.

MS. WARNER: And they dismiss any negative commentary in the media. For the North campaign, the press is just another anti- establishment foil.

PATRICK MULLINS, Fairfax City Republican Chairman: [addressing crowd] I'm not going to let Dan Rather and Sam Donaldson and Ted Koppel and particularly Barbara Walters tell me who my Senator should be. Are you?

PEOPLE IN CROWD: [shouting] No!

MS. WARNER: Instead, his hard core supporters seem captivated by North's magnetic campaign style.

TOM MORRIS: People feel good when they need him. He's good at retail politics, one-on-one. He's very personal. He meets you; he looks you in the eye.

MS. WARNER: His charisma has helped North raise a record $18 million for this race, much of it from out of state. But to win, North must expand his support beyond his hard core base. Polls found he was hurt in that effort when Nancy Reagan reminded voters that many top Reagan officials have denounced North as a liar.

NANCY REAGAN: And he lied to my husband, and, umm, lied about my husband.

MS. WARNER: Wavering voters were also put off when the former Marine scorned the President after he sent U.S. troops to defend Kuwait.

OLIVER NORTH: Bill Clinton is not my commander in chief.

MS. WARNER: After a few missteps like that one, his advisers limited North's exposure in unscripted situations and refused most interview requests from the national media, including the NewsHour. North's candidacy has embarrassed the state's old-line Republican establishment. When North won the nomination at a convention last June, Virginia's senior Senator, Republican John Warner, persuaded fellow Republican Marshall Coleman to jump in. Coleman and North don't differ much on issues, but Coleman is being supported by Republicans who can't bring themselves to vote for North, voters like former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and his wife, Marlene.

LAWRENCE EAGLEBURGER, Former Secretary of State: Ollie North, in my judgment, is a man of -- to put it mildly -- deeply flawed character. He's a liar. He's shredded documents. He was, in my judgment, a traitor to his President, and I just don't think the people of Virginia deserve to have that in the Senate.

MARLENE EAGLEBURGER: To me, it smacks a lot of being a sociopath: People who really don't know right from wrong, or truth from fiction, their truth is theirs, and their right is right, and wrong only belongs to other people. And I have a sense of this when I listen to Ollie North.

MS. WARNER: As the election drew near, Coleman also began drawing independent voters away from Robb, hurting Robb more than North. Coleman wouldn't concede that he might end up helping North.

MARSHALL COLEMAN: Being in the race is going to defeat Ollie North. That's the point. That's why I'm running.

MS. WARNER: But they're very happy you're in the race.

MARSHALL COLEMAN: Well, that's what they may be telling you, but that's not what they're telling me. The point is that I am running to win the election campaign.

MS. WARNER: But North's advisers wanted to keep Coleman in the race. The top North strategist told the NewsHour that his camp periodically leaked encouraging poll results for the Coleman campaign to help him raise more money for television buys. Coleman's supporters believe it's more important for them to make an honest choice than be with a winner.

REV. STEVE SHOLAR: We need to have some integrity about us too and vote our conscience.

MS. WARNER: Chuck Robb's bid for the anti-North vote was hampered by the fact that many voters seem to look on Robb as damaged goods.

LT. GOV. DON BEYER, [D] Virginia: Chuck has lost his star quality. He's still a very seasoned politician, with great integrity and great accomplishment, but he isn't the golden boy that he was 10 years ago. Instead, the celebrity in this race is Oliver North, for good or for bad.

MS. WARNER: Robb held so much promise once. A straight-arrow Marine guard at the White House, he married President Johnson's daughter, Linda Byrd. Robb had a meteoric political rise as lieutenant governor, governor, U.S. Senator, and a much-touted presidential possibility. So when his career ran aground on the womanizing charges and his feud with Wilder, even leading Democrats felt betrayed, including these members of a Democratic lunch group in Charlottesville.

DAVID BROWN, Charlottesville Democratic Chairman: The people who've been involved in Democratic politics the longest are the people who felt the most let down by Chuck Robb.

PAUL SAUNIER: In the beginning, most of us here supported another candidate. We didn't get one. Robb is now our candidate, and he's so much better than North that that's where we are.

MS. WARNER: Robb concedes he's been damaged.

CHUCK ROBB: There's no question that, that there is a, a, a residue of uncertainty, but I believe, notwithstanding, that the rest of my so-called character would be judged very favorably, and particularly those elements that go to what I call basic integrity: the honesty, fairness, and ethics.

MS. WARNER: Friends say that Linda Robb also regards this election as an opportunity for public vindication. She's been at his side in this campaign as coach and booster.

LINDA ROBB: Chuck has been a good husband and a good father and I've been married to him for 26 years, and I'd marry him again in a minute.

MS. WARNER: Robb's identity as a new Democrat is also giving him problems. In the suburbs around Washington, he's known as a deficit Hawk with progressive social views. But there's confusion elsewhere. Many voters can't name anything Robb's done or stood for in his first Senate term.

REV. STEVE SHOLAR: I think I would have been more impressed with Chuck Robb if he had done some things earlier to bring down the deficit.

MS. WARNER: Even in Virginia's large African-American community, which Robb is banking on, leaders worry that he can't generate an enthusiastic turnout.

JERRAULD JONES: Chuck Robb is in the mainstream and very responsive to the black voters of this state but many people, if what they're telling me is accurate, they've been turned off too.

MS. WARNER: Robb doesn't bring the same warmth and compassion to campaigning that North does. And polls show North's supporters are much more committed than Robb's. That could be worth several points to North on election day. So Robb is trying to generate passion against North by painting him as too extreme on many issues, including abortion and gun control.

CHUCK ROBB: Let's stay in the mainstream. Let's not go to the extreme.

MS. WARNER: He accuses North of pandering to voters' fear and anger.

CHUCK ROBB: There's no question that there's an underlying intolerance versus tolerance, and I regret to say there is a market for intolerance. It resonates.

MS. WARNER: But he admits that it's hard to combat North's emotional appeal.

CHUCK ROBB: Almost every time a question is asked, you get an ideological sound bite, and, and that is not sufficient to, to deal responsibly with public policy.

MS. WARNER: Okay. So how do you combat it though in the real political world?

CHUCK ROBB: Well, I'm not sure I'm doing a very good job of it, to be honest.

MS. WARNER: Apart from the personalities and particulars of the race, this Senate contest reveals the ever-deepening divisions in both political parties. These tensions are brought on in part by both parties' efforts to win moderate conservative white voters in the South. Democrats like Chuck Robb and Bill Clinton devised their new Democrat identity to help the party hold onto those voters. But even if Robb wins, his difficulties in this race show how hard it is to be a new Democrat with Bill Clinton in the White House.

LT. GOV. DON BEYER: New Democrats across the South are getting beat up for many of the positions we've taken in the last two years.

MS. WARNER: In short, to many Southerners, President Clinton now looks like a liberal, especially on moral and social issues.

BILL WILLIAMS, Shawsville: He does a lot of things that I don't like, especially in the homosexuals and putting gays and things in these offices. I do not approve of it one bit.

MS. WARNER: And who did you vote for in the presidential election?

BILL WILLIAMS: I vote for Bill Clinton, and I repented it. I had to ask God to forgive me, I really did.

MS. WARNER: Democratic leaders know that defections by moderate white voters like Williams spell trouble for their party.

LT. GOV. DON BEYER: The challenge is for the new Democrats to resurge in the coming years as the party that represents the breadwinners that live in all the suburbs of the South.

MS. WARNER: If you can't hold onto those voters, what have you got left?

LT. GOV. DON BEYER: Well, then we become a minority party.

MS. WARNER: The Republicans have their own tensions to contend with. North's candidacy has energized Christian activists, as new voters and volunteers. They've helped the North forces out-organize the Democrats in this race.

CATHY HAYDEN: This year, Ollie has brought in so many new people into the party that really it has broadened our base.

MS. WARNER: Hoping to win over this growing force, most of the party's potential presidential hopefuls campaigned with North. Party moderates think that's playing with fire.

BILL WHITEHURST, Former Republican Congressman: The middle wins in this country, and if the Republican Party in Virginia follows an extreme conservative point of view, I think that it does not bode for the party's best interest in the future.

MS. WARNER: But Christian conservatives say they are the future of the Republican Party.

MIKE FARRIS, 1993 Republican Lt. Gov. Nominee: The people who ride polo ponies are just not a large enough constituency to elect anything, and really I think it boils down to more of whether elitists run the party or whether populists are allowed to play too.

MS. WARNER: Whether Ollie North wins or loses, his partisans appear to be in the game to stay.

MR. MAC NEIL: Still ahead on the NewsHour, an overview of this '94 campaign, and the latest on Alzheimer's Disease. FOCUS - THE LONG VIEW

MR. LEHRER: Now some overview perspective on campaign '94. It comes from presidential historians Michael Beschloss and Doris Kearns Goodwin, journalist and author Haynes Johnson, and former Reagan-Bush cabinet official and author William Bennett. Haynes Johnson, many are saying this election, all of these elections taken together, whatever the specific outcomes, has already made its mark historically as something important and different. Do you agree?

MR. JOHNSON: Yes, I do. It's differentbecause the level of the spewing of hatred across the board now. We are saying you can't go anywhere, Jim, in the country, you turn on your television set and you see the negative ads hitting back and forth, you're a liar, you're a liar, and that level is driving down further trust in the system, itself. That's the problem with this election. I think we're not getting the kind of debate. People wanted a change, but they're not hearing that sort of thing, and I think that actually is a poisoning of the democracy. We used to celebrate democracy, the festival of democracy.

MR. LEHRER: So no matter what the results are tomorrow, that will be the legacy of this election campaign?

MR. JOHNSON: That will be one of the lasting legacies, making it difficult to government. How do you put together democracy means compromise, consensus, building coalitions if you're at each other's throats? And we just heard the piece on North, the divisions. We're almost balkanized now in this country, and that's the danger. How do you put together a governing majority with all of this dissonance in the background?

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Bill Bennett?

MR. BENNETT: Partly. Look, politicians can't have it both ways. They can't say, why don't people love us, when they engage in this mud fest for six months? There was a cartoon the other day that's been reprinted a lot of places that has this guy looking at a ballot, and it's got fraud, liar, thief, you know, in my choices.

MR. LEHRER: Take your choice.

MR. BENNETT: That's right. So we do this. We do each other in, or the politicians do each other in for three months pretty intensively over the airwaves, and the complain that they don't get any respect. Well, big surprise. Welcome to the real world. The only thing I might differ with slightly is, well, two things: historically, I'll probably prefer to Prof. Beschloss on this though, as I remember reading the Federalist and anti-Federalist debates, it was pretty rotten, pretty rough stuff there, stuff said about Lincoln was pretty ferocious too. It's a free country. We engage in the stuff freely and fully and that's fine. Second, I'm not sure that a lot of this attaches to the voters. I mean, I think that a lot of the voters react just like we'd react. They say what a bunch of junk, what a bunch of garbage. I don't think they say, my gosh, really, is that the case?

MR. LEHRER: Is he really a liar, is he really a crook?

MR. BENNETT: People are smart. I think after a while they get enured to it. I think it's dismissive, but it does belittle to them. I don't think there's any question about that.

MR. LEHRER: What do you think about the history? How does this compare historically, just in terms of the context that Haynes laid out, Michael?

MR. BESCHLOSS: Well, you know, it happens a lot in cycles. Oftentimes you see political dialogues that are really very vulgar throughout history and often violent. You go back to the period of the debate over slavery in the 1850's. Not only did people call one another some pretty bad things, you had Charles Sumner clubbed almost to death on the floor of the Senate, you had armed groups shooting at each other in Kansas. That's a little bit more dangerous than it is this year. I think the thing that is different perhaps in the history of politics though is that in a way the technology is such that this is going to be with us for a very long time. During a period when you had strong parties and candidates who ran on their records, it would have been very hard for someone to make himself into what he says he is and to slander an opponent, in certain cases destroy them. Now that money is so important in politics, that television ads are so important, and the parties are so little important, I think in a way what we've done is almost forced ourselves into a situation in which this could be with us forever unless in some way the structure is changed.

MR. LEHRER: Doris Goodwin, is this going to be with us forever?

MS. GOODWIN: Well, I'll tell you I can't wait till this election is over. I mean, it maybe that there's been isolated instances of hatred in the past and there's been clubbings and people fighting one another, but I've never seen the kind of hatred that's a manifestation of violence at the level that it's at today. I yearn now for the old days when the anti-Roosevelt haters would get together and go down to the trans locks and hiss him, or when a dirty trick was defined as the Democrats getting a group of pregnant nuns, presumably pregnant, together, holding the Nixon sign, "Nixon's the one." I mean, there was fun in those days. There was a kind of robust quality. There's a meanness to this one. People argue that Clinton has actually murdered people, when they burn Hillary in effigy, there's something that's descending and coarsening our dialogue that I think is really terrible for our democratic system. And I can't just dismiss it as it's always been there. It's worse now. I can't wait till it's over.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Bennett, you went like that, when she just said that.

MR. BENNETT: Well, hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today? I mean, how was Nixon treated? Was he treated with kid gloves? I mean, I've been out on the campaign trail, and I have seen, you know, some of this, obviously some of this anger and even some, some hatred occasionally. I've also seen some other stuff. I've seen some optimism. I've seen some real enthusiasm behind candidates. I have seen candidates talk about the issues. Actually, when you're with the candidates, you will find that more of them talk about the issues than what you get over the news reports. Your last segment was good and talking about North and Robb, and it actually talked about their positions on issues for about 20 seconds, but when these guys are actually campaigning, they're talking about issues. Now, we may want to say that that's all clouded by the character issues, but this partly I think the function of people's focus. Look, I think there is also -- I have to say this -- I'm sure that's why I was asked to be here -- I'll say it anyway -- if liberalism is having trouble, and it's having a lot of trouble in this election, there must be something horrible and irrational going on in America. And I think there's a bit of an overreaction to this. Look --

MR. LEHRER: You mean, if it was reversed. In other words, if this was a Republican Congress on the verge of losing control of the Democrats and North was a Democrat, you don't think --

MR. BENNETT: It would be the return of rationality, perhaps passionate but it would be quite rational. Now it's, of course, it's blind, it's irrational, it's full of hate. Look, people who watch TV shows, the content TV shows and watch the movies that come out, can they really be shocked at this? I heard Joe what's his name, the head of the motion picture -- Frank Valenti yesterday on C-Span yesterday --

MR. LEHRER: Jack Valenti.

MR. BENNETT: Jack Valenti -- say how squalid these commercials were, a guy who runs Hollywood and pictures is talking about squalid? I mean, give me a break.

MR. LEHRER: Doris Goodwin was shaking her head. Doris

MS. GOODWIN: Well, I think that's the connection that we have to think about. I don't think it's just politics that's fueling this anger, and I don't think it's just anti or pro liberalism. I think our society is obsessed with violence. Our television is, our movies are, and it manifests itself in violence and hatred is the verbal manifestation of it. So I think he's right not to say it's just the politics but I don't think that means that we should feel good about it, because it's all over the society. It means that somebody's got to start standing up and saying we don't like what's going on. I feel sometimes like we're spectators in the debasement of our political dialogue.

MR. LEHRER: Haynes.

MR. JOHNSON: And it's more than just politics. I agree with Doris exactly. It's institutional. People distrust all leaders. It isn't just political people. It's heads of corporations. It's Wall Street. It's lawyers. We in the press --

MR. LEHRER: The five of us.

MR. JOHNSON: -- we're at the bottom and probably deservedly so.

MR. LEHRER: Except --

MR. JOHNSON: But, I mean, it's across the board institutionally, and if you begin to lose faith in everybody that is supposed to lead you or offer a way out, then you've got problems.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask Michael that question. Which, which came first in 1994, the, the distrust and the anger of the voters and the politicians read it and threw it back at 'em, or have the politicians led the anger?

MR. BESCHLOSS: I think the distrust came first because politicians want to do what is going to bring them a following. I think if they felt that they could not get away with calling each other liars and using this kind of language, they wouldn't do it. Twenty or thirty years ago, you might hear that sort of language at a lower level in a campaign. You very rarely heard a Senate candidate speak of an opponent in the way that we've heard this year. The other thing that I think is extraordinary this year, Jim, is that oftentimes we've seen these periods of hatred as we've said, slavery in the 19th century and Vietnam and civil rights and so many other periods like this, the fascinating thing is that compared to all those eras, this is not a period of particularly strong and fast social change. And in a way, where the hatred comes from is not unhappiness with a great change coming upon the country such as civil rights, but really from a latent frustration and resentment. And that's what's new. I think the happy news is that that can be reversed and changed if you get a government in Washington that produces and makes people feel that once again the United States government can do what it wants to.

MR. BENNETT: Now you're getting into philosophy so I can say something. I agree that there is great frustration at things, and if you ask the people what's wrong, they will say we're on the wrong track, the country's on the wrong track. I'm not sure that what the people are saying is, give us a government that produces so much as people saying, maybe we've been asking too much from the government. Maybe we've got to look to ourselves. Maybe there are other things. I think there's a lot going on. But it's simply not true that everybody is debased or everybody is regarded as suspect. The military profession is still regarded very highly by most Americans and religious, people in the religious profession, ministers, priests, rabbis, are regarded with a lot of respect, even university professors are still regarded with respect. Some of us may wonder about that, but -- nothing personal -- I usedto be one. But, no, there are lots of institutions and people who respect them. And, again, I would say this is something politicians have done to themselves. If they throw this kind of mud, they can't complain in the morning that they look mud spattered.

MR. LEHRER: What about, what about Mr. Bennett's point earlier, though, Haynes, that there wouldn't be all of this hand wringing on the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour or anywhere else if it was a -- if it wasn't the conservatives who were rising up in anger at a liberal government?

MR. JOHNSON: Jim, I don't think this is an ideological question here. I think it's much deeper than that. I think there's a frustration, what Michael has said, what Mr. Bennett has said, and what Doris Kearns has said is actually true. We're in a period now. It's a different period, and there's a frustration about the future, and a fear and an apprehension and an anxiety about the future. People don't know where we're going, and it's a paradox, when it ought to be the best time for Americans. The Cold War is over, there's no Depression, there's no World War II. We don't have any common enemies. And that gives a sense of purpose, but this is not ideologically driven. It's deeper, deeper anxieties.

MR. LEHRER: Well, Doris Goodwin, you said, hey, you could hardly wait for this election to be over. Now, it is -- nothing is going to be over, is it, after tomorrow, isn't this going to continue as a result of this election, no matter who wins in what races?

MS. GOODWIN: That's my congenital optimism. The old liberal optimism will somehow get better after it's over. No, you're right. In fact, I think the legacy that's going to be left, people still feel like their real income is going down. They're still afraid about their safety, and those cultural fears that are fueling some of the upset are still going to be there. And it's not clear how government is going to address it in either way. I think the problem is that the Democrats don't really have the faith anymore in talking about government being a positive force in people's lives. The Republicans clearly have a strong, powerful voice, saying it's not a good thing in your life, so we don't really know where the leaders are going. I think they don't have a voice on the liberal Democratic side, and until they find it, those feelings out there are going to be pretty mixed up. And it's going to be hard for leaders to have anybody to connect to.

MR. LEHRER: What is the -- the conservative Republican message about government in two or three sentences, Mr. Bennett?

MR. BENNETT: Well, we shall see. I mean, part of it now is not this. You know, whatever --

MR. LEHRER: Whatever it is.

MR. BENNETT: Whatever it is, it's not this.

MR. LEHRER: Okay.

MR. BENNETT: And, indeed, some of our Democrat critics are saying you didn't have to go with the contract with America and that that was a mistake. I think that's accurate. I think it --

MR. LEHRER: The contract with America --

MR. BENNETT: Right.

MR. LEHRER: That's the deal with Gingrich and the others in the Republican House leadership --

MR. BENNETT: Right, but let's be clear on this. This is a big Republican day tomorrow, whether this stuff ends, this advertising ends or not, there will be some burden of proof on the Republican Party to say, and here I agree with Haynes, yes, you're right, you were right to be angry at government, and the reason you're right to be angry at government is government can't address the things that are really bothering you. These are concerns that go deeper. The country is on the wrong track. Here's what we propose about it. But notice the tremendous burden of proof, therefore, on this Republican Party to speak that. If this is the conservative party, then it says to the people we must reform institutions, you have to reform yourselves, we're all in this together. We'll see if we meet that burden.

MR. LEHRER: What does history show us, if anything, on this, Michael, where there's been a midterm election where this kind of thing -- even though it doesn't have all the other elements to it - - where a message has been delivered to Washington of some kind, what happens as a result?

MR. BESCHLOSS: Well, it makes it very tough for an incumbent President, as it's going to this week. I think another thing really depends on the way that that message is interpreted. I think one way that this could be interpreted this week is that there was a veiled debate in '92 that is much more up front in '94, and by that, I mean, Bill Clinton ran in '92 as a new Democrat. Voters gave him the benefit of the doubt. To some extent this year, I think some of the anger is from Clinton voters who voted for him as --

MR. LEHRER: Like the guy in Margaret's piece who said, hey, I voted for Clinton.

MR. BESCHLOSS: Absolutely. Who is absolutely irate about health care and what he sees as something of a wolf in sheep's clothing, there is nothing like someone scorned, and I think to some extent what you're going to see is these people who are oddly enough among those who are the most opposed to the President.

MR. JOHNSON: Disappointment, no question about that, and we talked before, Jim --

MR. LEHRER: True.

MR. JOHNSON: -- that the biggest thing in the 1992 election was the turnout increase. It was the first time since 1960, and that meant people believed that the system could still regenerate itself and produce change. They don't feel it's produced the kind of change they want, whether it's Republican or Democrat. I agree with Bill. The Republicans are going to be on the mark very shortly if they sweep the Congress and have it in their hands.

MR. LEHRER: But Doris Goodwin, if the message from the election, from the campaign up till now, regardless what the results are tomorrow in specific terms, if the message is no government, how do you govern?

MS. GOODWIN: Well, I think what President Clinton is going to have to do -- because he's still got to be in there as the symbol of our government -- he's got to decide what issues it's worth fighting on, which parts of the government he still believes are positive forces in people's lives, fight for some piece of health care. If he simply starts becoming a centrist figure and allowing himself to look like he's compromising and has no principles left, I think it's going to be worse for him. He needs to garner respect for himself. That's more important than affection and love, which he's looked for in the recent years, or so it seems. It's going to be very hard because he's going to have to get a new way of communicating what government should do in people's lives. But it's out there; it can be talked about. It's not over yet.

MR. BENNETT: That's the mandate, Jim, no government. This is the caricature of the Republican position. There are other options in-between --

MR. LEHRER: Excuse me. I'm not talking about necessarily the Republican position, but --

MR. BENNETT: All right.

MR. LEHRER: -- but the public mood. I was picking up on what Doris Goodwin said earlier, that people are just kind of fed up with the government, they're frustrated by it.

MR. BENNETT: Well, maybe wetried different things in different ways. And, again, I think this is a burden of proof question to the Republicans, but maybe more state government, maybe more, more weight and obligation on the other institutions in society, character forming institutions than the government. These are all possibilities.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you all this question. Some people have suggested that this could be a magic moment in American political history, that the -- that what the people are really saying is, give us a new idea, not negativism, not this, not that, not what we've already got, but a whole, new approach. Do you sense that at all, a new party, a new whatever?

MR. BENNETT: Well, it could be, and I certainly hope that, you know, my party has the idea, but somebody need to have an idea, somebody needs to come forward with a new way of doing business, because you've got this very odd situation that Haynes described, talking about the pessimism about the future. A majority of Americans actually believe that they have achieved the American dream or are very close to it, but when they talk about the future, there's this enormous pessimism. It's about children; it's about values; it's about this whole relationship of our institutions and how we bring kids into the future. And there's an opportunity -- I would agree with you 100 percent -- there's an opportunity for new ideas here that cross the spectrum.

MR. JOHNSON: Jim, I believe that people want something better. We are a traditionally optimistic people. We are going through a very bad period right now. Historically, psychically almost we've been wounded, we've been hurt. People we believed in were destroyed. There's reason for distrust. But I think they want something more, and if they can believe it's real --

MR. LEHRER: It's a positive -- it could be a positive element.

MR. JOHNSON: And across parties. I don't think it's the Republicans or the Democrats or the liberals or the conservatives. I don't think people think that way. Smaller groups do, but I think they want something America. They want this country to be -- you're talking about the American dream -- yes, they want it, absolutely want it. And that's not politics, as you know.

MR. LEHRER: Do you sense an opportunity, Michael?

MR. BESCHLOSS: I do, and especially, bizarrely enough, because the expectations are so low. One, if we had to pull one silver lining out of this horrible campaign, it is that people expect government to be able to do very little because of the clubbing it's been taking over the last four months. And oddly enough, I think, if Congress, for instance, next year delivers and begins to attack some of these programs -- or problems that have been discussed so much this year, it could be a little bit like when Ronald Reagan took the presidency. That was a time at which the presidency was described as a very weak office, could not do very much. Reagan was able to use his skills to expand that. I think that if there is that same sense in Congress and in our national government, you might see sort of a roaring return of great enthusiasm and optimism.

MR. LEHRER: But if the mood is we don't want Washington to do that much, then how do those two things jive, Mike?

MR. BENNETT: Could I --

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MR. BENNETT: Because you might have -- I don't mean to be partisan here -- just in terms of reality though, if you had sufficient number of conservatives, Democrats or Republicans, who said, look, Congress has tried to keep teenage girls from having babies and it hasn't worked very well, maybe we should do something else, maybe we should let the states try it, maybe the devolution of power, maybe some of these social service programs and other things should go to the states, maybe we should find ways for other institutions to work on it. What I'm saying is this opportunity, this moment doesn't have to be seized just by the Congress. The Congress can say, let's let others play.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask Doris about that. First of all, do you agree that there could be a hopeful note from this, and if so, do you see those good ideas coming, or those possible new ideas coming from the system, as it now exists?

MS. GOODWIN: Well, I think the possibility that does exist now is that it can't be a lot of fun being a politician in this contemporary climate. Nobody's proud of it. They're not out there saying this is my vocation. The people feel bad about their Congress. They feel about their President. So maybe something's going to wake these guys up to say we've got to do something differently. I think the problem is I don't know where those new ideas are going to come from. I think the Republicans have been better than the Democrats and having think tanks out there for generations that have come up with their ideas, I'm not sure where the Democratic ideas are, and we still face the problem that money governs these characters when they get down there, and whatever great ideas they have, they're beholden to interest groups. Until we do something about public financing and changing this whole level of campaign, whatever the ideas are, I'm afraid they're all going to be stymied down there, because they're listening not to the people but to these special interest groups.

MR. LEHRER: But a good idea, a super idea couldn't overcome that, Doris?

MS. GOODWIN: Sometimes it can. If you can mobilize the people and communicate to the people, that can break through interest groups, break through progress's paralysis, that works on civil rights, it's worked at various times, yes, it can. So now it's time to think maybe, but I don't know how many politicians think these days. They think in spot ads.

MR. JOHNSON: Absolutely. People want -- if you just start with the money, Jim, if we could just reform the money, $30 million even among ourselves at this table, that's real money for one Senate race if you've had that kind of money. Think about what that says. I mean, the opportunity for the average person to run and the idea that public service ought to be a service, I mean, that's the kind of thing that we're not hearing.

MR. LEHRER: You've written a book, William Bennett, that was a book about ideas, it was about values, and it's a best-seller, you sold millions, trillions of copies of this book. Were you touched by this result that hey, wait a minute, maybe people are interested in something positive?

MR. BENNETT: Sure, sure. My publisher put out 50,000 copies. We've now sold a lot more than that. And when The Book of Virtues sells more than Howard Stern and Roseanne, I'm encouraged, and I hope other people are encouraged too. There's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, and maybe there out of all this will come some new ideas about self-governance, about local politics. We say all politics is local, but about returning perhaps some of the sovereignty to the local area. These are some of the things that may come out of it. I see great opportunity here. What I see as a Republican is a tremendous burden, if we have this big day, that we're going to have to come up with those ideas. I think we've got some of them from thinktanks and elsewhere, but it will be incumbent on us to present them.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Doris Goodwin, gentlemen, thank you. UPDATE - ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

MR. MAC NEIL: Next tonight, an update on Alzheimer's Disease. Over the weekend, former President Ronald Reagan disclosed that he's suffering from the illness. In a letter to the American people, Reagan said he and his wife, Nancy, had decided to make the news public. He wrote, "In opening our hearts, we hope this might promote greater awareness of this condition. Perhaps it will encourage a clearer understanding of the individuals and families who are affected by it." Reagan added, "At the moment I feel just fine. I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on the Earth doing the things I've always done. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life." We have a medical update on Alzheimer's with Dr. Steven Miles, a geriatrician and internist at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. He's also a bio-ethics professor at the University of Minnesota. He spoke with medical correspondent Fred De Sam Lazaro earlier this afternoon at public station KTCA in St. Paul- Minneapolis.

MR. LAZARO: Dr. Miles, thank you for joining us.

DR. STEVEN MILES: It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

MR. LAZARO: What are the consequences in the public health world when somebody famous like former President Reagan comes out and says he has a disease like Alzheimer's? What happens in the world of public health?

DR. STEVEN MILES: The Reagans have done an enormous service. This will increase people -- people's awareness of the disease. It will increase the likelihood that they'll be coming to their doctors and asking about troubling symptoms. It will increase the chance that people who have diseases that affect thinking that are not Alzheimer's Disease will be treated. It will increase funding for research. This is a very constructive event in terms of the epidemic of Alzheimer's Disease. It is a serious, of course, tragedy for the Reagan family.

MR. LAZARO: You say the Reagans, and that harkens back to Nancy Reagan and her publicity, her self-sought publicity about breast cancer. And you've mentioned in the past that she's done wonders for raising awareness with breast cancer.

DR. STEVEN MILES: She very much changed the public awareness and public conversation about breast cancer. And now it seems that this family is going to be doing this again for an invisible epidemic, the epidemic of Alzheimer's Disease.

MR. LAZARO: Talk a little bit about the epidemic. Is it of epidemic proportions? What is Alzheimer's first of all, and how widespread is it?

DR. STEVEN MILES: Alzheimer's is a disease which causes destruction of thinking. It has -- it goes through a series of stages, from forgetfulness to confusion to an inability to find words, to a loss of memory, to an inability to do more complex types of thinking. It is an epidemic. It affects somewhere around one in ten of people over 65, literally millions of people in the United States, but it's an invisible epidemic, because so many times these people with Alzheimer's Disease retire from society. And the burden of caring for these people causes their families who are caring for them to, to retire with them, absorbed in the enormous burden of taking care of people with Alzheimer's Disease.

MR. LAZARO: I've read somewhere that this is the single biggest item on our bill in terms of long-term care. Most of the nursing homes in this country are filled with patients with Alzheimer's.

DR. STEVEN MILES: That's right. Some estimates say that anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of the nursing home population has disorders of thinking, primarily Alzheimer's Disease.

MR. LAZARO: And there are economic consequences, both for the family and for the nation. Any figures?

DR. STEVEN MILES: There are no figures that I'm aware of, but the costs are enormous because not only do you have the cost of caring for somebody with Alzheimer's Disease, not only do you have their own lost productivity, and their own lost gifts, as in the case of President Reagan, but you also have the enormous secondary costs of people who are taking on the role of care giving and also then cutting back on their contributions to the economy. So the costs of this disease are billions and billions of dollars.

MR. LAZARO: And in individual families, the effect on surviving spouses, as I understand it, is quite devastating financially, because the family has to spend its way down into poverty to be eligible for Medicaid coverage of nursing home care?

DR. STEVEN MILES: That's right. Many families are impoverished in the course of obtaining nursing home care, because in order to be eligible for nursing home care in many states you cannot have any significant personal assets outside of a house. So this is a financial catastrophe for many families. Very few people have nursing home insurance.

MR. LAZARO: People like yourself who treat elderly people and people with Alzheimer's have often complained about a perception out there that this isn't very serious, that forgetfulness, that some of these symptoms are just a natural part of the aging process, and you say nothing could be farther from the truth.

DR. STEVEN MILES: No. In fact, Alzheimer's Disease and the related diseases very clearly are diseases, but it is not normal for cognition, for memory to deteriorate with aging and certainly not normal for people to become disabled from a loss of thinking ability as they get older. The belief that it is normal causes families to delay coming in for treatment and identification of diseases that affect thinking and reasoning. And it sometimes causes doctors to not take symptoms seriously that should be aggressively pursued.

MR. LAZARO: Let's talk a little bit about what symptoms people ought to be looking for, before deciding to bring a loved one in. I mean, routine forgetfulness, confusion, I mean, these can be due to factors that are shorter-term and reversible, right? They're not all symptoms of Alzheimer's.

DR. STEVEN MILES: Forgetfulness is common. I left my car keys at home this morning. I think one of the more useful ways to approach this is the person changing. Normally were they active say with a hobby or did they take great pride in their gardening, or did they like watching the sports pages and tracking the different teams? That kind of sense of playfulness or playful imagination is sometimes lost. The ability to do complex skills, balancing a checkbook, making sure that groceries are stocked in advance, or routinely engaging all the complex things of housekeeping, this type of general presence of the person in the world I think is perhaps even more helpful than looking at forgetfulness and the occasional memory lapse. But obviously, if somebody doesn't recognize a spouse or can't name a child or consistently forgets things that they used to remember, this is serious too.

MR. LAZARO: How significant are some of the therapeutic breakthroughs that we've been hearing about? There is a drug now called Tacrine, I believe, that is the only FDA-approved drug. How significant a dent is that making in symptoms?

DR. STEVEN MILES: Well, the FDA has approved Tacrine for the treatment of early-stage and milder Alzheimer's Disease. The drug appears to work in causing a mild improvement in perhaps somewhat less than half of patients. Some people have likened the effect to setting the disease clock back three to six months. In other patients, the drug doesn't work at all, and in some patients there are side effects, which means that they can't take the drug. And so if anybody's contemplating this drug, they should go on a trial basis, picking out the most bothersome symptoms and seeing if it produces an effect. Tacrine is the only currently approved drug at this time.

MR. LAZARO: But overall, in terms of the therapeutic, the promises of new therapies, what can you tell us about what's out there on the horizon?

DR. STEVEN MILES: There are a number of approaches that are being explored. New genetic and biochemical research is identifying the types of biochemical changes in the brain and hopefully, those will lead to drugs that are aimed at preventing those biochemical changes.

MR. LAZARO: In other words, just simply understand how the disease happens?

DR. STEVEN MILES: Once we understand why these brain cells are dying, then we may find a way to either prevent the injury to the brain cell that's occurring or prevent the brain cell, itself, from responding to that injury by dying. Even a small change in the underlying progress of the disease may have a great effect on an individual. But these therapies are difficult to develop and will be coming out over the next several years, to tens of years.

MR. LAZARO: But what -- what stage are they in? Are they in clinical trials, and when might we hopefully get to an FDA approval stage in any of these?

DR. STEVEN MILES: Clinical trials on various approaches to Alzheimer's Disease have been going on for literally decades and are continuing at this time. Some of the new therapies are, are well into the clinical trial phase. The outcome of those trials determine how fast the therapy then moves into a commercial application.

MR. LAZARO: So it's several years now. In the meanwhile, finally you would advise people to just be vigilant for symptoms, for warning signs?

DR. STEVEN MILES: I think the most important thing people can do is to take signs of deteriorating thinking in older people seriously and make sure that your doctor takes it seriously too.

MR. LAZARO: And look for patterns?

DR. STEVEN MILES: Look for patterns, look for changes in who grandpa is or who grandma is, and make sure that when you go to the doctor that the doctor says, yes, this is not normal aging, let me see if I can take a closer look at this. There are hormone diseases, there are other diseases. Even heart disease can cause changes in thinking that, if treated, can be reversed, and that's very important for people to pursue.

MR. LAZARO: What do you think causes people to deny symptoms? There are some of us who would tend to rush in at the earliest hint of some kind of symptom, but you've reported that in your experience, many families of Alzheimer's patients don't come in until they've spent an awful lot of money denying that this is actually something that's happened.

DR. STEVEN MILES: This is a frightening disease. It's a frightening disease to think that something is happening to your mind. It's a frightening disease to think that it might be irreversible. And also many Alzheimer's patients maintain an easy, friendly sociability that covers up really incredible deficits. And so what happens is, is that a spouse will take over balancing a checkbook and the son will say, well, I'll help you in terms of changing the storm windows, or the garden's got to be too much for you, and so these tasks are just kind of taken away without anybody recognizing that the person who used to do these things is giving them up because they can no longer do them. And so families tend to just reorganize themselves around the changing disease without recognizing how severe it's become.

MR. LAZARO: Well, Dr. Steven Miles of the Hennepin County Medical Center, thanks very much for joining us this evening.

DR. STEVEN MILES: Thank you very much for having me. RECAP

MR. MAC NEIL: Again, the major story of this Monday was tomorrow's midterm elections. President Clinton did some last- minute campaigning in three states for Democrats facing tough Senate races. Republicans, meanwhile, continued to speak confidently of capturing the Senate as well as the House. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.