The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Saturday's elections in Bosnia, we have a report and a debate. Then a three-part look at the presidential campaign, pollster Andy Kohut has the numbers, Kathleen Hall Jamieson evaluates the ads, and Mark Shields and Paul Gigot do their weekly analyzing. It all follows our summary of the news this Fr news agency said today. The planes enforced the no-fly zones in the Northern and Southern parts of the country. The agency quoted a statement from the ruling council saying the cease-fire would go into effect at 4 PM Eastern Time but it would last only if the United States stopped patrolling the day. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Iraq will stop firing missiles at U.S. and other allied planes, the official Iraqi areas. A Pentagon spokesman said there were no plans to halt the flights and at the State Department, spokesman Nicholas Burns responded to the possibility of opening a dialogue with the Iraqi regime.

NICHOLAS BURNS, State Department Spokesman: We've seen some statements by unnamed officials. Some statements that they'd like a dialogue with the United States, which we find quite curious, because, you know, we're not at all clear what they would want to talk to us about. Saddam Hussein knows what has to happen if he's going to step back from the brink of this problem that he has with the United States. He has to stop his aggression. He's someone right now who is crossing all sorts of lines that were drawn in the sand for him and that he hasn't crossed in a number of years.

MR. LEHRER: The American military build-up in the Persian Gulf continued. Eighteen more Air Force jet fighters were dispatched to the region today. So were personnel for additional Patriot Missile batteries. A second aircraft carrier, the Enterprise, set sail yesterday. They will all join eight Stealth bombers that arrived in Kuwait today. U.S. officials threatened Iraq with further air strikes earlier this week. Defense Sec. Perry will visit the region over the weekend. In Bosnia today former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke arrived in Sarajevo to observe tomorrow's national elections. He's leading a U.S. delegation as President Clinton's special representative. Holbrooke brokered the Dayton Peace Accords last November which brought an end to the war in Bosnia. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. In economic news today, the Labor Department reported the Consumer Price Index was up .1 percent last month. Food prices rose, while energy and clothing prices fell. The Commerce Department said retail sales were up .2 percent. And a new record was set on Wall Street today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 5838.52. That is the first time the Dow has closed above 5800. In the presidential race today, Bob Dole campaigned in Ohio and Michigan. At a manufacturing plant in Ohio, he urged voters to trust him to cut taxes to bring stronger economic growth. It was the same message he delivered at an airport rally in Saganaw, Michigan.

SEN. BOB DOLE, Republican Presidential Candidate: We are going to win because we have a message and we have an agenda, and we have the ideas for the future. All the young people here today are concerned about the future, as are their parents and their grandparents. And you have a choice. You have a choice. This election will give you a very clear choice. We believe the money belongs to you, and Clinton believes it belongs to the government. We want you to keep your money. He wants to take more and more and more of it.

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton had no campaign events today. He flew back to Washington overnight from a Democratic fund-raiser in Hollywood. The director of the Christian Coalition warned Republicans today moral issues were more important than tax and budget concerns. Ralph Reed spoke at the annual meeting of his group in Washington.

RALPH REED, Christian Coalition: To the Republican Party we say this--if you want to retain control of the House and Senate, and you want to have any chance at all of gaining the White House, you had better not retreat from the pro-life and pro-family stands that made you a majority party in the first place.

MR. LEHRER: Bob Dole does not plan to address the conference, but his running mate, Jack Kemp, will speak tomorrow. President Clinton and Vice President Gore were invited but did not accept. Ross Perot did accept and did speak today. He claimed his third party campaign in 92 did not affect the election's outcome.

ROSS PEROT, Reform Party Presidential Candidate: In this audience I am sure that there are many people who honestly believe that I elected Bill Clinton in 1992. That's right. That's right. That's why I brought it up. See. No smooth politician would have given you that opportunity, right? That's why I brought it up, to get that reaction. I ask you as honest, religious people, please go to the library and study the exit polls from the 1992 election. You will find that I drew equally from both candidates. I just ask you to look at the facts, and not be manipulated any time.

MR. LEHRER: On the TWA crash story, two more bodies have been retrieved from the ocean off Long Island. Two hundred and thirteen of the two hundred and thirty victims have now been found. The cause of the July 17th explosion and crash remains unexplained. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to some elections, first in Bosnia, then here, with Kohut on the polls, Jamieson on the commercials, and Shields and Gigot. UPDATE - ELECTION PREVIEW

MR. LEHRER: We do go first tonight to the elections in Bosnia and to Elizabeth Farnsworth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Tomorrow's elections are the next step in the U.S.-brokered Dayton plan to bring peace to Bosnia. Under the plan, Bosnia was divided into two entities, Serb and Muslim Croat. The elections are aimed at bringing those two entities together in a unified Bosnian state. We'll talk to two former diplomats about the significance of the vote but first this report on how it will be conducted. The reporter is Gaby Rado of Independent Television News.

GABY RADO, ITN: The first people to vote inside Bosnia, itself, were soldiers and policemen who will have to cast their ballots a day early because they'll have the job of maintaining law and order in what was always going to be a tense day for democracy. The highest level of security will give 19 official crossing points in the former front line, where hundreds of buses will take Muslim and Croat refugees to vote in the areas in which they were driven out during the war. At this one near Serb-held Daboy in Northern Bosnia, NATO's implementation force, IFOR, expect between two and five thousand to cross over. The reason why is they're to make sure the voters are not attacked by their former enemies. IFOR have set up a high-tech command and control center near Sarajevo to ensure they're ready to react if serious incidents do break out.

MAJ. BRETT BOUDREAU, IFOR: If we come across obstacles or obstructions in the way of allowing voters to get the polling stations, we will act to remove them. Albeit we are a force of last resort, we'll encourage the local police commanders to take action to remove those roadblocks, but if they need some encouragement, if it's beyond their capacity to do so, then IFOR will make it happen.

MR. RADO: The political campaigning had to end last night. This was the Bosnian Serb ruling party's rally at which its leader, Biljana Plavsic, continued to promise that the Bosnian Serb mini state would one day join Serbia, rejecting the unitary Bosnia set out in the Dayton peace plan. Today she had to agree to read out on TV news an apology for her statements, a punishment imposed by the OSCE, the international organizers of the election. And an hour before she was expected to do so, Ms. Plavsic appeared in the first of three broadcasts she's been ordered to make. She said her party's goal was not to unite all the Serbs and the Balkans into one state now or in the future. But claiming that the OSCE hasn't been tough enough in such cases, a senior Bosnian Muslim official resigned from one of the election monitoring committees earlier this week.

SPOKESMAN: All OSCE officials form the highest level have stopped talking about free and fair elections. Now they're talking about the best elections possible in the current conditions. I think that it's about time that international community decides, tries--tries first something on mice before they try it on the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina, because we suffered so much already.

MR. RADO: The elections will involve four separate ballots in the Muslim-Croat Federation and five in the Serb-controlled areas. They were today described as the most complex elections in history. The organizers take pride in the fact that the vote will be on time with no boycotts or other disruption.

AMB. ROBERT FROWICK, U.S. Election Monitor: The peace agreement says we should aim for free and fair and democratic elections. That has been our goal. I think the process that we've created has brought it along to a considerable extent in that direction, and I believe that we have the prospect of a reasonably democratic result that would be in keeping with what's intended in the peace agreement.

MR. RADO: The man whose cajoling of the Bosnian factions made the Dayton Agreement and these elections possible arrived in Sarajevo to witness the new democracy at its birth, but he warned against the nationalism which threatens to split Bosnia.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: President Clinton a year ago stated his own view on the secession issue. The United States Government has never changed its view on that. This election is not about secession or to legitimize secession. This is election is about creating the central institutions of a single Bosnia-Herzegovina with a loose central government. Let's be very clear.

MR. RADO: The reason why is a sign of just how fraught with danger the road to democracy is in Bosnia. And no amount of security will ensure that the people will vote the way the international community wants them to.

MS. FARNSWORTH: In tomorrow's elections, voters living in the Muslim-Croat Federation will choose a Muslim and a Croat for the newly created three-member national presidency. Those living in the Bosnian Serb area will select a Serb member. Both groups will also choose national and regional legislators. More than + million refugees are expected to vote by absentee ballot. We get two views now. Robert Gallucci was ambassador-at-large for the Clinton administration responsible for the civilian rebuilding effort in Bosnia, among other things. He is now jean of--dean of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Warren Zimmerman was ambassador to the former Yugoslavia during the Bush administration. He is the author of a new book, "Origins of a Catastrophe: Yugoslavia and Its Destroyers." Thank you both for being with us. Amb. Gallucci, first, clarify something for us. The 641 million refugees voting, some of them from this country--

ROBERT GALLUCCI, Former State Department Official: Thousand--

MS. FARNSWORTH: I'm sorry, 641,000 refugees voting. Do they vote with an absentee ballot from the area they were kicked out of, or from an area they want to live in next? How does it work?

AMB. GALLUCCI: First of all, one thing I think I can say with confidence is none of this is simple, but I understand that the-- those that wish to vote where they were registered by the 1991 Census can do so automatically. Those who wish to vote someplace else, i.e., presumably where they intend to return to apply in the course of registering to do that, and then they can vote there, so that they have a choice, in fact, of going back to where they were, or to move someplace else.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What do you hope will come out of this very complex procedure where they're, they're electing--there are elections for the national entity and there are elections for the- -for the two separate entities?

AMB. GALLUCCI: I think the first thing we all hope for is a process is of voting which is as the language is free and fair and democratic as possible, in other words that we have an election that's free from harassment and people go to the polls safely and people transit the inter-entity border, so the process of the election is as good and clean as possible.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Just so the process in itself teaches something, is that part of the point?

AMB. GALLUCCI: Exactly. And also I think if that happens, that's a very good first step. We recognize if that happens it's in a context with the presence of IFOR and some very special circumstances, but still--

MS. FARNSWORTH: IFOR, the UN--the NATO troops.

AMB. GALLUCCI: Exactly. If you talk about the results of the election, the first point to make is it's an election. And while I may have some preferences for a multi-ethnic state and those of us who worked so hard to bring all that about would like to see that be the result. The first thing I think you'd have to say about a democratic election is you want to accept the results of a democratic election. After all, that's what it's all about. They get to choose. And having said that, yes, indeed, I think to the extent to which those candidates that were running for election on a multiethnic slate show substantial support will be a good sign that people are, in fact, thinking about one country.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What do you think, Amb. Zimmerman? Do you think that the elections will promote a multiethnic state, or are they promoting the opposite, as many critics say?

WARREN ZIMMERMAN, Former Ambassador to Yugoslavia: Well, obviously, there have to be elections. There was a question of when to have them. These elections I'm afraid unless a miracle happens are going to work to--to further the trend that is going in the wrong direction, i.e., toward the separation of the different ethnic groups in Bosnia, toward the increase in nationalism, rather than the reduction of it.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Explain how that works.

AMB. ZIMMERMAN: Well--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Why do you think that will happen?

AMB. ZIMMERMAN: Because there isn't really a level playing field. There's a very bumpy playing field for these elections. The media really are still very strongly in the hands of extreme nationalists. There has been very little freedom of movement. Refugees who tried to return to their, to their homes have been harassed, so very few have actually gone back. There's a tremendous distaste, particularly on the Serbian side, but partly on the Croatian side, which we saw in the film clip before, against having a Bosnian state. The Serbs want to return--many of them want to return to Serbia, so I'm afraid that the central organs of the, of the Bosnian state which will be elected tomorrow are going to be trashed and simply won't be effective. So we'll have the facade of a state, but we won't have the reality.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What about that?

AMB. GALLUCCI: Well, I think in the first instance Warren's exactly right, that unless there's a miracle, we're going to see a great deal of voting along ethnic lines. That is not the ideal outcome that I described a moment ago at which there's an embrace of multiethnic political entities, however--

MS. FARNSWORTH: And we will see this by looking at whether candidates who promote multiethnicity get a lot of votes, right? That's what we'll be looking at.

AMB. GALLUCCI: Exactly. What I want to add a big "however" after that. Even if that happens before there is a leap to judge the significance of that, remember that what is happening here is that in these elections will result in governments at the level of the Cantons will result in legislatures for both entities, the federation of Croat and Muslim, and Republica Serbska, and also the national entity, the assembly and a three-person, three-headed presidency, so even if voting is along ethnic lines, uh, the first thing that gets established are the national institutions and we must, I think, wait and see whether those national institutions will operate, whether the people of Bosnia wish to have one country, and if they do wish to have one country, those institutions will begin to operate. So I would strongly encourage a certain suspension of judgment even if the voting outcome is not immediately the kind that we might ideally like to see.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What about Amb. Zimmerman's other point, though, that there wasn't a level playing field, that the conditions that Dayton set down for these elections don't exist. For example, perhaps the multiethnic parties don't have the freedom to pursue the votes that they should.

AMB. GALLUCCI: I said a minute ago that I'd like to see tomorrow be a day in which the process of the election represent a free and fair process to the extent possible. The run up to the election, if you're going to have free and fair democratic elections, also has to have what Warren calls a level playing field, and there was not that. It was certainly a lot better than maybe we had reason to hope for, but we--or reason to expect, but not what we might have hoped for. It was not the kind of--freedom of movement was not experienced in the way we would have liked to have seen it, and the access to media wasn't everything we would have liked to have seen. There was more freedom of access to media than I think some people expected we'd be able to achieve in Independent Television and radio and newspapers, but I don't think one could call it a perfectly level playing field.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What will you be looking for? Is there--is there- -do you have a hope that something good can come out of the elections?

AMB. ZIMMERMAN: I think something good can. I mean, there is an outside chance that the opposition candidates will do better than we all think they will. Even if they don't, I think there are ways to limit the damage that the West can, can do. I think the NATO force has to remain maybe in reduced numbers, but it has to remain, and Bosnia is not quite ready to, uh, to have its people get along with each other without violence. So there has to be more of that. I think the--I think the force has got to be more assertive than it has in the context of arresting some of the major war criminals which it could have done, I think, and failed to do, assuring a freedom of movement, making sure that there's a better press, that, that genuinely reflects different interests. If all of that happens, then I think the damage which I'm afraid is going to come out of the elections can be severely limited.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Let me just get clear what, what's--the damage that you see is that the elections basically legitimize the most nationalist parties, is that what you're afraid of, because they are the most popular parties?

AMB. ZIMMERMAN: If that's--

MS. FARNSWORTH: And they're the ones that pursued the war.

AMB. ZIMMERMAN: If that's all it was, it would be all right.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Uh-huh.

AMB. ZIMMERMAN: But what I think follows from that is that the elections are likely to further the trend that already exists toward the partition of Bosnia, the destruction of the whole idea of a multiethnic state, and that's after all why the United States was involved in the war in the first place, so our major objective is in peril here. That's why I think we can't just walk away from it after the elections. We have to lead as we led before. We have to lead NATO in staying and trying to keep things heading in the right direction and not the wrong one.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you agree with?

AMB. GALLUCCI: Uh, I think it's highly unlikely that the situation in Bosnia will in the next three, four, five months be such that we would agree that the security situation is resolved and everybody can go home in terms of the implementation force. So no, I don't think that's a reasonable expectation, and I do hope that an assessment is made and a view--a consideration is made as to what sort of force is required. I don't think a force that's there necessarily has to be projected into the next six months. But some sort of military presence to assure that there isn't another outbreak in hostilities, I think, would be a very good idea.

MS. FARNSWORTH: NATO officials have been, the "Washington Post" quoted some recently, saying that they're making plans to stay, right?

AMB. GALLUCCI: I, if they are making plans to stay, I think what they're actually doing is making plans to make plans--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Yeah.

AMB. GALLUCCI: --about what the future is to be.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And were making plans to stay in some form or another. I want to get back to the process, itself. We just saw in the piece that Gaby Rado did a leader of the Bosnian Serb National Organization saying on television that something she'd said before was wrong. She said we aren't pushing for the unification of all the Serbs together. She was forced to do that by the European Organization overseeing the elections. Is that the kind of process that you were hoping would happen through this, that, that very nationalist groups would somehow have to pull back because of pressures?

AMB. GALLUCCI: If--the kind of process I was hoping for was that the electorate, itself, would have embraced a multiethnic state and even if there was a fair amount of coalescence of Serbs in the Republica Serbska and Muslims and Croats in the federation that still they'd agree, essentially agree that they were going to work together in these institutions for one country, Bosnia- Herzegovina. The fact that the OSCE had to sort of in a sense force or mandate that change goes back to the Dayton Accords and the deal which really is in place. And it's unfortunate I think the OSCE had to do that.

MS. FARNSWORTH: I see. Well, thank you both very much for being with us.

AMB. GALLUCCI: Thank you.

AMB. ZIMMERMAN: Thank you. FOCUS - CAMPAIGN 96 - READING THE NUMBERS

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, presidential politics, the public opinion polls, the television commercials, and Shields & Gigot. Margaret Warner starts it off.

MS. WARNER: Several polls released this week show that with the fall campaign now fully underway, President Clinton still retains a substantial lead. One poll released today by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press is typical of these latest findings. The Pew poll found President Clinton favored by 52 percent of the voters, Bob Dole by 34 percent, and Ross Perot by just 8 percent. We get more on these findings now from Andrew Kohut, the director of the Pew Research Center. Welcome, Andy. Welcome back. How solid are these numbers now? That is, how solid are the feelings behind these numbers?

ANDREW KOHUT, Pew Research Center: Well, this is a very impressive lead. What's happened over the course of the summer is people are voting for--more people are voting for Bill Clinton or saying they will vote for Bill Clinton. But they're saying they will vote for him with enthusiasm. They're saying that they're strong supporters of Bill Clinton, not moderate supporters, and that they're voting for him, not against Bob Dole or Ross Perot.

MS. WARNER: And that's a change?

MR. KOHUT: Two thirds now of his support is positive, not, not negative. That wasn't the case earlier in the year. And that's a very good sign for him because positive support tends to stick.

MS. WARNER: And why is this? Can you tell? What is it--what happened to all the negative feelings about Bill Clinton?

MR. KOHUT: Well, he's getting just the lion's share of everybody who likes him. You know, one of the most amazing things to me is that still his, his negative rating is as high as 40 percent in some polls and his positive, basic positive favorable rating is 57 percent. So just about everyone who has the most basic liking of Bill Clinton is voting for him, which says more about perhaps his opponents than it says about Bill Clinton. But the other thing I wanted to mention about the lead is that it's impressive with regard to historical perspectives and historical precedence. It's as large as Reagan's lead was in September of 1984, and larger than Ike's was in 1956, and larger than George Bush's was in 1988. So he's--he's in pretty good shape, and he's done a good job. He did a good job. The Democratic convention worked for Bill Clinton. He has more supporters and more positive supporters.

MS. WARNER: And so what has happened to Bob Dole?

MR. KOHUT: Well, he's failed to achieve his objectives in, in San Diego. Let's list what they were. He was going to rally Republicans behind him. Well, he still gets only 80 percent of Republicans, not the typical 90 percent. He only gets 59 percent in our poll of independent Republicans. That should be in the 70 percent level. So he didn't get the Republicans to come with him. He did narrow the gender gap. Both of these conventions were about appealing to women. The gender gap is wider in September than it was in July. It was plus 15 for Clinton among women in July. It's plus 26 now. And then finally the most basic problem that Bob Dole has in the way I look at these polls is he's not making a--he doesn't make a good connection with people. The average voter is 35 years old, female, and a high school graduate. Now neither Dole nor Clinton fit those categories but Dole has--Clinton has the capacity to connect with these people in the way that Dole does not on a, on a--just on a human level.

MS. WARNER: Well, you mentioned the convention and you told us at the end of the conventions to pay no attention to those polls and that this would be the time that they would mean something. So compare for us the poll you all did in late July before the convention and now. I gather Dole has essentially stayed the same but Clinton picked up. Where did that come from geographically, demographically?

MR. KOHUT: It came from--he picked up 8 percentage points. Dole didn't use any ground. That's good. But where Clinton picked up ground was in the core--basic groups, whites, middle income people, lower income people, and among women. He's doing better in very important groups. The only groups that Bob Dole improved his standing with were white men inside the South. Women in the South support Clinton at higher rates. Both men and women outside of the South support Clinton at higher rates than they did. So Clinton is in pretty good shape.

MS. WARNER: And what do the findings beneath the numbers tell you about where Ross Perot is and his prospects for improving his position?

MR. KOHUT: You don't have to look too far below the numbers. We asked a very simple question about the candidates, is there any chance, we said to people who were, who were not supporting these candidates, that you might vote for Dole and Perot, and 78 percent said, there's no way I'm going to vote for Ross Perot. I might add that 7 percentage points more people said in September they will not vote for Dole, and that's exactly what happened to George Bush in September of 1992.

MS. WARNER: The opposition just solidified.

MR. KOHUT: The opposition solidified. That's right.

MS. WARNER: Now, also, what did your poll find about the way people are leaning now in the congressional races?

MR. KOHUT: Well, the Democrats have made some ground. In July, we had it 47, 46, which is statistically even--47 for the Dem's. Now we have a 51 Democrat, 43 percent margin for the Democrats in the congressional preference question. But there are some undercurrents in the survey, some other trends, rather, in the survey which say maybe these numbers aren't as strong in evidence that the Democrats are going to re-take control of the House. First of all, we find much more support for incumbents than we found two years ago at this time. Two years ago, 49 percent of the voters told us that they were inclined to re-elect their incumbent. It's only--it was as high as 62 percent in this survey. And also people are--

MS. WARNER: And more of those incumbents are Republicans. And what you're saying is they say theoretically they like a Democrat but they're ready to send the Republican back.

MR. KOHUT: And the other thing they're saying is we're going to be focusing more on local issues in this vote than, than the samples told us in, in 1994, and the good thing for Republicans is to not have them--have voters thinking about national issues because that means they'll be thinking about Newt Gingrich and Newt Gingrich is a big negative.

MS. WARNER: And is he still a big negative?

MR. KOHUT: A very big negative. By a margin of 36 to 18 percent, people said they would be voting against Newt Gingrich, not for Newt Gingrich, so the Republicans, like the Democrats for 40 years, want the, their constituents to be thinking about local service, local issues, not the awful things that are thinking in Washington.

MS. WARNER: And finally, what did you find about [a] people's level of interest in this campaign, and [b] their assumptions about what it's going to be the outcome?

MR. KOHUT: Well, I'm worried about it. We may not have a quorum. The percentage of people who say that they've given a lot of thought to the election, four years ago, it was 63 percent, eight years ago it was 57 percent, today it's only 48 percent, and that's a very good indicators of voting turnout, and while that may not be crucial to the outcome of the presidential election--I emphasize may--could very much affect the congressional elections.

MS. WARNER: Well, thanks, Andy. Stay right there. FOCUS - AD WARS

MS. WARNER: Now we're going to look at one of the tactical elements driving these polling numbers--television commercials. We're joined for that by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Welcome, Kathleen.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON, University of Pennsylvania: Thank you.

MS. WARNER: Let's look first at the Clinton campaign's latest commercials, specifically three ads that are currently being shown in twenty states, including most of the major so-called battleground states.

AD SPOKESMAN: Recession -- hard times. Bob Dole votes to deny families unemployment benefits.

SEN. BOB DOLE: The economy was never that bad.

AD SPOKESMAN: Ten million unemployed, higher interest rates. Four years later, unemployment's seven-year low, ten million new jobs, we make more autos than Japan. The President, growth and opportunity, $1500 tax credits for college, a $500 per child tax credit, expanded family and medical leave, a balanced budget, building a bridge to the 21st century.

AD ANNOUNCER: Bob Dole attacking the President, but under President Clinton, 10 million new jobs, taxes cut for 15 million working families, proposes tax credits for college tuition. Dole voted to raise payroll taxes, Social Security taxes, the 90 income tax increase, $900 billion in higher taxes, and look closely at his risky tax scheme. He actually raised taxes on 9 million working families. Bob Dole, 35 years in Washington, 35 years of higher taxes.

WOMAN: Melissa lived every moment.

MAN: She maintained that positive attitude till the last day.

AD SPOKESPERSON: President Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Law so parents can be with a newborn or a sick child and not lose their job.

MAN: There's no way I could trade that for the world; it's beyond words.

WOMAN: Bob Dole led a six-year fight against family leave. Twelve million have used leave, but Dole's still against it.

SECOND WOMAN: President Clinton understands the struggles that families go through.

MS. WARNER: Okay. Analyze these ads for us, Kathleen. How effective are they in conveying what they're trying to convey?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Well, the important thing to remember is that Dole and Clinton have a different kind of audience. Clinton right now has positive support in the polls, as Andy is indicating, and as a result, his job is to reinforce that support while establishing that you don't want to make a decision to move away from him and support Bob Dole, and so what you're seeing here is really a rerun of the 1984 Reagan campaign against Mondale. The theme in 84 was morning in America, why would we want to go back to where things were just four short years ago? Substitute Dole for Mondale, and you have very much the same strategy here using that used by the Democrats against the Republicans.

MS. WARNER: So you're saying it's typical really of an incumbent, at least a confident incumbent?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: It's typical of an incumbent who's ahead in the polls. The thing that is unusual about these ads is that they both attack Dole and build the case for Clinton in the same ads but thematically, they are saying something that is really the corollary of a claim in 1992. In 1992, the Clinton folks said economy, economy, economy, and now Clinton is answering the Reagan question of 84, are you better off now, by saying, yes, you are, and you'd be worse off with Bob Dole.

MS. WARNER: Then I noticed in that second ad about the taxes, it almost seemed a jujitsu move, taking something that's supposed to be Dole's issue, taxes, and trying to paint Dole as a high taxer. Is that unusual?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: If you look at the ads that have been broadcast on television since March 27th, which is the effective end of the contested primaries, what you see is that both sides have spent a lot of time trying to paint the other person as a high taxer, in fact, the highest taxer, and what's missing in all of this, of course, is the fact that each of them has supported a big tax increase, and if one is the highest while the other one is a pretty close second, uh, what is not being said in this ad is that some of those tax increases that Dole supported were also supported by Al Gore, but also that some of those tax increases went to support things that people really favored very highly, such as sustaining Social Security. But that is typically what you do in an ad; you selectively expose your opponent's record, and you make him look bad, while you build up all the good things you've done and will do.

MS. WARNER: Well, that last ad, the one about the family medical leave, has excited a lot of commentary and a lot of criticism from the Dole campaign. I think the spokesman called it a moral outrage. Is that ad fair? Is it accurate?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: In analyzing ads, the first thing that I ask is, is it literally propositionally accurate, and in particular, does the candidate whose record is being questioned actually still hold the position that's being examined in the ads? Because often an ad will attack for something someone supported 20 years ago or opposed 20 years ago. Well, Dole still does oppose the Family Medical Leave Act, and he did, and he was vocal about it. And a lot of people have taken advantage of it since then, and it's very popular with the American people. Is it fair to have a family talk about their experience as a result of the Family Medical Leave Act? Yes, it is. The question would be, did the family really have this tragedy occur to them, did they really take leave, and would they not have been able to have it without the guarantee provided by the Family Medical Leave Act? The answer to those questions is yes. And as a result, I consider it to be a fair ad. The problem for Dole is that he doesn't have a counter position; he doesn't have a way of explaining how he could have guaranteed that the family would have been able to take leave. He says he cares about them and he would have wanted them to have leave, but he doesn't have an alternative that would have guaranteed it.

MS. WARNER: Or that he can present in the ad. All right. Now, let's look at Dole's commercials. The first one we'll see is part of a two-minute biographical ad that the Dole campaign is airing nationwide, and the second ad we'll see is being aired only in selected states.

AD SPOKESPERSON: The states for America are enormous. These times demand a real leader.

SPOKESPERSON: His parents instilled values in him like love of God, love of country, love of family, honesty.

MAN: In an era of too much salesmanship and too much smooth- talking, Bob Dole is a plain-spoken man.

AD SPOKESPERSON: It was here that Bob Dole first developed strength of character and strong values.

SEN. BOB DOLE: I remember, in our household, when you didn't tell the truth, my mother, uh, well, she would find a bar of soap.

AD SPOKESPERSON: He put aside his dream of becoming a doctor and, instead, answered his country's call to duty and was severely wounded.

SEN. BOB DOLE: It was about 11 months, I think, before I could feed myself. The fact that I've had a problem, a serious problem, uh, didn't give up, and I overcame it, and I was successful.

AD SPOKESPERSON: Bob Dole knows what it takes to help Americans fight back.

AD SPOKESMAN: The stakes this election, keeping more of what you earn. That's what Bob Dole's tax cut plan is all about. The Dole plan starts with a 15 percent tax cut for working Americans--that's $1600 more for the typical family--a $500 per child tax credit, education and job training incentives, replacing the IRS with a fairer and simpler tax system, and a balanced budget amendment to stop wasteful spending. The Dole plan--helping you keep more of what you earn.

MS. WARNER: Okay. Analyze these for us in the same terms, how effective are they and what Bob Dole needs to do.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: The first thing that's important is that these are basically a tighter form of ads that Bob Dole had been airing earlier. The first ad, the biographical ad, is a much tighter version of a five-minute ad that had aired, and the second is a much tighter version of an ad that had aired on the Dole proposal on economic record. And in that ad, two important new themes are emerging, fairer tax system, that's also a very important theme for Ross Perot, and then tax credits working incentives, and so in 30 seconds they've now gotten more central themes in place. What they're trying to do is essentially what Mondale tried to do to Reagan in 1984, to say, economy isn't as good as you think it is, and other Dole ads established that claim, stagnant paychecks, two people required to sustain a family, et cetera, but then secondly, and some other things have gone wrong on Clinton's watch, and there you see other ads saying, drugs, drugs, drugs, and implicitly, if you support me, you're going to get morning again, America, you're going to get a much better economy. The biographical ad is important because it now includes Colin Powell, who at the Republican convention launched a number of implicit comparisons to Bill Clinton. They're not explicit, and they're softened because he's presenting them to a national audience on national television at a convention. And we give people greater latitude in that context. But this is an ad that both establishes the character of Dole and implicitly asks the question, compared to whom?

MS. WARNER: Now that first ad, the biographical ad, has also aroused quite a bit of commentary, with people saying, gee, this late in the campaign, why does Bob Dole need to have--to introduce himself again--is that really that unusual?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: No. In 1980, Ronald Reagan ran successfully for President using ads--his base ad--the ad that aired the most often--a five-minute biographical ad. If you're being charged with being a risky alternative, it's very important that the public understand who you are and come to trust you. We assume because we inside the beltway know Bob Dole and know his record that everyone else does. This is, in fact, the second chance the public has had to get a look at Bob Dole. The first really was the convention. And so getting that story out becomes important because one of the questions we ask about the candidates who would be President is do I really trust this person, what do I know about this person, is this person as risky as those Clinton ads would make him out to be?

MS. WARNER: Very quickly before we go to Jim, there's also always a lot of comments about oh, negative ads, we hate negative ads. You have a slightly different way of looking at this. Explain that, if you would.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: The problem with saying negative is that it conflates two important and very different concepts. The first is legitimate differentiation. As a candidate, I'm not going to tell you bad things about myself and my record; my opponent is, and it's important that he do it accurately. But secondly, it conflates it with dirty, the illegitimate. I prefer to talk about that which attacks, it just opposes, that advocates, it's just positive, and that which compares; it does both.

MS. WARNER: And we're seeing a lot of comparative.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: We're seeing a higher level of comparative than we have in the history of the presidency.

MS. WARNER: All right. Thanks very much. Jim. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MR. LEHRER: Yes. Now, finally, how all of this and other things look to Shields & Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot. Paul, what--how--first on the--just on the ad question, what is your--how would you characterize them so far, adding or subtracting from things that Kathleen has just said?

PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: Well, I don't agree with Kathleen and her comparison of this election and the strategy to 1984.I think what we've seen so far, much closer to 1988, where the Republican, George Bush, who was not an incumbent, himself, but was familiar, tarred the opponent, Mike Dukakis, unacceptable, used all kinds of ads to say--starting later than the Clinton administration has this year--that said he is beyond the pale and you can't elect him. Uh, this year you see Bill Clinton, the incumbent doing that to Bob Dole. Starting in April, virtually unopposed, relentless attack ads--I called the Clinton campaign this week and got all 12 of their scripts of the ads the Clinton-Gore campaign has produced. Twelve of them--all twelve of them are negative attack ads, if you will. Eleven of them really go after Dole, and they are comparison ads often but they really do attack some element of the Dole record.

MR. LEHRER: Did you see anything in the scripts that you thought was incorrect or was unfair in the attacks on, on Dole?

MR. GIGOT: I think technically it's all true. The Medicare business I think is particularly sneaky because if Bob Dole--if Bill Clinton is elected--he's going to cut Medicare--

MR. LEHRER: You mean--explain that. One of the ads--not one that we showed--but one of the ads--

MR. GIGOT: Right.

MR. LEHRER: --suggest that Bob Dole is going to do something to Medicare if he's elected President and has voted to raise--you say it--

MR. GIGOT: I think the word is slash.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Slash.

MR. GIGOT: Slash Medicare.

MR. LEHRER: Okay.

MR. GIGOT: And I think most people understand that even if Bill Clinton is elected, he's going to be cutting Medicare, slashing it, if you will, as Bob Dole has. I think that's over the top. I also think that the family and medical leave ad that was shown, while technically correct, is nonetheless exploitive--exploitative emotionally. Maybe that's what you want to do with an ad, but it suggests to me--it's trying to suggest to viewers that Dole is so uncompassionate that he would want businesses to prevent mothers and fathers from going home to take care of a dying child. Now, anybody who knows Bob Dole knows that isn't his character, number one, but number two, I know most companies in America wouldn't do that--would do that on their own; they would let the parent go, whether or not you had a family leave law.

MR. LEHRER: All right.

MR. GIGOT: So--

MR. LEHRER: Mark--

MR. GIGOT: --it's really hitting very hard.

MR. LEHRER: Uh, Mark, what do you think about these--just the issues that, that Paul has raised about the, the Clinton-Gore attacks on Dole-Kemp, or particularly Dole?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Well, I think first of all, Jim, I think you can make the case and Paul does that the message of the Clinton campaign through the television commercials has been strongly negative. There's no doubt about it. It's sort of consistent with the lack of a broad vision, a compelling agenda for the second, second term. We've talked about that before, but I think it's stretching to call this an attack ad. I think I get the feeling that the Republicans are getting ready to go negative strongly on Bill Clinton for his first reason very simply is that the tax argument, the tax cut has not caught on, it hasn't moved, it's dropped. It's dropped in popular support. It's a little bit like a couple of kids on a long automobile trip in the back seat, and--but the Dole campaign is saying he hit me first because they're going to get ready to go on Bill Clinton. I think that, quite frankly, the first two years of the Clinton administration there are very few legislative achievements to boast about. There was the deficit reduction, tax increase, and there was family and medical leave, which had really been sort of a non- controversial item until Bob Dole raised it. I mean, it's Bob Dole who resurrected this issue. That was his gaff. He picked the pistol up, directed it at his own toe, and shot. And the Clinton campaign came back--

MR. LEHRER: He did that in a way that--in--throw-away comments- -

MR. SHIELDS: At a throw-away comment, and the Clinton campaign and sort of rapid response, I thought, very effectively put their case forward and took what had been--this is an issue that's already got 75 to 80 percent popular support, uh, and I, I have to disagree with Paul. I don't think it's exploitative. I think it's- -I think it's a strong statement and it shows that a piece of legislation, federal regulation, whatever, had a real personal and touching human impact on, on the American workers for whom it was intended.

MR. LEHRER: Let me just ask Kathleen, based on making all the comparisons that you made earlier, just in general terms, as we sit here now, now as Mark says, there are all kinds of stories that the Dole folks are really going to go after Clinton now. They haven't done it yet, but as we speak here right now, how would you characterize the attack element to this campaign so far, the fairness, the dirtiness, any word you want to use?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON, University of Pennsylvania: First, the amount of pure attack in this campaign is very different from the past. You've got 55 percent of the Republican ads--that's RNC plus Dole--since March 27th, purely attacking, no argument for Dole, just arguments against Clinton. None of the Democratic ads have done that during that time. They all have either made the case for Clinton and against Dole or made the case for Clinton. But 93 percent of Clinton's total, both attacks and advocates in the same ad, there is not a big difference in the amount of deception in the Republican and Democratic ads--they both have selective distortion; they don't tell you the whole story. That's typical of ads. And there's a lot of careful wording so that things are literally true but inferentially false. There isn't a difference between the amount in the Democratic ads proportionately and the Republican ads.

MR. LEHRER: Paul, you expect it to get worse?

MR. GIGOT: Well, I think Mark's right--

MR. LEHRER: Or better, depending on one's point of view?

MR. GIGOT: I think Mark's right, that the Dole campaign is, is about to get a lot tougher on, on Bill Clinton. It really doesn't have much choice. But I think that it's significant that the Dole campaign--

MR. LEHRER: What do you mean it doesn't have much choice?

MR. GIGOT: Well, it's got to--when you're 15 points behind, you've really got to draw some tough comparisons with the other guy. You can't just run soft bio spots, because if you do, you might get yourself up a little bit but you're never going to get Bill Clinton below 52, 53 percent.

MR. LEHRER: So they--in order for Dole to rise, Clinton has got to be knocked down, President Clinton has got to be knocked down?

MR. GIGOT: Yeah. I think it's significant and a bad sign for the Dole campaign that this late in the game they're running that bio spot. It means that--see, I--where I disagree with Kathleen is I think that what's been happening for the last year, staring with the AFL-CIO ads, going back in September, uh, added to by the Democratic National Committee ads, and then April with the Clinton- Gore ads, you've seen a kind of salt-the-soil strategy with the ads. They've gone after Dole time and again saying--linking him to Gingrich, which is certainly fair game, but saying he is unacceptable on this score, this score, and this score. So that anything Dole does now is going to be in ground that won't allow him to grow. And it was a calculated gamble to make--to use the money advantage that they had, playing fairly by the rules in the pre-primary season, and the post-primary season, the pre-convention season, and I think it's worked very well, and the question that the Dole campaign has to ask itself is, is it too late, can they come back right now and refurbish Dole's reputation enough. That's what they're trying to do with some of the bio spots.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MR. GIGOT: And then, and then also go after Clinton.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, on the further question that Andy Kohut raised about--you heard what he said about the polls and his polls that he went through in detail, pretty much are the same for all the other major polls--how do you read those now? What would be your advice to the general electorate on how to read those polls?

MR. SHIELDS: Oh, I think Andy was absolutely right, that you have to wait an interim, uh, after the two conventions, because basically what you have is each party making its case uninterrupted and, and unresponded to by either other party--by the other party. So I think we've had that time, and I think that's where the race is. I think Paul is, is right, that the Dole folks have to start thinking in terms of they've got to change the national conversation of this race. Right now, if you're working for Bob Dole, basically the question you get is what about those polls, the question you just gave us.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MR. SHIELDS: And you just can't--you can't make any headway politically when you're saying, well, let me tell you, the only poll that counts is the one on election day, or whatever other cliche you want to try and use.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, Dole and Kemp went to a rally, a kind of rally on the Hill today--this week on Wednesday, where they had the Republican members of the House and Senate trying to reassure them, and that was poll-driven, was it not? Hey, were not in as bad shape as the polls say, et cetera, et cetera.

MR. SHIELDS: That was an attempt to reassure--we've seen it happen before--Fritz Mondale did it; George McGovern did it. It's not--it's not uncommon. Not only losing candidates do it, but it's sort of to show the flag, to--in part, it--for a fellow like Bob Dole who's been a figure on Capitol Hill and a respected, enormously respected figure there for 35 years, it is a little bit of a homecoming. It's a sense of going back to where he's comfortable and where those who know him well, but, uh, the problem you can see right now, it's starting--I've heard it in Ohio this past couple of days from Republicans, is, well, we've got to make the argument that we can't have Dick Gephardt as speaker, we can't have Charlie Rangel, a Democrat from New York as chairman of the Ways & Committee, we can't have Dave Obey of Wisconsin as chairman of the, of the House Appropriations Committee, we've got to stop them from taking over everything, the Congress and the White House. Well, implicit in that argument, Jim, is sort of the acknowledgment and concession that Bob Dole is going to lose, which is--that was part of the other task in the visit this week.

MR. LEHRER: Andy Kohut, let me ask you this question. When does- -when do the polls become too important in themselves? In other words, when do the poll results start driving things along, the way Mark is talking, do you think that's already beginning this time?

ANDREW KOHUT, Pew Research Center: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think we're past the bumps and we're --we've got a consensus among national polls and the reality of, of the situation is that Bob Dole is well behind, and there's a climate of opinion that's developed in Washington and around the country that perhaps he's going to lose. 76 percent of the public that we questioned thought that Clinton's going to win. 59 percent of the people who backed Bob Dole think that Clinton's going to win. So he's swimming against the climate of opinion. And that's not very positive, and he's got--he's got to deal with that as well as the problem of knocking down Bill Clinton.

MR. LEHRER: Paul Gigot, how does he deal with that? How does he deal with the momentum of these polls?

MR. GIGOT: Well, it's very, very hard. First of all, he's got to start turning em around a bit. I think he has to get a strong debate performance. Uh, probably has to do whatever he can to keep Perot out of the debate, because he needs to go one-on-one and show he can go one-on-one with the President. But there's a real danger here for the Republicans, and this is what scares the Republicans on the Hill is that if their voters, their base voters are so depressed about the potential outcome with the presidential race and Bob Dole, they may not come out to elect them either, and you get the press turnout, and that's when you get real landslides, when your base doesn't turn out.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, speaking of Perot, what do you make of the selection of Pat Choate as his running mate this week?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, it's kind of tough. I know Pat Choate. I have great respect for him. Every story began with three people turning him down, and Pat Choate doesn't enlarge Ross Perot's appeal. He will probably--I have enormous respect for Adm. Stockdale, who's a great American patriot, but his debate performance was not his proudest or happiest moment, I'm sure, and I think Pat Choate, if he is in the debates, will acquit himself well, but it didn't--it didn't answer the problem for Ross Perot, uh, of enlarging him and his appeal and reaching out to an entirely different constituency.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, another issue that came up this week was the growing flap over President Clinton's medical records. He's released a summary but not the details. Do you see that growing any more?

MR. SHIELDS: I think it's there, Jim. I think the Dole people ought to--probably will stay on it. Uh, it's legitimate. There-- there is no apparent explanation as to why and there, of course, is all sorts of speculation, and I think that it's more--an issue you'll hear more and more again. I don't know if it's--uh--if there's anything there, and I don't know if anybody else knows that there's anything there--

MR. LEHRER: Right.

MR. SHIELDS: --but it's certainly one where he has been unresponsive.

MR. LEHRER: Bob Dole has raised it publicly two or three times this week alone.

MR. SHIELDS: Yes, he has.

MR. LEHRER: What do you think about that issue, Paul?

MR. GIGOT: Well, we have a President who's not very subtly running on the age issue, umm, you know, he's the future, Bob Dole is the past, a lot of imagery of, of--hinting at age, and yet, Bob Dole, the 73-year-old, is releasing his and the President isn't. And we've had a long history in this country, a not very happy history in recent decades of not getting the whole truth about presidential health. So I think this is one in which the President is before this is over going to have to do something to, to accommodate the questions, because the press conference he had this week with the White House, his spokesman, Mike McCurry had, with the White House press corps was not very pleasant. Uh--

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. I was just going to ask Kathleen, what's the recent history show when, when advertising--candidate advertising tens to get personal, like this candidate hasn't released a health record or that kind of thing, do those things work?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON, University of Pennsylvania: It depends on whether they're considered to be accurate, fair, and in context and relevant to governance. If they are, they're not considered to be illegitimate, hence, negative; they're just simply considered to be differentiation. And so the larger question now is what are the things that are fair grounds for attack, and I think the disclosure of health records is a legitimate cause for concern because of the history that Paul alludes to.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. And we'll expect that also. There's word this week, Paul--Mark, that Bob Dole's going to go after the President on the teen-age drug problem as well and blame him for that.

MR. SHIELDS: You know, that's right, and Republicans have talked about that issue. I don't see that issue getting the kind of traction that I think Republicans hope that it will, Jim, but, you know, this wouldn't be the first time in 1996 I've been wrong, but I--I think there are other places where Bob Dole can--can draw the distinctions more effectively.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Well, we're going to leave it there. Kathleen, Andy, thank you, both of you, for being with us again, and Mark and Paul, thank you all. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, the Iraqi News Agency reported Iraq would stop firing missiles at U.S. warplanes over no-fly zones. White House and State Department spokesmen said the words had to be followed by action. A Pentagon spokesman announced late today 5,000 army troops will be sent to Kuwait for military exercises, and former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke arrived in Bosnia to help monitor tomorrow's national elections. We'll see you on line and then on Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.