Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Clinton escapes divisive racial issues Date: Mon, 2 Nov 92 15:45:13 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION;NEWS ANALYSIS \SS (WS) \HD Clinton escapes divisive racial issues \BY Peter A. Brown \CR SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE Emotionally laden racial issues have plagued Democratic presidential candidates for a generation, and their surprising absence this year have been a plus for Bill Clinton. Their absence is especially surprising because of the Los Angeles riot this spring and the big role such issues have played in past campaigns. Mr. Clinton also has benefited politically by keeping Jesse Jackson at arm's length, which Democratic nominees Walter Mondale in 1984 and Michael Dukakis in 1988 were unable or unwilling to do. Neither President Bush nor Mr. Clinton has concentrated on race - Mr. Bush because Republicans rarely win black votes, Mr. Clinton because he's confident of winning them and doesn't want to risk his standing with white suburban voters. Independent Ross Perot has kept quiet on the matter since his appearance last summer at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People convention, where his reference to blacks as "you people" was criticized by black leaders as insensitive. Moreover, Mr. Bush took affirmative action and quotas off the table by signing the 1991 civil rights bill, and Mr. Clinton's support for welfare reform and the death penalty has made such matters much less evident than in past presidential contests. Whites make up about 85 percent of the national electorate; blacks, 10 percent. Among Democratic presidential nominees since World War II, only Lyndon Johnson has won a majority of white votes. Ronald Reagan won votes running against "welfare queens," and Mr. Bush profited in 1988 from the Willie Horton commercials, aimed at showing Mr. Dukakis as soft on crime but construed by some as racist. GOP senatorial candidates won votes in 1990 by saying they opposed the 1990 civil rights bill, which Mr. Bush vetoed because he said it would lead to racial quotas. "In the past, racial unrest has helped Republicans in presidential elections," Larry Hugick, managing editor of the Gallup Poll, said. "This time it does not appear to be having the same effect" or presence in the campaign. "The riots and the followup to the riots were big news for about six weeks, but really since then it hasn't been in the news and hasn't driven crime and urban problems up on the agenda," said Charles Black, Bush's senior campaign strategist. In fact, it appears that the political impact of the L.A. riots has been to help rather than hurt Mr. Clinton. That's the opposite effect such events have had in the past, when Republicans, viewed by many as tougher on crime, raised the issue of law and order. "It turned out not to be a problem," said Stan Greenberg, Mr. Clinton's pollster, who was concerned about the potential downside for his candidate. "The riots became a symbol of the paralysis of the administration and the country," Bruce Reed, Clinton's deputy campaign manager for policy matters, said. "The riots were not just a law-and-order issue. Democrats have gotten in trouble in the past for making sociological explanations for crime. Clinton was careful not to do that." Republicans express it differently, but they agree the riots tended to help Mr. Clinton. "I guess it hurt incumbents," Jim Pinkerton, a senior Bush policy adviser, said. Mr. Clinton's effort to present himself as a "different Democrat" has been successful in the suburbs, where in the past tensions with Democratic-dominated city political machines have helped create GOP voters. "Bill Clinton has done a wonderful job of avoiding Jesse Jackson and being tied to the city of Detroit in this campaign," said Michigan Republican Chairman David Doyle. "He has avoided sounding like a liberal Democrat. He has tried to come to the middle and done a fairly good job of it." To send that message, Mr. Clinton is airing TV commercials in key states like Michigan in which an announcer tells viewers that running mate Al Gore and he don't "think the way the old Democratic Party did. They've called for an end to welfare as we know it, so welfare can be a second chance, not a way of life. They have sent a strong signal to criminals by supporting the death penalty." Most of all, though, the focus on the economy has dominated the campaign. "What compensated for that this time has been the economy," former Republican National Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf said. "It has been viewed as hurting so badly people in the suburbs . . . that it overwhelmed any resentment they might have had for the clash of demands between the cities and the suburbs." Clinton campaign manager David Wilhelm agreed. "The emergence of the economy as an overriding issue, where economic interests seem to be mutually linked," explains the lack of racial divisions in the campaign, he said. "If you ask blacks and whites what the major issue is, both will say the economy. There are a lot more bridge issues than in 1988, where crime tended to be far more important." One racial issue that might have been effective for Mr. Bush this year is affirmative action and quotas. He argued in 1990 that the bill being pushed by Sen. Edward Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, which Mr. Clinton supported, would lead to racial quotas in hiring. Polls at the time showed a large majority of white voters believed Mr. Bush. A year ago, however, after only minor changes were made in the bill, Mr. Bush signed the legislation, arguing it was not a "quota bill." At the time, Democratic strategists, who had expected the issue to be a major one this year, said they couldn't believe their good political fortune. Now it's difficult to get GOP officials to talk about how the issue would have played this year if Mr. Bush had refused to budge. "It's all hypothetical," Mr. Pinkerton said. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM