Salon News | Search for a boogeyman


Arts & Entertainment Books Comics Health & Body Media Mothers Who Think News People Politics2000 Technology - Free Software Travel & Food Columnists Current Wire Stories Click here to read the latest stories from the wires. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Also Today For a full list of today's Salon News stories, go to the News home page. - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon Advanced Search \| Help - - - - - - - - - - - - Recently in Salon News Crying wolf Ellis Cose's Newsweek cover story set out to celebrate America's racial good news. So why did it wind up singing the same old despairing song? By Joan Walsh [06/11/99] A stunning victory The United Nations has learned some valuable lessons from a decade of dealing with Slobodan Milosevic. By Ian Williams [06/10/99] The tide turns Serbian troops begin to leave Kosovo and refugees plan their return as a welcome but uncertain peace takes hold in the region. By Laura Rozen [06/10/99] Capitol Hill's odd couple Guess what happens when a white conservative and a black liberal join forces? By Jake Tapper [06/10/99] Justice, Texas-style The district attorney of Harris County keeps putting 'em on death row. By Robert Bryce [06/09/99] Complete archives for News - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -		Search for a boogeyman With Clinton and Gingrich out of the picture come Election Day 2000, how will Democrats and Republicans scare the voters? Hint: Imagine Dick Gephardt with horns. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Jake Tapper June 11, 1999 \| WASHINGTON -- Though few people outside the Beltway noticed, champagne corks were popping at the National Republican Congressional Committee last week, after Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he was willing to raise taxes if the Democrats were to regain control of the House in 2000. "He slipped; he usually doesn't make mistakes like that," says Jill Schroeder, press secretary for the NRCC. But she was happy nonetheless, because Gephardt's comments will make it easier for the GOP to tie new Democratic congressional candidates with tax-and-spend politicians of yore. "If we can remind people what life under Democrat control was like," Schroeder says, "there's a good case to be made" for voters to go GOP. Gephardt's Philadelphia story only helps the NRCC make its case. "The man stumbled," Schroeder says. "But sure, we're going to jump on him for that." It's all part of the preparation for 2000, and the parties' search for a boogeyman. In 1994, President Clinton's myriad slip-ups and the health-care debacle helped Republicans win the House and Senate for the first time in generations. Many Republican ads actually featured Democratic candidates' faces morphing into Clinton's. Then, after House Speaker Newt Gingrich went from hero to zero in one short election cycle, Democrats pulled the same stunts on him. As 2000 will be the first election cycle since 1990 without Clinton or Gingrich as speaker running for office, party stalwarts are trying to create some new beasts from the opposing party to use to scare voters in the coming election. Republicans seemed to have found theirs last week, when Inquirer scribe Larry Eichel asked the minority leader where funding would come from for increased spending on education. Gephardt said, "You've got to have a combination of taking it out of the defense budget and raising revenue. We can argue about how to do that, closing loopholes or even raising taxes to do it. I feel we can find room in the budget to do what must be done without a tax increase. But if we can't, well, this is the paramount challenge we face as a society, and I think the public shares that view." Next page \| Demonizing Tom DeLay


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