Congressional Elections

AS LEGISLATION to tax and study the gambling industry moves through Congress, casino operators and gaming technology firms are cementing their status as major players in the high-stakes game of financing congressional elections.In contributions through party "soft money" -- as well as direct individual and PAC contributions to candidates -- those who make money by enticing others to lose theirs have become a major force in the Washington fund-raising scene.The most dramatic recent increase is in soft money, the funds that are allowed to be given in unlimited amounts to parties for generic "party building" activities.

THE WAR in Iraq revealed a disturbing weakness in our democracy. Regardless of one's views on the war, it's hard to defend how Congress avoided debate about the administration's dramatic shift toward pre-emptive warfare. Lack of democracy at home is a grave threat to our national well-being and future. The data are stark. We rank 139th in the world in average turnout in national elections since 1945. It's been decades since even half of adults voted in congressional elections in a nonpresidential year.

Ashcroft won't say whom he locked up or why, and won't check whether they bought guns cause thats their right. On second thought, George won't try to end Social Security as we know it before the congressional elections, and probably won't after. Ehrlich is right. Politicians should raise the money first, then seek an office appropriate to the amount raised. Good news. Crime is down if you don't count murder.

MILFORD, N.H. -- This year's Labor Day celebrations once again spotlighted approaching congressional elections, as candidates here and around the country intensified their efforts in traditional parades, picnics and speeches. With the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks just around the corner, the patriotic spirit was particularly evident in towns like this one. Marchers donned Revolutionary and Civil War garb, and in nearby Salem one politician even unctuously dedicated his self-serving campaigning to the victims of 9/11.

At last we have a president who can hold his own on Shanghai talk radio.G9Tripping the light fantastic is a Starr performance.If voters think Clinton has a dirty mind, Republicans will keep control in congressional elections this year. If they think Starr has a dirtier one, Democrats will take back the House.Just because Florida is on fire doesn't prove there's global warming.Pub Date: 7/03/98

CONGRESS' REFUSAL to get beyond partisanship and act on much-needed campaign finance reform is shameful. The result is that the next presidential election -- and congressional elections at least for the the next two cycles -- will be subject to the same sort of abuses that are continuing to unfold.This week, a Taiwanese-born businessman, Johnny Chung, became the fourth person in just over a month to be charged in connection with the campaign finance scandal -- and the first to cut a deal with federal prosecutors.

WASHINGTON -- In 1993, organized labor fought the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) tooth and nail, threatening severe retribution at the polls against members of Congress who voted for it. But the legislation putting negotiations with Mexico and Canada on a fast track passed and labor's threat fizzled in the 1994 congressional elections, reinforcing criticism that politically it 55 was a paper tiger.A successFour years later, without issuing so categorical a threat against the good legislators, organized labor has been at least temporarily successful in stalling similar fast-track negotiating authority for dealings with other Latin American countries.

Rising anxiety about the nation's direction and continued uncertainty about the economy appear to be strengthening the Democrats' position in the battle for control of Congress, a Los Angeles Times poll has found. But with President Bush enjoying high approval ratings and nearly three-fifths of Americans indicating they are inclined to re-elect their Congress members, the poll points toward another closely fought election between two parties that finished the 2000 campaign in a dead heat.

WASHINGTON -- The surprising Republican loss of five House seats in the off-year congressional elections is having more ramifications than House Speaker Newt Gingrich's decision to jump before he was pushed out of his leadership post.On the Democratic side, advisers to House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt are reporting that the narrowed GOP majority of 12 seats in the House is causing Mr. Gephardt to give new thought to whether he really wants to challenge Vice President Al Gore for their party's presidential nomination in 2000.

WASHINGTON -- Twenty years ago, when Sen. Bob Dole was up for re-election in Kansas in the midst of the Watergate scandal, a reporter asked him whether he wanted embattled President Richard Nixon to come into the state to campaign for him."I'd settle for a fly-over in Air Force One," Dole replied with characteristic biting wit.Matters haven't reached that stage for President Clinton, as he strives to use his incumbency to help elect enough Democratic senators and House members to turn back the determined Republican drive to win control of one or both houses of Congress in November.

Rising anxiety about the nation's direction and continued uncertainty about the economy appear to be strengthening the Democrats' position in the battle for control of Congress, a Los Angeles Times poll has found. But with President Bush enjoying high approval ratings and nearly three-fifths of Americans indicating they are inclined to re-elect their Congress members, the poll points toward another closely fought election between two parties that finished the 2000 campaign in a dead heat.

WASHINGTON - President Bush played to a crowd in New Orleans yesterday, extolling tax cuts as the right medicine for an economy in recession. He warned that Democrats disagree and believe instead that "to come out of a recession, you should raise taxes." "No!" the crowd yelled, taking Bush's cue. "I don't know what economic textbook they've been reading," Bush said of the Democrats. "But it's not the one that most Americans have read." It was the latest salvo from the White House and Republicans, who have embarked on a public relations blitz, accusing Democrats of stealthily trying to raise taxes.

Ashcroft won't say whom he locked up or why, and won't check whether they bought guns cause thats their right. On second thought, George won't try to end Social Security as we know it before the congressional elections, and probably won't after. Ehrlich is right. Politicians should raise the money first, then seek an office appropriate to the amount raised. Good news. Crime is down if you don't count murder.

WASHINGTON -- While many voters are focused on the presidential election and the battle for control of Congress next year, a third competition could have even more lasting influence over federal policy.Party control in a dozen or more state legislatures will be up for grabs in the 2000 elections. The stakes are especially high because the winners will draw the congressional districts that will remain for the next decade.A party shift of a few state legislative seats in the right places around the country could have a disproportionately large effect on the makeup of Congress.

WASHINGTON -- There was abundant self-congratulation here the other day at the Democratic Leadership Council's annual meeting. The assembled "New Democrats" boasted that their focus on a middle-road "third way" between liberalism and conservatism had been resoundingly endorsed in the Nov. 3 elections.Largely dodging discussion of the threatened impeachment of the No. 1 "New Democrat," speaker after speaker credited Democratic candidates' emphasis on moderate, innovative approaches to education, welfare, Social Security and health-care reform as the key to their success.

WASHINGTON -- The surprising Republican loss of five House seats in the off-year congressional elections is having more ramifications than House Speaker Newt Gingrich's decision to jump before he was pushed out of his leadership post.On the Democratic side, advisers to House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt are reporting that the narrowed GOP majority of 12 seats in the House is causing Mr. Gephardt to give new thought to whether he really wants to challenge Vice President Al Gore for their party's presidential nomination in 2000.

WASHINGTON -- Two veteran pollsters, Republican Ed Goeas and Democrat Celinda Lake, have been working together for nearly seven years now in an unorthodox partnership. They jointly conduct extensive voter surveys and then provide their own analyses of the same data, each with only a modest spin in favor of his or her own party. They call their product the Battleground Poll.Comfort zoneThis year's edition suggests that the 1998 congressional elections are likely to be an unusually low-key battleground.

MILFORD, N.H. -- This year's Labor Day celebrations once again spotlighted approaching congressional elections, as candidates here and around the country intensified their efforts in traditional parades, picnics and speeches. With the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks just around the corner, the patriotic spirit was particularly evident in towns like this one. Marchers donned Revolutionary and Civil War garb, and in nearby Salem one politician even unctuously dedicated his self-serving campaigning to the victims of 9/11.

WASHINGTON -- It was a sober House Speaker Newt Gingrich who faced the somber music of Tuesday's congressionalelection results. The Republican Party's loss of at least five House seats in the sixth year of President Clinton's presidency, when history says the out-party usually gains about 35, could not be sugar-coated with the usual Gingrich spin."

WASHINGTON -- Based on the mixed bag of results in yesterday's off-year congressional elections, both the Democratic and Republican parties can look ahead with optimism to the presidential race of 2000, for different reasons.The Democrats can breathe a bit more easily because the elections did not prove in any substantial way to be a referendum on whether President Clinton should be impeached.Most voters surveyed in exit polls had instead cast their ballots essentially on their feelings toward the candidates and the candidates' stands on issues important to them.