
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 13, 1993                   TAG: 9306140042
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

GOP SAVORS VICTORIES PARTY SAYS VOTERS REJECTING CLINTON

Still smarting from their loss of the White House, Republicans triumphantly seized on their victories last week in the Texas Senate race and the Los Angeles mayoral race as evidence that their party had hit the comeback trail.

They grandly pronounced that the voters had repudiated President Clinton and that last year's loss was a rejection of George Bush, not the Republican Party. The results even spurred jubilant talk about taking back the Senate in 1994 and making big inroads into the Democratic majority in the House.

"It looks to me like it's a bad time to be running with a `D' beside your name because all that anger and resentment, that anti-Washington feeling, is now aimed at them," said Charles Black, who was a senior adviser to the Bush campaign. "You're seeing a Democratic base being dispirited; they're staying home."

Even David Wilhelm, who as chairman of the Democratic National Committee is charged with putting the positive spin on even the most gloomy news, acknowledged the obvious, albeit with understatement: "We didn't have a great political week."

In Los Angeles, Richard Riordan, a conservative, became the first Republican mayor in a generation, defeating Michael Woo, a liberal city councilman endorsed by Clinton, by 54 percent to 46 percent.

In the Texas Senate race, the surprise was not that Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican, defeated the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Bob Krueger, but that she won by a margin of 2 to 1. Though Krueger was never endorsed by Clinton and in fact distanced himself from the president's economic program, Hutchison seemed to focus her campaign as much on Bill Clinton as on her opponent in Texas.

There were other danger signs for Democrats. Sam Farr, a Democratic assemblyman, was elected to the California race for the House seat vacated by Leon Panetta, Clinton's budget director.

But in a largely Democratic district along the coast south of San Francisco, Farr defeated a Republican, Bill McCampbell, with only 52 percent of the vote. Two years ago, Panetta defeated McCampbell with 72 percent.

And Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican who won the New Jersey gubernatorial primary, is viewed as a formidable rival for Gov. Jim Florio because of the state's economic woes and tax increases.

While all this evidence has certainly rejuvenated the Republicans' spirits, it does little to mask the party's troubles: it is still struggling to find common ground between moderate factions and the increasingly influential religious conservatives.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB