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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 9, 1994                   TAG: 9411090107
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: STEVEN THOMMA KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

KEY TO VOTE WAS NOT ON THE BALLOT: CLINTON

The anti-Democratic firestorm was fueled by vast disappointment in a president who campaigned as a moderate but seemed to govern as a liberal and anger at a Congress that promised to change but killed reforms in gridlock. Underlying it all: a growing mistrust of government itself.

The Republican Party sharpened the voters' image of a Washington run by Democrats as a city that didn't work.

Voters had an almost visceral negative reaction to a man and a party they think misled them. Those who felt Clinton's performance in office was an important issue voted overwhelmingly Republican, according to surveys of voters by the television networks.

Clinton and the Democrats could, and did, point to accomplishments that might have won them applause in another time. The economy is growing. Crime rates are down. But this fall, Democrats played to what Labor Secretary Robert Reich calls an ``anxious class.''

Large numbers of Americans still feel insecure at work and insecure at home. And they blamed with a vengeance a government they felt was out of touch.

``They feel they're working harder for less,'' said Republican pollster Ed Goeas. ``These perceptions are driving the animosity.''

The Democrats pursued an agenda that seemed not to answer that anxiety for many. Gays in the military. Tax increases. A massive government takeover of health care. Was this the New Democrat?

``This is a referendum on Clinton,'' said Arthur Miller, a political scientist at the University of Iowa.

Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg said: ``Voters expected change. They believed they had voted for change. A year and a half later, they think they got more of the same.''

Clinton may not have been on the ballot Tuesday, but he and his party were inexorably linked. Tuesday was the first mid-term Election Day since 1978 when a president and his party controlled the White House and both sides of the Capitol. Democrats found it hard to point the finger of blame anywhere else.

Most Democrats ran away from Clinton and from liberal voting records. In Tennessee, for instance, veteran liberal Sen. Jim Sasser touted his support for school prayer and remained largely silent on his leadership role passing the Clinton budget plan that raised taxes. Sasser lost.

In the South, where Republicans appeared ready to emerge as the dominant party for the first time since the Civil War, 61 percent of the voters disapprove of Clinton, according to exit polls.

Some Democrats belatedly embraced Clinton, particularly those in close races in Northern, liberal states, where they gambled that a Clinton appearance would energize traditional Democratic voters like minorities and union members without alienating swing voters.

In Michigan, for instance, Democratic Senate candidate Bob Carr welcomed Clinton on Nov. 1. But a local tracking poll showed that Carr's support dropped 3 points after the Clinton visit.

Clinton, of course, started with a limited personal mandate. He won only 43 percent of the popular vote in a three-way contest. But the generic mandate to change Washington business was larger, when status-quo challengers Clinton and Ross Perot combined to win 57 percent of the vote.

Clinton has failed to deliver the kind of changes needed to win over the one out of five Americans who voted for Perot.

``Very early on, people got a bad taste in their mouth about this president,'' said Rothenberg.

Sensing that bad taste, Republicans were emboldened. In the closing months of the Congress, they blocked almost every attempt to reform the way Congress works and the way it looks to the public.

``Republicans realized they had quite a bit to gain by increasing the anti-politics, anti-Washington mood in the country,'' said Miller.

Said Rothenberg: ``They made a tactical decision, and it was wise at the time, to deny the president any late victories, to withhold any evidence that he had accomplished anything.''

And they did it apparently without paying any price themselves. Though arcane congressional rules allow the minority to block legislation, most people figure that responsibility comes with majority power.

``When you control 56 seats in the Senate and 258 in the House and the White House,'' said Rothenberg, ``it looks like you ought to be able to get something done.''