THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 11, 1994 TAG: 9408110016
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
President Clinton's personal pollster has finally acknowledged what every Democratic politician in the country has privately known for months: The president is poison on the campaign trail.
In a strategy memo leaked to The New York Times last week, pollster Stanley Greenberg - who has been paid megabucks for polling information so far by the Clinton White House (George Bush spent less than $1 million in four years) - is frankly telling Democratic candidates to run away the president.
``Democrats make gains in this race running on their accomplishments and their agenda to help people at home,'' the memo says. ``There is no reason to highlight these as Clinton or Democratic proposals. Voters want to know you are getting things done for them, not that you are advancing some national agenda.''
Greenberg goes on to urge Democrats to make crime the central issue of their campaigns, not health care or the economy. ``The most important accomplishment in every district is the passage of three strikes and you're out,'' the memo says, refering to a provision in the crime bill. ``No other accomplishment even comes close'' to ringing voters' bells in the polls.
This tacit admission that health care, the centerpiece of the president's domestic agenda, has failed to strike a chord with the voters should be startling only to Washington insider-types. Anyone who witnessed the utter indifference that accompanied the first lady's buscapade across the country - with counterdemonstrators usually outnumbering pro-Clinton demonstrators - could see that.
As for the economy, Greenberg's memo says that asserting credit for good economic news ``press(es) up against the public's skepticism.'' The same applies to the message of ``breaking gridlock,'' because ``Democrats are seen to share in the problem.''
Democrats have lost all nine major special elections since President Clinton took office. Clearly, more losses are expected in November. Maybe it's not the politics that has gone wrong, but the policy. by CNB