WASHINGTON -- President Clinton may be the consummate campaigner -- wading into crowds, thriving on the adulation, lingering at the rope line and shaking every hand in sight.
But as he heads to a Baltimore church Sunday to help energize the Democrats' get-out-the-vote effort, Clinton will be making his first -- and most likely, only -- traditional rally-the-troops event of the general election season.
Since August, Clinton has avoided old-fashioned Democratic campaign rallies where all are welcome. Instead, he has confined his campaign activities to safe, protester-free zones and highlighted his patriotism and presidential stature through triumphant occasions such as the Wye summit and John Glenn's space launch.
Instead of heading to the heartland, he has railed against the Republican-led Congress at such White House events as Tuesday's Social Security discussion and Wednesday's news conference in the Rose Garden; at issue-oriented events such as two school-modernization forums in Silver Spring; and at a blitz of Democratic fund-raisers around the country.
Today, for instance, Clinton will travel to New York to raise money for Rep. Charles E. Schumer in his bid to unseat Republican Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato. Yesterday, Clinton piggybacked two fund-raisers onto his Florida trip to Cape Canaveral.
"The easiest thing is to keep him around the party faithful -- the people who will write the checks," says Stuart Rothenberg, an independent political analyst.
Though he is not, of course, on any ballot, Clinton has much riding on this election. It is not clear how the scandal will affect the election outcome, if at all. But Tuesday's results will likely be read as a referendum on Clinton and on whether the voting public favors impeachment.
Some political strategists -- both Democratic and Republican -- suggest that the president has steered clear of public, open-air rallies out of fear that reminders of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, in the form of "Impeach" signs and hecklers, would be prominent.
Others say the news media's focus on the scandal is keeping Clinton away.
"Some candidates have been concerned about spending two days answering questions from reporters about why they're appearing with the president," said Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist whose clients this year include Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Sen. Barbara Boxer of California.
But White House officials dismiss the notion that the scandal influenced Clinton's campaign strategy.
Craig T. Smith, the White House political director, said the administration studied midterm elections and found that "rallies don't work."
"They don't have impact on the race," Smith said, "and even can be more negative than positive."
Such rallies, which cost tens of thousands of dollars, generally drain cash from candidates, sometimes energize the opposition and put the president in a political, rather than presidential, context, Smith said.
Another senior White House official likened the rallies to Chinese food, saying a presidential appearance can sometimes motivate voters at the time of the visit, but "it doesn't stick."
While Clinton has kept a lower, more presidential profile, Hillary Rodham Clinton -- whose poll numbers have climbed in the wake of the Lewinsky scandal -- has picked up the slack, campaigning coast to coast and drawing enthusiastic crowds and money.
Hillary Clinton has not only appeared at rallies and fund-raisers, she has also recorded numerous radio and television ads for candidates as well as messages for automated telephone pitches.
In high demand
"The demand for her is at a record high," said the senior White House official. In Chicago, New York, Boston and San Francisco, in particular, the aide said, she is a bigger draw than any other political figure.
"She's extraordinarily popular, raises a lot of money and excitement, and motivates the [Democratic] base" of women, African-Americans, senior citizens and labor, Mellman said.
White House officials say that because the first lady "costs less to bring in" than the president, her appearances at rallies are worth the effort.
1994 campaign effort
Four years ago, coming off the health care reform debacle, Mrs. Clinton was not nearly as active on the midterm campaign trail. And with his own approval rating sagging below 50 percent -- and Democratic candidates keeping their distance -- the president pursued a similar strategy of appearing only at fund-raisers -- until the final week.
Buoyed by a series of foreign-policy successes in 1994, Clinton crisscrossed the country to try to rally a dispirited Democratic base. But to no avail, as evidenced by the ensuing "Republican Revolution" that gave the GOP control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years.
Historically, a president's party loses congressional seats in midterm elections.
In 1986, the last time an election was held in the sixth year of a presidency, President Ronald Reagan barnstormed the country on behalf of Republican candidates, urging voters to "win one more for the Gipper." Even that highly popular president failed to stave off opposition gains. Democrats picked up eight seats in the Senate, winning the majority, and five in the House, where they already had control.
Ed Rollins, Reagan's longtime political director, said he found that a presidential visit added 3 or 4 percentage points to a candidate's poll numbers but was effective only close to the election because the benefit often evaporated within days.
"A president can add a little momentum and mobilize the troops, but ultimately every candidate has to make his or her own case," Rollins said. "The most important thing a president can do is raise tremendous amounts of money. Nobody's done it like this guy has done it."
$55 million raised
Indeed, Clinton has attended about 110 fund-raisers this year, raising about $55 million for Democrats by some estimates.
Smith says Clinton has "easily done twice as many" fund-raising events as he did in the 1993-1994 election cycle. Hillary Clinton and Vice President Al Gore have each headlined three times as many fund-raisers as they did in the last midterm election.
Democrats say the Lewinsky scandal has not hampered Clinton in raising money. In fact, Roy Romer, the Democratic national chairman, says the nearly yearlong crisis might have even helped.
"On balance, the attack on the president was helpful to us on fund raising," said Romer, the governor of Colorado. "Some people did say, 'I don't feel like giving this year,' but more people were saying, 'Don't take my president away.' "
The DNC, Romer says, raised $43 million through mid-October, $10 million more than in 1994. But much of its money has gone to pay a $15 million debt and $12 million in legal fees related to the 1996 campaign finance investigation.
Scandal's effect
Nevertheless, there are signs that the scandal may have depressed Democratic donations. A Clinton-led "Unity '98" fund-raising effort among the DNC and the party's House and Senate campaign committees fell short of its $18 million goal. It is expected to generate at most $12 million, an average of slightly more than $1 million per event.
Romer says the earlier goal was "very ambitious." And some note that a similar unified Republican effort, while raising more than twice as much as the Democratic operation, fell short of its lofty goal as well.
But in past years, Clinton has brought in about $3 million per "Unity" event, said Rothenberg, the political analyst. "What is the one variable that obviously could have affected things?" he said. "The scandal."
Pub Date: 10/30/98