IOP Panel Discusses Elections

Democrats have a better chance of surviving the November elections now than they did earlier this year, but the results depend on Democratic turnout, agreed a bipartisan panel of representatives who spoke at the Institute of Politics (IOP) last night.

About 100 people gathered at the ARCO Forum for the discussion of the upcoming election.

The five-member panel of retired or retiring Capitol Hill veterans said that the outcome will depend on which constituencies make their voices heard.

"We all know this is an election about turnout," said Vic Fazio (D-Calif.), a retiring House member who has served since 1978. He went on to speculate that the ongoing controversy surrounding President Clinton might break the historical pattern of strong Republican and weak Democratic turnout in mid-term elections.

Fazio suggested that Democrats who would not otherwise vote in mid-term elections may cast their ballots for party candidates as an expression of support for the president. He said he expected this phenomenon to be particularly prevalent among African Americans.

Susan Molinari, a member of the House of Representatives (R-N.Y.) from 1990-1998 and an IOP Fellow, said she agreed with Fazio.

"There's a lot of volatility out there," she said. Molinari did, however, note that incumbents of either party are always more likely to be re-elected and that the good economy will only support that trend.

Mickey Edwards, another former member of the House of Representatives (R-Okla.), said that the uncertainty is a dramatic change from expectations earlier in 1998.

"There's not a very good chance that Republicans will gain the kind of vetoproof Congress they were talking about earlier in the year," said Edwards, who is also a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG).

He called a series of new anti-Clinton ads that Republicans will run on national television this week a sign of desperation, and he speculated the effort will backfire.

"Citizens have an unusual habit of exercising free will," said Philip Sharp, former member of the House of Representatives (D-Ind.) and also a lecturer in public policy at KSG.

The impact of the election extends beyond the number of seats that change hands between parties to the message that voters choose to send to their politicians-especially on the presidential impeachment proceedings, Sharp said.

Part of the difficulty in predicting results is that most voters don't care which party controls Congress, he said, citing a recent study.

The biggest problem that the parties face in their campaigning is a "sense of irrelevancy" among the voters, Sharp said.

Alan Simpson, director of the IOP and a former Senator from Wyoming, moderated the event.

The panel was co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Republican Club, the Harvard-Radcliffe College Democrats, the KSG Republican and Democratic Caucuses, the KSG Campaigns and Elections Professional Interest Council and the IOP Student Advisory Committee.