This should have been an easy enough reelection for Helms, who is seeking his fifth term. Yes, he has slowed a bit. But he is still revered by what he calls the ““God-fearing, hardworking’’ people of the Tarheel State. Bill Clinton, who lost the state to George Bush in 1992, has declared war on tobacco, still an important crop and employer in North Carolina. And Helms is running against Harvey Gantt, who has his own problems. A Democrat who lost to Helms six years ago, Gantt endured a bitter primary and, as an African-American, faces a special challenge in the South, which hasn’t elected a black to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction.
But it isn’t easy–for Helms or for most other Republicans desperately trying to keep control of Congress. With Bob Dole continuing to trail badly, and the Democrats on the offensive with record amounts of ““soft’’ money (limitless gifts from individuals and corporations) and an unprecedented $35 million from Big Labor, a worried GOP needs a Helms victory, and others, to prevent a disaster on Nov. 5. ““We are facing a real tsunami,’’ says GOP media consultant Mark Rotterman of Raleigh.
The size of that wave is the central drama of the ‘96 campaign’s final days. The key remaining question seems to be this: how heavily will voters qualify their apparent decision to re-elect the president? Will Clinton be able to translate his lead into a Democratic House and Senate, regaining control of the congressional subpoena power Republicans have been using against him?
The math is clear: in most national polls, more voters say they’ll vote for a Democrat than a Republican for Congress. Democrats need a net gain of only 19 seats to win back the House, and a net gain of three to retake the Senate. Analyst Charles Cook rates the Democrats’ chances in the House at 50-50; the odds in the Senate are somewhat worse. Republicans are now using Dole’s expected loss to give urgency to their own cause. The theme: don’t give Clinton a ““blank check.’’ On the Helms bus trip, that message was broadcast by his protEgE GOP Rep. David Funderburk of North Carolina. ““If Bill Clinton gets re-elected,’’ Funderburk warned at Parkers, ““and you have a liberal Congress, it could destroy this country.’’ Neither he nor Helms mentioned Dole.
North Carolina is representative of the country–and its continuing ambivalence about Clinton. ““It’s the ground zero of politics,’’ says Democratic polltaker Harrison Hickman. Despite his attack on tobacco, Clinton is neck and neck with Dole, whose popular wife is a native. The Helms-Gantt race is close, as are no fewer than four House races. The battle for control of the state legislature is tight. So far, the president hasn’t campaigned there at all; his chances are better in other Southern states, such as Virginia and Georgia. But last week, NEWSWEEK has learned, he was telling his aides he wanted to go to North Carolina. It was a sign of Clinton’s growing appetite for an LBJ-style sweep.
For Democrats on the ground, this is tricky terrain. Sure, Clinton is ahead in his own race, but the overt prospect of a re-elected Clinton and resurgent Democratic majorities could remind wary voters of the ““old’’ Clinton, the one who was a ““liberal’’ the last time his party controlled Capitol Hill. So in North Carolina and elsewhere, locals are making it clear they don’t need the president to come. At a ““coordinated campaign’’ rally in Charlotte, Clinton’s name was barely mentioned.
Instead, Democratic candidates in North Carolina are relying on an air strategy that avoids discussing Clinton at all–but capitalizes on the same themes that put the president so far out in front. They’re letting ““independent’’ advertising dollars carry ““national’’ issues. Since last summer, the AFL-CIO has been aiming TV ads at two GOP House freshman who are considered vulnerable: Funderburk and Rep. John Heineman. The ads have attacked them on Medicare, education, student loans and the minimum wage.
Labor’s cash is helping Gantt make up his vast 1990 fund-raising disadvantage, and the ad barrage is taking its toll on Helms. First elected in 1972, the senator has talked about ““privatizing’’ Social Security and Medicare and scaling back or abolishing a host of other programs, from student loans to the Department of Education. In the past, said Gantt campaign manager Jim Andrews, Helms’s ideas were just that–ideas. With the advent of Newt Gingrich’s House, Andrews contends, Helms’s notions suddenly risked taking on the force of law. ““It’s different when the things he’s always talked about could really happen,’’ Andrews said. And since Helms ran the last time, some 700,000 voters have moved into North Carolina. Many are seniors. Though many are also Republicans, they’re from the North and Midwest and less inclined to see Washington, as Helms sometimes seems to, as an evil force.
So Helms has been in an unusual posture: a defensive crouch. Early on, he aired ads designed to show his concern for the elderly and kids. Recently, he went ““up’’ with another spot explaining that he voted to increase Medicare spending by $111 billion over five years. In what was surely a galling move, Helms was forced to cite The Washington Post for support. The newspaper, the Helms ad notes, decried the Democrats’ ““demagoguery’’ on Medicare. But last weekend the Post reported that Helms’s charitable foundation had received $225,000 in 1993 from a high-ranking Taiwanese official. It was another piece of evidence, Gantt advisers hoped, that the senator had ““gone Washington.’'
Still, Helms knows how to play offense again. As expected, he’s dealing the race card. He is accusing Gantt of having ““used his minority status’’ to profit from the purchase of a TV station and from a school-construction contract. Both charges were false, Gantt said. Meanwhile, Helms aides circulated through the crowd at Parkers, quietly handing out copies of a videotape that had been made at a union political meeting last September. It records Gantt asking–almost demanding–that labor officials give more ““soft money’’ to the state party to use in a get-out-the-vote drive. The Helms forces made it all sound like a conspiracy; in fact, it was a public meeting. Not to leave anything to chance, Helms recently paid a visit to an old friend and fellow North Carolinian. Helms took a walk with the Rev. Billy Graham. The senator was seeking a photo op and inspiration. He may also have been asking for a little divine intervention–for him and his party.
Democrats need a net gain of 19 seats to take back the House and avenge the losses of 1994. In the Senate, they need to net three.
title: “Playing For Keeps” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-21” author: “Lorna Osborne”
David (““Seven,’’ ““Alien3’’ ) Fincher’s stylish, spookily intense thriller takes Nicholas, and the viewer, on quite a trip. It starts when Nicholas’s ne’er-do-well brother, Conrad (Sean Penn), gives him a birthday gift: an invitation to play a game specially designed for him by a company called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). No one will explain the rules or objectives, but he is assured it will change his life. And it does. Suddenly the slick puppeteer is the hapless puppet. All-seeing eyes seem to know his every move. Television newscasters speak to him directly from the TV set, reading his mind. He’s kidnapped, blackmailed, shot at and thrust into the arms of a waitress (the intriguingly sardonic Deborah Kara Unger) who may or may not be in on the plot. What’s going on here? The dark fun of the movie is that the audience is as lost in this maze as Nicholas and as desperate for illumination.
I hated ““Seven,’’ Fincher’s surprise blockbuster, though it was evident there, and in his earlier, striking music videos for Madonna, that the 34-year-old director has a remarkable Gothic eye. He’s a master of atmosphere, creating in ““The Game’’ a claustrophobic, darkly burnished world of ominous signs and portents, where a trashed hotel room and an overflowing toilet can resonate with primal horror. (Fincher is the guy, after all, who, directing an anti-smoking TV spot, featured a fetus puffing a cigarette.)
Writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris finish their game with several dizzying twists. But when the dust settles, this is not a movie that can bear much postgame scrutiny. The minute you begin to question one element of the plot, gaping holes of logic appear throughout. There is one particular leap at the end that is so preposterous it threatens to topple the whole enterprise like a house of cards.
Like Nicholas Van Orton, you know you’ve been had by ““The Game.’’ But you may not mind. There is a pact we make with movies, not unlike the bargain our hero enters into with the sadistic folks at CRS. We put ourselves in Fincher’s hands, trusting that he will take us to a world we haven’t visited before, and we willingly suspend our disbelief for the stomach- lifting pleasure of the roller-coaster ride. The rational side of my brain can pick this movie apart until all that’s left is incoherent threads. The movie-mad side, happy to lose control, had a hell of a good time.
