(2 of 4)
Like sailors on a destroyer, Stephanopoulos and his crew have drilled and plotted and practiced for attack so that when Dole launches a torpedo, their countermeasures are ready to go in an instant. When, three weeks ago, Dole made a speech attacking all the liberal judges Clinton had appointed, there were Democratic Party minions scattered around the hotel ballroom afterward handing out talking points on how Dole had voted to approve 95% of those judges. "It's sort of a culture for us now," says Carville. "You just can't let information lay out there. Reporters don't have time to find all of this. They have to file a story. And the first take on a story is 80% of the game."
Over the past two weeks, as Dole has tried to lay out something resembling an agenda, he has gone from saying almost nothing to assailing Clinton on his judges, his unwillingness to ban partial-birth abortions and now the gas tax. Each volley is aimed at a specific constituency: Dole officials admit openly that they are wooing Catholic voters in the Midwest and were thrilled to see Roman Catholic bishops make the abortion issue a topic several Sundays ago. They believe Clinton's judges are a salient issue with Republican women concerned about crime and values, and the gas-tax repeal is aimed at mostly male and commuting independents across the U.S. "We have a social issue teed up, a values issue rolled out, and now we're hitting on economics," says campaign manager Scott Reed.
The fight over gasoline prices is fast becoming a case study in the triumph of politics over policy. There wasn't much talk about fuel conservation, long-term energy planning, the merits of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or the $30 billion that a repeal of the gas tax would add to the deficit. Instead it was thrust and parry. Dole first struck two weeks ago on a Friday, after House Speaker Newt Gingrich alerted him to the anger caused by the spike at the pump, especially in California, where the G.O.P. is increasingly enfeebled. That day Dole promptly drafted a letter to Clinton calling for the repeal of the 4.3 [cents]-per-gal. gasoline-tax increase enacted in 1993 over Republican objections; he did it again in a speech Saturday night, then refloated the idea the next day on the Sunday talk shows. By last Monday the debate had moved to the Senate floor.
This, in the world of Dole, is a lightning-fast, flawlessly coordinated operation. It is also hopelessly outdated, an analog operation in a digital world. Friday stories never get noticed. Saturday-night speeches are lost to history, and even newspapers. The world doesn't slow down for Senate debates, and by the time Dole gave the Sunday talk-show comment, the Clinton operation was way ahead of him.
Clinton's field commanders this time around are the two White House aides with the most combat medals between them. Gene Sperling and Bruce Reed are both veterans of the Clinton campaign and walking compendiums of the President's promises. Sperling, a senior economics-staff member, is in charge of budget, tax and health-care issues. Reed, a domestic-policy adviser, takes on welfare, crime and immigration. They work closely with Eric Berman, the opposition-research maestro of the Democratic National Committee, his staff of half a dozen and their massive databases, composting the life and record of Bob Dole.