In 1991, a then-unknown candidate named Harris Wofford won a special Senate election in Pennsylvania over Dick Thornburgh by putting a call for a national health plan for the middle class at the center of his campaign. He was advised by two then unknown strategists, James Carville and Paul Begala. (See story after jump.)
Carville and Begala were quickly hired by aspiring presidential candidate Bill Clinton, who -- like other Democrats -- made a call for a health plan a staple of his campaign. He won, put his wife Hillary -- who had no particular background in health policy -- in charge of a White House task force to put together a health plan. It turned into a big mess, and failed.
But today, Hillary has airbrushed both Wofford and her own failure out of history. Fresh from unveiling her big new health plan, she has unveiled a big new ad that begins, "She changed our thinking when she introduced universal health care to America." You bet she did -- she made it a political third rail for 15 years.
Here's the ad:
Democrats Look to the Senate Race In Pennsylvania for Lessons and Hope
BYLINE: By MICHAEL deCOURCY HINDS, Special to The New York Times
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 21 -- A few weeks ago, Dick Thornburgh did not even know how to pronounce the name of his opponent in the Nov. 5 special election for United States senator. He learned, perhaps coincidentally, just after a poll showing that the Democratic candidate, Harris Wofford (pronounced WOFF-erd), had made substantial gains among voters.
Mr. Wofford's stunning emergence from anonymity is being watched by Democrats around the country seeking lessons to use against powerful Republicans next year. Mr. Wofford has gone on an angry populist offensive, saying that he has had it with Washington's corruption and failure to revive the economy, stem the flow of jobs overseas and enact a national health care policy.
The problems of the very poor are not at the top of his list. "It's time to take care of our own people, the middle class," Mr. Wofford says frequently.
He and his campaign staff constantly attack Mr. Thornburgh's performance in Washington, linking Mr. Thornburgh's tenure as Attorney General in President Bush's Cabinet to national embarrassments involving the savings and loan industry and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Mr. Thornburgh, 59 years old, is also a former two-term Governor of Pennsylvania.
An Aide's Faux Pas
Mr. Thornburgh, who has spent over 20 years in front of microphones, is far and away the more polished candidate. But Mr. Wofford's questions leave a stain of anger or doubt even after Mr. Thornburgh refutes them with sheafs of statistics. Even Mr. Wofford's stream-of-consciousness style of speaking, peppered with bursts of excitement and anger, may enhance his message, political analysts here say.
The special election, the only Senate race in the nation this year, is being held to fill the seat left by Senator John Heinz, who died in a plane crash over a Philadelphia suburb in April. In May, Governor Robert P. Casey, a Democrat, appointed as interim Senator Mr. Wofford, who was then his Secretary of Industry and Labor. Mr. Wofford, 65, is a former special assistant to President John F. Kennedy and president of Bryn Mawr College, and has never run for elected office.
Mr. Thornburgh, who largely campaigns as though he were the incumbent running unopposed, is trading on his reputation as a popular Governor, from 1979 to 1987, and to a lesser degree his three years as Attorney General.
There have been stumbles. Making the kind of embarrassing statement that can brand a campaign, Michele Davis, Mr. Thornburgh's campaign manager, told The Associated Press on Sept. 20, "Dick Thornburgh is the salvation of this sorry-assed state." Mr. Thornburgh apologized but could not control the damage as the statement was repeated across the state in newspapers and talk shows.
"The remark was doubly unfortunate because it was in bad taste and it reminded people of the perception that Dick Thornburgh is given to some arrogance," said Dr. Michael L. Young, professor of politics and political affairs at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg.
Until this month, both candidates said their polls showed Mr. Thornburgh with a lead of 25 to 40 percentage points. Then on Oct. 1 The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and WTAE-TV released a poll showing that Mr. Thornburgh's lead had shrunk to 12 percentage points. Half of the 715 voters surveyed at random across the state said they would vote for Mr. Thornburgh, 38 percent said they would vote for Mr. Wofford and 12 percent were undecided. The survey, the latest independent one taken, had a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.
Recognizing the Name
"I never thought that could happen, but if Harris Wofford keeps picking up a couple points a week he could win," said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center of Politics and Public Affairs at Millersville University of Pennsylvania in Lancaster.
Perhaps not wanting to enhance Mr. Wofford's name recognition, Mr. Thornburgh has declined to debate Mr. Wofford. But on Friday the two participated in a hourlong televised discussion program, their second joint appearance this fall.
The most heated exchange came on the topic of President Bush's recent veto of the bill to extend unemployment benefits, which would have aided about 170,000 of Pennsylvania's 401,000 unemployed workers. Mr. Thornburgh said that he has supported the benefit extension in his role as a Senate candidate, but that he could not when a member of the Bush Administration.
"I transmitted to the President my dismay that he was not going to sign the bill and I urged him to do so," Mr. Thornburgh said. "I think we're going to get that bill, finally, when the posturing is all done."
Mr. Wofford, after fumbling for the right words for a while, exploded with questions: "Why didn't he approach this, push this, press this when he could have done some good, not just for Pennsylvania, but for the whole country? And why did he wait until it would do him some good as a candidate to say he would stand up to the President? Why haven't you stood up to the President in the last three years?"
Mr. Thornburgh said angrily: "Because I served in his Cabinet. The same as you served in Robert Casey's Cabinet and sat silently by while he imposed the largest tax increase in the history of this commonwealth."
In the television campaign, Mr. Thornburgh began with warm and fuzzy commercials. "Thank goodness for Dick Thornburgh," begins one, depicting Mr. Thornburgh as a governor who cut taxes and created 500,000 new jobs. The advertisements do not mention his temporary $2.5 billion tax increase or the 400,000 or so manufacturing jobs lost in his tenure.
In his spots, Mr. Wofford focuses on issues like jobs, health care and out-of-touch Washington politicians with lots of perks. But Mr. Wofford's growing popularity may be less a result of his advertising than of the natural buoyancy of any competent, adequately financed Democrat in a state with 2.8 million Democrats and 2.3 million Republicans.
Close Races the Norm
"The state is so well-balanced on a partisan and ideological level that there are rarely blowouts, rarely landslides," said David Buffington, editor of the Pennsylvania Report, a political newsletter. "It is perfectly normal for races to be close, but the perception is that Dick Thornburgh is slipping, and that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy."
To get out the vote for Mr. Thornburgh, who opposes nearly all abortions, the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation is sending letters to 295,000 households, said Denise Neary, the group's executive director. Mr. Wofford supports abortion rights but has angered some women's groups by supporting Pennsylvania laws that limit access.
William M. George, President of Pennsylvania A.F.L.-C.I.O., said affiliates were telephoning all 1.1 million union members and urging them to vote for Mr. Wofford.
Following Mr. Wofford's rise in the polls, Mr. Thornburgh unleashed a moderately negative advertisement 10 days ago that links Mr. Wofford, "a liberal college president who led the school to big deficits," with the now-unpopular Governor Casey and the $3.3 billion tax bill he signed earlier this year. Mr. Wofford replied that he had increased Bryn Mawr's endowment by 52 percent and that he was already in the United States Senate when the state tax increase was enacted by both Democrat and Republican legislators.
Mr. Wofford's counterattack draws more blood, say analysts. His commercial shows newspaper headlines, like "Thornburgh's Troubled Record," while a narrator condemns Mr. Thornburgh's performance as Attorney General, singling out his prosecution, or non-prosecution, of cases involving the savings and loan debacle, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Thornburgh aides respond by saying the Attorney General convicted 597 bankers in the savings and loans mess; indicted six bankers and the B.C.C.I. in his third month as Attorney General, and that he did own $30,000 worth of stock in oil companies that partly own the Alaskan pipeline, but that the Department of Justice decided against prosecuting the pipeline owners before he got involved in prosecuting Exxon.
From now on, the advertisements are expected to get really nasty. Mr. Thornburgh's media advisor is Greg Stevens, an associate of Roger Ailes, who developed the attack spots for George Bush's campaign in 1988; Mr. Wofford's advisor is James Carville, who managed Senator Frank R. Lautenberg's 1988 re-election campaign against Pete Dawkins, a race best remembered for its brutal advertising.
"Stay tuned," said Mr. Dickman, Mr. Thornburg's aide.