Cocaine Straw Poll
            

            Issue 1 is the Clinton-GOP tax-cut war. Issue 2 is Hillary's Talk
magazine interview. Issue 3 is campaign 2000--including the upcoming Iowa straw
poll and Bush's refusal to talk about cocaine-use rumors.

            The opinion mafia grows increasingly pessimistic that a tax-cut compromise
will be reached this year--this despite assertions to the contrary by House
Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas (on Fox News Sunday ), and Senators
George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and  Rick Santorum, R-Pa. (on CNN's Late
Edition ). Clinton's veto threat is real, the pundits say, and the GOP just
wants to use the tax issue as an electoral weapon (Al Hunt, of CNN's
Capitol Gang ; Paul Gigot, of PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer
and Fox ; Fox's Mara Liasson and Juan Williams; Late

               Edition's Susan Page and Steve Roberts). Gigot points out that many
Democrats want to see the tax issue off the table, and that at least
House Republicans are willing to pass a bill, if not Senate ones.
Late 
               Edition's Tucker Carlson points out that a do-nothing
Congress isn't a bad thing, while Hunt thinks the GOP passed the tax cuts to
please campaign contributors, not to campaign for. A few other
pundits--including Clarence Page and John Fund (both of PBS's The
McLaughlin Group )--think the president will compromise at the 11th hour,
as he did with welfare reform in 1996.

            For the second week in a row the pundits slam Hillary for her comments in
Talk magazine. Some say her probable New York senate campaign is a
public exercise of  marital therapy ( Capitol 
               Gang's Kate
O'Beirne and McLaughlin's Tony Blankley). John McLaughlin trots out a
1992 campaign video in which Hillary praises Bill's grandmother--the same woman
Hillary seemed to blame in Talk . Even Hillary's defenders, such as
McLaughlin's Eleanor Clift and Fox's Susan Estrich, admit
that the comments were unfortunate. Fox's Dick Morris proposes that
Hillary's interview was part of an elaborate fundraising strategy for her
senate campaign; the comments may hurt her politically, Morris reasons, but
defending the president helps her curry favor with her husband's campaign
contributors. Clift points out that when the Lewinsky story first broke, the
same McLaughlin panelists who now decry Hillary's attempts at
psychoanalysis were enthusiastically probing the roots of the president's "sex
addiction."

            Pundits are divided on the importance of the upcoming Iowa straw poll. Some,
like Bill Kristol and George F. Will of ABC's This 
               Week ,
think it genuinely tests a candidate's grassroots organizing ability. Others,
like Carlson, argue that since voting in the straw poll costs $25 and is on a
weekday, the candidates who can afford to bus and subsidize the most people
will win. Most agree that Dan Quayle, Lamar Alexander, and Pat Buchanan have
the most to lose. Some speculate that Gary Bauer could make a surprisingly
strong showing.

            Most pundits agree that George W.'s refusal to answer questions about
possible cocaine use is untenable. Kristol, Will, and This

               Week's George Stephanopoulos agree that Bush's response indicates "a
chink in the armor." Will notes that in Bush's Talk magazine interview
(separate from Hillary's), Bush uses the f-word frequently and seems to poke
fun at a former death-row prisoner to whom he refused clemency. Among the
dissenters: Novak thinks cocaine use is "an irrelevant question in politics,"
and O'Beirne and Williams say it won't matter because Bush's lead is too
strong.

            

               Why Not Just Use the B-Word, Bob?
"This wasn't an accident, as some of the Democratic operatives are
saying--[that] she just blurted it out. She is a very manipulative, conniving
person."
--Robert Novak, on Hillary's marital revelations in Talk
            

            
               Hey, Kid--I've Been There
"I mean, I've sat in these [White House] meetings years ago. I know how it
works."
--Dick Morris, when another Fox panelist doubts his theory that
Hillary's Talk interview was an intentional fundraising strategy

            
               Last Word
"Next week we're going to find out she's one-twelfth Puerto Rican."
--Tony Blankley on Hillary's assertion that her grandmother's second husband
was Jewish