For the Record

■ Post-election spin: “We had a bad night as part of what is basically a good decade,” says Republican National Committee Communications Director Cliff May,on Fox News Channel… In narrow Senate loss, Democrat Scott Baesler (Ky.) says the National Right to Life PAC’s ads on radio “probably . . . hurt me more than anything else.” . . . More bad news: pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick finds in exit polls that 47 per cent of voters prefer “a smaller government that offers fewer services” while 40 per cent prefer “a bigger government that offers more services”—in 1996, the split was 64-24. Among self-identified conservatives in 1998, 56 per cent wanted smaller government and 35 per cent bigger; in 1996, figures were 76 and 18. . . . Arizona elects women to all five top constitutional offices, including GOP Gov. Jane Hull, making 5 of 6 most powerful women in state politics Republicans. . . . Wall Street Journal editorializes, “it is clear that the Democratic Party’s financial constituency base is gambling, trial lawyers, and public unions, a collection of interests more appropriate to a party seeking power in, say, Russia.”

■ Sen. John Ashcroft (R., Mo.), on Newt Gingrich, to Associated Press: “He now resigns because the GOP abandoned its vision and ideas in favor of political passivity and platitudes. As the House learned a lesson taught at the hand of the American people, the Senate needs to get the message, too.” . . . Heritage Foundation’s Marshall Wittmann, on GOP leadership fights: “It’s Bosnia without the peacekeepers.” . . . President Clinton awards National Humanities Medal to historians Stephen Ambrose and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., signers of October letter opposing impeachment…. National Journal’s William Powers: “Anyone who’s watched [NBC’s Tim] Russert closely knows that about 4 out of every 5 of his questions are traps of one sort or another.”

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■ Post-election spin: “We had a bad night as part of what is basically a good decade,” says Republican National Committee Communications Director Cliff May,on Fox News Channel… In narrow Senate loss, Democrat Scott Baesler (Ky.) says the National Right to Life PAC’s ads on radio “probably . . . hurt me more than anything else.” . . . More bad news: pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick finds in exit polls that 47 per cent of voters prefer “a smaller government that offers fewer services” while 40 per cent prefer “a bigger government that offers more services”—in 1996, the split was 64-24. Among self-identified conservatives in 1998, 56 per cent wanted smaller government and 35 per cent bigger; in 1996, figures were 76 and 18. . . . Arizona elects women to all five top constitutional offices, including GOP Gov. Jane Hull, making 5 of 6 most powerful women in state politics Republicans. . . . Wall Street Journal editorializes, “it is clear that the Democratic Party’s financial constituency base is gambling, trial lawyers, and public unions, a collection of interests more appropriate to a party seeking power in, say, Russia.”

■ Sen. John Ashcroft (R., Mo.), on Newt Gingrich, to Associated Press: “He now resigns because the GOP abandoned its vision and ideas in favor of political passivity and platitudes. As the House learned a lesson taught at the hand of the American people, the Senate needs to get the message, too.” . . . Heritage Foundation’s Marshall Wittmann, on GOP leadership fights: “It’s Bosnia without the peacekeepers.” . . . President Clinton awards National Humanities Medal to historians Stephen Ambrose and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., signers of October letter opposing impeachment…. National Journal’s William Powers: “Anyone who’s watched [NBC’s Tim] Russert closely knows that about 4 out of every 5 of his questions are traps of one sort or another.”