With six months to go before elections, recriminations have already begun on the Republican side, with Al D’Amato zinging Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, and Pat and Bay Buchanan as “philosophical ayatollahs” (see Capital Scene). Responds Armey: “would be thrilled if Al D’Amato would get in touch with the Republican message.” RNC Chairman Haley Barbour tells GOPers at weekly lunch: “We’ve got to stop criticizing each other in public. If anyone here has a problem with me or anyone else in the conference, we should address it privately.” Barbour took care to name no names himself. . . . Rep. Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.) expects his party to take back Congress: “The Republicans are even joking about it, calling people ‘Mr. Chairman’ and saying, ‘It’s been a wonderful two years. Remember that I was nice to you.’” But Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle warns, “We can’t be overconfident. Only the paranoid survive.” . . . Paul Gigot calls the Democrats who are likely to be House committee chairmen if Congress switches hands “a Murderer’s Row of 1960s liberals.”
Social issues show no sign of going away. Log Cabin Republicans, a group of homosexual GOPers, issues press release titled “Dole Co-Sponsorship of Anti-Gay Marriage Legislation Is Taking GOP Down Disastrous Houston Road: Dole repeating mistakes which led to ’92 loss.” Says Log Cabin head Richard Tafel: “The intolerant wing of the Republican Party is rearing it’s [sic] ugly head again. What Dole is missing here is he already enjoys deep support among religious conservatives”—which will be news to all concerned. . . . Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D., N.Y.) tells New York Post he will vote to override Bill Clinton’s veto of partial-birth-abortion ban: “I think this is just too close to infanticide. A child has been born and it has exited the uterus and what on Earth is this procedure?” . . . The Hill reports that “prolife Democrats are quietly preparing a battle of their own to remove or at least soften the pro-choice language of their party’s platform,” notes that more than forty Dems in House consistently vote pro-life, “roughly the same number as Republicans considered pro-choice.” . . . Rep. Jim Bunning (R., Ky.) writes to Clinton “to express my gratitude for your apparent change of heart” on transracial adoption-—as Arkansas governor, he signed a bill that made it harder.
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