■ Bad news: the odds quoted by Ladbroke’s, the venerable British betting establishment, after the first debate: Bill Clinton: 1 to 5; George Bush: 11 to 4; Ross Perot: 25 to 1. . . . Good news: poll taken by Weekly Reader, publication for grade-school children, which shows Bush over Clinton by 55 to 39 per cent. Poll has not missed in 36 years—presumably because dinner-table conversation is better indicator of how people will actually vote than what they tell pollsters. . . . The hinted dropping of Nicholas Brady and Richard Darman from a second Bush term cut no ice with Clinton campaign. Spokesman George Stephanopoulos said Bush’s slogan should be: “Vote for me—and I promise to fire my staff.” Actually, not a bad slogan to appeal to conservatives. As an unidentified Administration official put it: “Better late than never.” . . . To know Clinton is to love him? William Burnham of Pine Bluff, Ark., writing in Boston Globe, points out that Arkansas ranks 20th in the country in taxes paid as a percentage of income, “a very high rate of taxation for one of the poorer states.” . . . And Arkansas Democrat Gazette’s Paul Greenberg offered this description to the Wall Street Journal: “If there is a lodestar in his career, it’s the constant search for popularity and re-election, period. We may not have seen the dimensions of this emptiness yet in an American President.” . . . Southern Baptists are divided, according to Peter Steinfels in New York Times. Sam Hill, of University of Florida, contrasts Clinton and Al Gore with Jimmy Carter: “My father . . . would have said, ‘They don’t speak the language of Zion.’ ” What they speak, said Hill, “is the language of Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Oxford, and Yale.” But Bill Leonard of Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., says Southern Baptist influence is obvious: “Everyone can hear it in the way they speak, [including] the fact that Bill Clinton speaks a long time.”
■ Mixed news in House and Senate races around the country. In California, Reaganite Bruce Herschensohn is closing gap (down to 6 points) against unreconstructed liberal Barbara Boxer, while moderate Republican (and Pete Wilson pal) John Seymour lags far behind Dianne Feinstein, whom Mrs. Boxer criticized two years ago as “wishy-washy.” . . . GOP might gain in Pennsylvania. Seven-term super-liberal Peter Kostmayer has benefited from fund raising by Hollywood celebrities, but is vulnerable on House banking scandal. Kostmayer at first said, “It isn’t anybody’s damn business,” then admitted to 50 overdrafts. His opponent is moderate State Sen. Jim Greenwood. . . . Anti-incumbent sentiment could unseat three-term veteran John Glenn (D., Ohio), opposed by Lieut. Gov. Michael Dewine, who calls it “a race between the past and the future.” . . . In North Carolina freshman Rep. Charles Taylor is being challenged by Democrat Jack Stevens in redrawn 11th CD. Taylor (ACU rating: 90) leads Stevens 54 to 26 in Public Opinion Strategies Poll. . . . In Illinois, Woman of the Year candidate Carol Moseley Braun in trouble over way she handled money her mother received from sale of Alabama timberland, so as not to jeop-ardize her mother’s Medicaid payments. They’re calling it Mamagate . . . In Michigan’s normally solid-Republican 1st CD, GOP former Rep. Phil Ruppe is lagging in polls behind Democratic former State Rep. Bart Stupak—problem, according to Kevin Phillips, is George Bush’s negative coattails.
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