BY HOWARD WILKINSON and PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It is not your imagination: It has not been a pretty campaign.
Candidates for state and federal office in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana have raised more than $50 million to pound voters with TV ads for weeks.
And that's not counting millions more spent on their behalf.
In this barrage of 30-second messages, often one after the other, candidates have attacked each other in ways that often shade the truth and, in some cases, are outright lies. Voters could easily come to conclusion that this has been a campaign more about tearing down than building up.
It's not that candidates haven't talked about the issues; they have. They have discussed tax policy, education spending, protecting Social Security, ensuring the future of Medicare and defining an appropriate role for government.
It is just that the issues often became the background music of the campaign. With no one issue dominating the debate, it has been left to candidates and their campaign consultants to fill in the blanks with messages aimed at cutting into the credibility and character of the opposition.
Tuesday, when the final chapter of the 1998 election in the Tristate is written, it will boil down to a handful of factors:
Image
This was a campaign where some candidates had to re-invent or re-introduce themselves to voters.
The U.S. Senate race in Kentucky is a case in point. Two Kentucky congressmen, Republican Jim Bunning and Democrat Scotty Baesler, are locked in a tight race to replace Kentucky's retiring Democratic senator, Wendell Ford.
Mr. Bunning is a tough and aggressive politician, not unlike the way he pitched his way into baseball's Hall of Fame.
But many of his TV ads show a kinder, gentler Jim Bunning with his family and in the community, talking to seniors and others.
"The ads are good and they show a Jim Bunning most of Kentucky does not know because a lot of Kentucky did not know the real Jim Bunning before this race started,' said Damon Thayer, the Republican chairman in Mr. Bunning's 4th Congressional District.
For Mr. Bunning the image makeover comes in the form of planting a different idea of who the candidate is; in some cases, candidates try to change how they look.
Early in the race in Ohio's 1st Congressional District, where Cincinnati Mayor Roxanne Qualls is taking on GOP incumbent Steve Chabot, Ms. Qualls' supporters started noticing changes in her appearance. Gone were the eyeglasses, replaced by contact lenses; the hair color changed.
But the image-making goes beyond the physical.
This year, the one constant throughout the tens of millions that have been spent on TV advertising in Ohio and Kentucky campaign has been the presence of children.
Children -- whether the candidate's own or "borrowed" for the occasion -- have been featured prominently in commercials from the top of the ticket to the bottom, in races from state auditor in Ohio to U.S. Senate in both states.
The consultants who devise the images of a campaign decided early that the issues that would turn voters in this election were those that dealt directly with families and their concerns, issues like education or health care reform.
So a candidate like Mr. Chabot displays his two children repeatedly in campaign ads. A candidate like Ms. Qualls -- who is unmarried -- is shown bicycling with her nephew and tutoring school kids.
So, too, does Mr. Bunning. But in his case, with nine children and 30 grandchildren, the kids-in-commercials start looking like the cast of extras in a Cecil B. DeMille movie.
"With all the kids we're seeing, it is obvious that every campaign has decided that showing pictures of kids is how we express "family values,' " said Judith Trent, a political communications professor at the University of Cincinnati. "It's campaign shorthand."
The attacks <
The attack ads in this campaign have been, as the lawyers say, ad hominem: directed at individuals, not their positions.
By mid-October, it had gotten so bad in the $20 million Ohio governor's race that the Ohio Elections Commission reprimanded Republican Bob Taft's campaign for making false statements about Democrat Lee Fisher in a campaign ad.
Both have taken to the air waves with millions in TV advertising to call each other liars. Mr. Fisher's campaign started it with an ad pointing to the reprimand and saying "You lie, you lose." The Taft campaign shot back: Lie. Lose. Lee.
In the Chabot-Qualls race, each candidate, in a less direct way, has accused the other of lying about his or her record.
Mr. Chabot, in the last week of the campaign, went on the air to say that Ms. Qualls was lying when she says he voted to increase senior citizens' out-of-pocket expenses for Medicare. Ms. Qualls, on Friday, responded with an ad in which she chides Mr. Chabot for saying she "supports" the so-called partial-birth abortion procedure. She says she would vote for a ban with exceptions for the "life and health" of the mother.
In Kentucky, the attacks in the Senate and 4th Congressional District races have been overt, frequent and over-the-top, coming via TV, radio, direct mail, stump speaking and in debates and campaign forums. Seemingly nothing has been out of bounds or left unused in the battles.
For instance, a controversial Bunning TV ad used a wild speech at a rally given by Mr. Baesler, did some selective editing, and added a Wagner score to portray the Democratic candidate in a manner akin to Adolf Hitler.
But even TV stations have their limits. Many yanked a Williams ad that Mr. Lucas' supporters said inaccurately portrayed his tenure as a county judge-executive.
"These races have gotten down and dirty. Some of the ads are extremely hard-hitting," said University of Kentucky political science professor Penny Miller, who has followed Bluegrass politics for three decades.
Why run these ads? Because polling shows that it works.
"People may remember nothing else about a candidate, but they will remember the negative thing," Ms. Trent said.
The money
There was a time, not so long ago, when campaigns were paid for entirely by the candidates' election committees. Each candidate raised and spent as much money as he or she could, and that was the end of it.
It is not so simple any more.
Now we are in the age of "soft money" and "independent expenditures." Soft money -- money raised by special interest groups and political parties that is not reported and not subject to contribution limits -- has played a huge role Ohio and Kentucky elections this year.
In the Chabot-Qualls contest, each candidate's campaign committee is expected to raise and spend over $1 million. Add to that another estimated $1 million spent by a plethora of special interest groups and political party organizations on "issue advertising" on TV.
"Issue ads" are those ads that don't tell you to vote for one candidate or another, but usually hit a candidate on a particular issue and wind up urging viewers to call the politician and tell him he is wrong. They look and feel like campaign ads, but they are run independent of the candidates' campaign.
In the Kentucky U.S. Senate race, the campaigns are getting help from outside sources, like the National Republican Senatorial Committee headed by U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has been deeply involved in Mr. Bunning's race.
The committee has pumped an estimated $3 million into the race, according to media reports out of Washington.
Other groups chiming in with money include labor unions, groups supporting term limits, the National Rifle Association, state and national Democratic and Republican parties, and the Christian Coalition.
In Ohio's 6th Congressional District, where incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland is trying to hold on to his seat, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) dumped at least $400,000 into a campaign for Republican candidate Nancy Hollister. It was clearly a campaign ad, but, instead of telling viewers to vote for Ms. Hollister, it told them to call her and thank her for supporting "Ohio values."
In Ohio's 1st District, organized labor and the Sierra Club spent hundreds of thousands of dollars early in the campaign on ads criticizing Mr. Chabot on everything from his environmental record to health care reform to Social Security.
But by the time the campaign was ending, the Business Roundtable -- a conservative business group -- was fighting back with an "issue ad" of its own, one that featured pictures of babies and a request to call Mr. Chabot and thank him for supporting families.
A ban on soft money is at the heart of campaign finance reform legislation that has been bottled up in Congress for years. But opponents, led by Sen. McConnell, say it's an unconstitutional restriction on free speech.
The issues
Education spending and preserving Social Security were among the issues that seemed to fill the gaps between times when candidates were attacking each other's records.
In the Kentucky Senate race, Mr. Bunning has gotten a boost from the issue of Social Security. He is one of the acknowledged leaders in the Congress on shoring up and protecting Social Security, and has gone to great lengths in his campaign to say as much.
But Mr. Baesler has said Mr. Bunning has let down "regular people" by voting against raising the minimum wage, the Family and Medical Leave Act and funding for education.
"How can you say you're for Kentucky when you don't vote with the people," Mr. Baesler says.
Ohio's much more low-key U.S. Senate race, where Gov. George Voinovich is the heavy favorite to defeat Democrat Mary Boyle, has centered on an argument about education.
Ms. Boyle, a former Cuyahoga County commissioner, has argued that Mr. Voinovich has failed in his promise to be the "education governor," saying school buildings in Ohio are the worst in the nation and that Mr. Voinovich has failed to come to grips with the state's school funding crisis.
But Mr. Voinovich has argued that Ohio's school funding system was invented long before he took office. He points to improving test scores and increased Head Start funding under his leadership.
In the race for Ohio governor, both candidates also say education is the No. 1 issue and have detailed position papers. But it was Mr. Fisher's call for a major property tax cut that, for a time, at least, set the campaign agenda. Mr. Taft called the idea a risky scheme and soon the two sides were attacking each other over tax votes taken years ago.
Mr. Lucas has tried to develop a different kind of issue about Mr. Williams.
Mr. Lucas, a political insider for years in Northern Kentucky, paints Mr. Williams, a relative newcomer to the region, as more concerned with a conservative social agenda than helping attract jobs, development and attention from Washington.
Mr. Williams counters that he is the only "true conservative" in the race. He says he opposes abortion, has a hard-line social agenda and fights for lower taxes and against bigger, more intrusive federal government.
The 1st District race in Ohio may have generated one of the most interesting philosophical arguments of the campaign.
It is over the role of a member of Congress and whether he or she should focus on getting as many federal dollars to the district as possible -- as Ms. Qualls believes -- or whether one should oppose unnecessary spending, even if the money is coming to the district, as Mr. Chabot contends.
The president
Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, Kenneth Starr were supposed to be principal players in this year's congressional elections, motivating Clinton-haters to punish Democrats or giving Mr. Clinton's supporters reason to send the Republicans a message.
For the most part, neither is happening.
Mr. Clinton and the scandal surrounding him played an early role in Ohio's 1st District race, when the president came to Cincinnati weeks after admitting he had an "improper relationship" with the former White House intern.
Ms. Qualls at first seemed hesitant to be seen with the president, who had played a role in talking her into running, but when Mr. Clinton visited Sept. 17, she was front and center, riding with him to the fund-raiser and giving him a quick tour of Over-the-Rhine.
Mr. Chabot has not used Ms. Qualls' association with the president against her. He is a member of the Judiciary Committee that will conduct the impeachment investigation; he has been circumspect in his statements on the case.
In Kentucky, the Clinton specter has been a more prominent feature of the race between Mr. Williams and Mr. Lucas.
Mr. Williams has tried to portray Mr. Lucas as a liberal Democrat who will vote with Mr. Clinton in Washington.
In a conservative district like Kentucky's 4th, where Democrats have a 2-to-1 lead in voter registrations but Republicans win most elections, being linked to Mr. Clinton can be politically fatal.
Mr. Lucas has gone far to distance himself from the president, refusing to show up when the president landed at the airport in Northern Kentucky in September. He won't even say if he voted for Mr. Clinton.
UK's Ms. Miller said the Clinton - Lewinsky scandal probably won't have much an impact in most of Kentucky because of the president's job approval, which is strong.
"(People in Kentucky) like Clinton; they don't want to see him impeached," she said.
However, in the 4th District, where Mr. Clinton is not well-liked, it will be a factor, she said.
"It's going to be have mobilizing effect for the Williams supporters, giving them another reason to go to the polls," Ms. Miller said. "They can not only vote for Gex Williams, but in their minds they'll be voting against Bill Clinton, too."
