[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 125 (Friday, September 18, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S10573]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    A MESSAGE FOR CANDIDATES IN BOTH PARTIES AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I note for my colleagues that the 
chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Committee and the chairman of the 
Republican Senatorial Committee are on the floor at this moment, and we 
have a message for candidates in both our parties and for the American 
people.
  Having served as chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee during the 
Packwood investigation, and having offered the first resolution of 
expulsion in the history of the Senate in a case involving sexual 
misconduct, I am well aware of the bright line that exists between 
private failings and public wrongs. And, of course, that line is 
blurred, as it was in that case, and is again in the allegations made 
against President Clinton when one's public office is used to pursue 
private misconduct and shield it from legal inquiry.
  But if we start turning every instance of past personal misconduct 
into cannon fodder for our political campaigns, we risk turning our 
democracy into a nuclear waste dump of slander, gossip, innuendo, and 
cheap moralizing about other people's problems.
  Even without this threat, the multifaceted scandal that currently 
engulfs the White House represents a crisis of national and 
constitutional proportions. Our only hope of guiding this country 
through the next several months without a major catastrophe in our 
Government, or in our financial markets, or in the world, absolutely 
depends on our ability to resist the subtly escalating arms race of 
dirt digging, garbage searching, mudslinging, and poison leaking that 
is currently swirling around the Nation's Capital.
  Where that awful trend must be resisted first is in our political 
campaigns. For better or for worse, campaigns are the most direct 
expression of our Government that people see.
  This election, let's make it for the better, not for the worse. 
Everyone in this body certainly knows that I believe in robust, 
pointed, hard-hitting campaigns. And I believe those kinds of campaigns 
are good for our democracy and good for the voters, but only when 
political campaigns are focused on issues and not on purely private 
behavior.
  So to set the standard, I want to make it clear that the national 
Republican Senatorial Committee will not fund--will not fund--any 
candidate who engages in personal attacks on the private problems and 
past failings of his or her opponent. Digging through their record is 
one thing, digging through their garbage is quite another. Criticizing 
someone for their vote on the marriage tax is fair game. Attacking 
someone for a failed marriage certainly is not.
  Let us prove over the next 6 weeks at least that this Congress is 
capable of fairly and responsibly executing the solemn constitutional 
duty that may await us in the months ahead.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor. I note the presence of my friend 
and colleague from Nebraska.
  Mr. KERREY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I come to the floor, as the distinguished 
Senator from Kentucky said--as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial 
Campaign Committee--to make the same commitment that the Senator from 
Kentucky just made, that our committee will not fund any candidate who 
uses the personal problems or past failures of their opponent to win 
their election.
  The objective in a campaign is not just to win an office. And we all 
know in campaigns that there is a temptation to justify every means by 
the end that is in sight. As the Senator from Kentucky described 
himself, I describe myself the same way. I am not reluctant or shy to 
have full contact sport when it comes to campaigns, but I do believe 
that the ultimate objective of the candidate needs to be to not just 
acquire the office, but also to serve the larger good of preserving our 
Democratic institutions, in this case the U.S. Congress.
  I have been asked many times, and suspect the Senator from Kentucky 
has as well, Is this going to have a negative impact on your chances in 
the fall? He has probably been asked more times, Is this going to have 
a positive impact on your chances in the fall?
  But my answer has always been that my chief concern is that there are 
good men and women in America today who have thought about running for 
office--it may be the Senate or a local school board--and they have 
said, ``Gosh, I don't want to go through what I see Henry Hyde going 
through. And if I run for office, that is exactly what is going to 
happen to me. I don't want everything that I have done since I was an 
infant to be drug out and paraded before the people of my district or 
the people of my city or the people of my State.''
  Far be it from me to say that any vote or statement or belief I have 
should be withheld. They should not be withheld and should be subject 
to the review and debate and discussion of the people. But my concern 
and why it is important that my colleague from Kentucky, whose 
suggestion this was, and I do this in this campaign is that if we do 
not exercise restraint and show American citizens that we will not fund 
candidates who use personal problems or past failures to win their 
office, the institutions of democracy will suffer.
  Forget the impact upon political parties. Neither party is going to 
do very well if citizens increasingly turn off and withdraw and say 
that ``I may do many things for my country, but one of them will not be 
to be a candidate for any office'' because of the fear that they have 
that something that happened 30 years ago or 40 years ago or 20 years 
ago--that is irrelevant to the campaign itself and that they have dealt 
with their family and their friends and their God, in whatever way that 
they felt was necessary--now becomes drug out into the open.
  So I join enthusiastically in making the commitment that we will not 
fund any candidates who do that. I appreciate that very much because 
what the Senator from Kentucky suggested serves the interests of 
democracy, and I am willing, as well, on the part of the DSCC to do the 
same.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I commend my friend from Nebraska for his statement. 
We see this matter precisely the same. As for my side of the aisle, I 
intend to convey this statement to our candidates, both incumbents and 
challengers, this afternoon with the message that I mean every single 
word of this statement.
  I thank my friend from Nebraska.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SESSIONS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.

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