Clinton Begins Campaign For Troubled Democrats
PRESIDENT Clinton is embarking on four weeks of heavy campaigning for Democrats with a message combining blasts at Republicans with rosy sketches of Democratic achievements.With Congress in recess, Clinton plans to travel the country in the coming days - yesterday he was in northern New Jersey, today in Detroit, next weekend in Connecticut, Florida, and New Mexico - primarily raising funds for candidates.
With an unpopular president and a sour electorate, Democratic leaders are hoping that in the coming weeks Clinton can reinforce the notion of an obstructionist GOP minority in Congress and energize a lethargic base of Democratic voters.
Dead heats in Virginia, Washington
POLLS published Sunday showed dead heats in the closely watched contests between Democratic Sen. Charles Robb and Republican Oliver North, and House Speaker Tom Foley and GOP challenger George Nethercutt.
Forty-two percent of likely voters in the Virginia Senate race interviewed by The Washington Post chose Mr. North and 41 percent Senator Robb. The margin of error was 4 percentage points, making the contest a statistical dead heat.
In Spokane, Wash., a poll published Sunday by the Spokesman-Review showed the 30-year Democratic incumbent running neck and neck with his GOP challenger. Nethercutt was favored by 45 percent and Foley by 43 percent in the Political-Media Research Inc. poll of 420 registered voters in eastern Washington's 5th district. Twelve percent said they were undecided. FBI probing three Texas Democrats
THE federal government is investigating whether three Democratic lawmakers from Texas acted improperly in their connections with a now-defunct moving company, said Roll Call, a newspaper that reports on Congress.
The biweekly paper on Monday quoted documents and sources as saying Reps. Jim Chapman, Greg Laughlin, and Bill Sarpalius were under investigation by federal authorities in San Antonio, where Sherwood Van Lines Inc. was based, and Las Vegas, the site of a 1989 convention hosted by the firm.
Roll Call quoted a source close to the investigation as saying the FBI was probing whether the members acted improperly by misrepresenting honoraria for the 1989 convention, accepting cut-rate moving services, and intervening with the Defense Department on behalf of the moving company in exchange for gifts.
