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GOP governors push party toward issues that 'unite' voters

NEW ORLEANS (AllPolitics, Nov. 21) -- Republican governors wrapped up their annual conference in New Orleans Saturday after discussing everything from education to welfare. But the name Monica Lewinsky hardly ever came up.

Indeed, the GOP governors say emphasis on popular nuts-and-bolts issues, rather than on Washington scandal, helped them win on Election Day, while Republicans in Congress were losing. They think their GOP brothers and sisters in Washington ought to take heed.

Keating
Keating

"What we're doing together is developing the agenda, the response to the country's real needs, that will make us a successful and victorious party in 2000," said Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, chairman of the Republican Governors Conference.

"Take a lesson from the governors' playbook. Use those issues that unite rather than divide if the focus is to win," said Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson told reporters Saturday that GOP governors will be used to try to change the party's image and attract more followers.

"We're ... going to have a message outreach team (at the RNC) that's going to be composed of governors, congressional leaders, mayors. It's going to have considerably more women, Hispanics and blacks on it, projecting the face and voice of this party to the American people," Nicholson said.

But even some of the party leaders in Washington trying to craft a new agenda recognize that any changes may be overshadowed by the hearings on possible impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

"That issue sucks up all the air, and you don't get to talk about taxes and Social Security and health care and education and national defense," said Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, who was elected to a House leadership post this week.

And political analysts point out that compared to Congress, governors can more easily avoid divisive issues and maintain a broader base of support.

"In Washington, everything is polarized, ideological," said CNN political analyst Stuart Rothenberg. "You have national interest groups pushing issues like abortion, for example, while the Republican governors in the states have focused on education."

Watts
Watts

However, the unanswered question for Republicans is how staunch conservatives -- the GOP's traditional base of active support -- will react to any attempts to soften or broaden the Republican agenda.

CNN Reporter Kathleen Koch contributed to this report.



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Correspondent Kathleen Koch reports from Washington (11-21-98)
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As Congress focuses on Lewinsky, GOP governors focus on schools (11-19-98)


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Saturday, November 21, 1998

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