It is the coming endgame in the congressional session, where Bill Clinton has repeatedly taken the measure of the Republican leadership. The federal government could be shut down by Oct. 1, two days before the first scheduled presidential debate. Gore would then pounce on Bush as complicit with Republican intransigence that led to this perceived catastrophe. Republican congressional leaders are determined to avert such a course of events. Playing the budget endgame is truly risky business.
Democratic threats abound.
At the Los Angeles convention, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt warned that a budget impasse might continue right into the election, making for a nightmare Republican campaign. On the Monday after the convention adjourned, White House Chief of Staff John Podesta wrote a remarkably audacious letter to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert. It might well have been delivered as one of the speeches in Los Angeles, reiterating partisan demands without offering any avenues for compromise. For years, the president's lack of interest in negotiating has frustrated and paralyzed Republicans, and Podesta's letter follows his chief's pattern. Rep. Tom Davis, the House Republican campaign chairman, is pressing to wrap up the congressional session by giving in to the president without prolonged negotiations.