Iowa Electronic Market, 7/25/96
	Vote Share			Winner-Takes-All
	Dole	Clinton		Dole	Clinton
Open	44.5%	55.6%		33.1%	64.0%
Close	43.2%	55.6%		31.5%	65.8%
Pundits' Index
Clinton: 83 percent, down 1 from last week Dole: 16 percent, up 1 from last week Perot: 1 percent, unchanged (at 1)

Dole continues to lose ground in the polls, falling 13 points vis--vis Clinton in the Iowa market during the past two weeks. But despite persistent bearishness on the right, most pundits are praising his latest insider moves--picking moderate convention speakers and stiffing the press--and tentatively buying back a few shares of his stock.

Dump Dole: Led by George Will and Cal Thomas, the pundits have grown increasingly bold in urging Dole to step aside. Instead of attacking Dole editorially, many pundits now feign objectivity, quoting in print (and brandishing on camera) each other's dismissive op-eds and magazine covers. "Conservative influentials have become invincibly pessimistic!" cried McLaughlin. Fred Barnes suggested that Dole ought to worry "when conservatives from Bill Kristol to me to Paul Gigot to Bob Novak" criticize the campaign. The new pundit line is: Everyone agrees that Dole is doomed; and even if we were wrong to think so, the fact that we say so dooms him.

Congress: House passage of a welfare-reform bill was interpreted by the chat shows as a Republican "mutiny" against Dole; if Clinton signs it, he will have stolen another center-right issue from Dole. "They're saying, 'We don't care about [Dole]; we are going to try to save ourselves,'" explained Bob Novak. A Wall Street Journal Wednesday back-pager reported that some Republicans "see a potential silver lining should Mr. Dole still look like a loser by Election Day": Voters might re-elect Clinton "and a GOP Congress to keep a rein on each other."

Compassion: The right's Dole-bashing provoked bleeding-heart lefties to defend him. Eleanor Clift pointed out that talk of dumping the nominee is a quadrennial fad; Jack Germond scoffed that Dole's critics have no one better to nominate; E.J. Dionne argued that the GOP's problems on such issues as abortion, guns, and immigration run deeper than Dole.

GOP Convention: Right-leaners embraced the backspin theory that Dole's appointment of moderate, pro-choice convention speakers (Susan Molinari and Colin Powell) would require him to balance his message by picking a pro-life running mate. Conservative vice-presidential stock pickers are now selling moderate Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge and buying family-values hawk Bill Bennett, who, unlike Dole, "could carry a strong message." Sceptics warned that an angry, media-magnetic Buchanan could torpedo the Powell/Molinari appeal to moderates by "giving the reverse speech out on the sidewalk."

The Silent Treatment: Pundits like John Cochran and Sam Donaldson cheered Dole for speaking only from the script. And Bob Beckel, consultant-turned-pundit, advised Dole's managers, "Under no circumstances should Dole be allowed on any national talk show or in one-on-one interviews with any national correspondents. ... One-on-one interviews should be given only to local-TV personalities."

Clinton: Who? The TWA crash blotted the latest Whitewater trial, as well as questions of drug abuse by Clinton's staff, from the news. Even if the trial were to yield a conviction, Whitewater pundit-rabbi Jim Stewart concluded, "I don't think any of this is politically terribly damaging for the president." The latest Nixonian portrayal of Clinton--Richard Berke's New York Times piece on the White House's super-secret campaign strategy meetings--is less outraged than awestruck. The rule of the pundit market so far this year appears to be: Sell candor and buy craft.

--William Saletan

William Saletan co-founded and edited The Hotline, a daily digest of political news, and is the author of a forthcoming book on the politics of abortion.