Iowa Electronic Market, 7/11/96
	Vote Share			Winner-Takes-All
	Dole	Clinton		Dole	Clinton
Open	44.7%	51.3%		37.3%	56.7%
Close	44.7%	51.3%		36.6%	57.9%
Pundits' Index
Clinton: 82%, up 13 points from last week Dole: 18%, down 13 points from last week

Dole's slide began with his Today show interview, in which he questioned whether tobacco was addictive and suggested that Katie Couric might be violating federal campaign law by favoring Clinton. Dole's remarks dominated the rest of the week's campaign coverage and the weekend chat shows. Bob Novak labeled them "absolutely stupid." Jeffrey Birnbaum called the episode a "twofer" that enabled Clinton to frame Dole as a front man for special interests (the tobacco lobby) while playing to parents' anxiety about raising their children in a world of bad influences.

The conservative pundits who were propping up Dole's mediocre market price are now in a full-fledged panic. Read their lips. Fred Barnes: "The Bob Dole campaign is one of the worst presidential campaigns I've ever seen." Tony Snow: "Republicans are [just] about jumping off bridges." Charles Krauthammer: "He doesn't have a clue. He doesn't have a campaign." Kate O'Beirne: Republicans "seem to have the worst of both worlds here. They have a career politician who doesn't seem to have learned very much about dealing with the media" and is "incapable of talking his issues." Bill Kristol: "A lot of people on the Dole campaign probably started smoking again this week."

Can Dole come back? The pundits think not. Among their arguments: He can't hit a layup. "If Dole can't really capitalize on this opportunity of Clinton being festooned with one scandal of the day after another," pronounced Martin Walker, "then [he's] really in trouble." His resignation accomplished nothing. Ken Bode cracked on Washington Week in Review: "Citizen Bob Dole is having about as much trouble getting traction in his campaign as Sen. Bob Dole did in the Senate." Clinton is indestructible. "Clinton has achieved a kind of normalization of Nixonian ethics," complained Krauthammer, citing the polls. "We believe the worst about this guy, and yet think he's fit to be our president." The economy is too healthy. O'Beirne cited the new figures on job creation and low unemployment: "Bill Clinton is going to get the credit. It's on his watch." Clinton's theft of Republican ideas is working. Bill Schneider: "Dole won't get anywhere by calling the president a me-too politician."

The bleakest assessments of Dole are oblique. First, right-leaners are beginning to portray a Clinton re-election as a conservative victory. As Barnes put it, "When historians look back at the 1990s as a conservative era," they'll credit Dick Morris for persuading Clinton "to endorse 30 conservative ideas and programs." Second, some (e.g. Cokie Roberts) now construe the GOP's proposed overhaul of its densely packed primary schedule as a confession that this year's primaries produced a defective nominee. Third, scenarios for a Dole comeback are becoming increasingly bizarre and metaphysical. This week's entry from Dole speechwriter Mark Helprin: "It's almost like Yeltsin. He has these deep cycles in him."

Looking ahead: Contrarians see hope in the latest Whitewater trial, for which Clinton provided videotaped testimony July 7. Most pundits agree that Dick Lamm or Ross Perot could shake up the race as a third candidate. And the GOP has spent far less money on television than the Democrats have; Mort Kondracke predicts "an avalanche of Republican ads" beginning Sept. 1.

--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.