page T^T y\ i O' P Qt Associated Press Nebraskan
^ 1 ¥ V w M-*r ICaViJ ^ Edited by Jana Pedersen Wednesday, November 7,1990
Democrats profit from midterm elections
Democrats wrested govcmcships from the
GOP in Texas, Florida and four other states on
Tuesday in midterm elections that sealed a
season pf.Republican disappointment. Demo
crats also expanded their dominion of Con
gress in returns that heavily favored the incum
bents despite widespread voter discontent.
North Carolina GOP Sen. Jesse Helms won
re-election in the most closely watched Senate
race of 34 on the ballot.
Upsets were few and far between, despite
stir^ngsofvoterdiscontent. House Republican
Whip Newt Gingrich was in a Georgia dead
lock and Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley was
pressed before winning a dramatic relection in
New Jersey.
Democrats elected Ann Richards as gover
nor of'Texas and Lawton Chiles in Florida,
giving.them the last word in rcdistricling that
will add House scats to both Sunbelt states for
the next decade.
Republicans looked to Pete Wilson to hold
the California governship in his race against
Dianne Fcinstcin.
Democrats easily renewed their majority in
the Senate, and in the House as well, where
they aimed lo.im prove their 259-176 majority.
The GQP got good news in Ohio, where
George Voinovich won a Democratic gover
norship, and in Connecticut where Gary Franks
became the first black House Republican since
1935,
Sen. Lowell Weickcr vexed the GOP again,
this time as an outsider, with an independent
victory for governor of Connecticut. Republi
can Gov. Kay Orr was trailing, barely, in
Nebraska.
Vermont sent Socialist Bcmie Sanders to
the House — in place of a Republican. But
former GOPGov. Richard Snelling won his old
job back, and with it, the statehousc for his
parly.
Hours after the polls closed, there was no
shortage of close statehousc races:
• John Englcr led Democratic Gov. James
Blanchard in a Michigan surprise.
• Republican William Weld moved to a
small lead over John Silber as Massachusetts*
picked a successor to Michael Dukakis.
• GOP Gov. John McKcrnan clung to a lead
over former Gov. Joseph Brennan in Maine.
• Illinois GOP Secretary of State Jim Edgar
led Neil Hartigan narrowly in Illinois.
• Democrat Rudy Perpich trailed Arne
Carlson in a lough Minnesota race marked by
Republican turmoil. Carlson was on the ballot
only because Jon Grunscth dropped out in late
October over allegations of sexual improprie
ties.
Helms bested Harvey Gantt in his marquee
race for rcelcction in a contest that pitted one of
the nation’s best known conservatives against a
former black mayor.
“I’m sorry I’m so late,” he told supporters,
“but I’ve been home watching the grieving
face of Dan Rather_The liberal politicians
and editors and commentators and columnists
have struck out again.”
/ couldn’t feel better. Both Republicans and Democrats ran
against Bush.
9 Brown
Democratic national chairman
Democrats took aim at Rudy Boschwitz in
Minnesota in hopes of padding their current
55-45 majority. Paul Wcllstone held a small
lead.
Appointed Democratic Sen. Dan Akaka won
re-election in Hawaii, dashing Republican hopes
of a takeover.
Bob Smith in New' Hampshire, Hank Brown
in Colorado and Larry Craig held open Senate
scats for the GOP.
. Alabama GOP Gov. Guy Hunt won a close
race for re-election.
The polls were still open in half the nation
when the Democrats proclaimed victory and
pointed the voters toward the 1992 presidential
race.
“I couldn’t feel better,” said Ron Brown,
chairman of the Democratic National Commit
tee. “Both Republicans and Democrats ran
against George Bush.”
Spokesman Charles Black put the best face
forward for the Republican National Commit
tee, telling reporters, “It appears to be more of
. an anti-incumbent trend than a partisan trend.”
He called the midterm results “an anti-Con
gress trend rather than an anti-president trend,”
9 9
even though incumbent members were being
re-elected at a substantial rale.
New York Gov. Mario Cuomo won in a
possible prelude to a 1992 Democratic presi
dential campaign. Besides Bradley of New
Jersey, two other potential challengers to Presi
dent Bush won easy Senate re-election— Al
Gore in Tennessee, Sam Nunn in Georgia.
Bush voted in his home state of Texas after
an energetic yet awkward campaign for GOP
candidates, then left for the White House to
read the returns. Bush sparked a Republican
rebellion when he broke his memorable 1988
campaign pledge and embraced an October
deficit-reduction plan that raised lax rates.
All in all, the first election of the 1990s
came at a time of extraordinary volatility —
with the nation on the verge of recession and on
the edge of war in the Persian Gulf. Other
issues emerged in scattered races — abortion,
crime, the savings and loan crisis and ethics
scandals among them.
The pollsters agreed the voters were un
happy with the government and pessimistic
about the economy, but that failed to translate
into widespread anti-incumbency.
I ^aghdad pledges to release I
I Japanese, European ‘guests’
I Iraq on Tuesday promised to free 108 hostages, none of them
1 American, and insisted anew its foreign “guests” arc well-treated,
■ while Secretary of State James A. Baker III pressed U.S. allies about
1 their willingness to go to war.
§ The Baghdad government was keeping an eye on Tuesday’s mid
1 term elections in the United States. It claimed any slippage in Repub
■ lican support would reflect a lack of public support for President Bush ’s
I Persian Gulf policies.
S “The American people w ill... ask him why he is sending their sons
I to be killed in the Arab desert, and he will reap the fruits of his mistake,”
I said Iraqi Information Minister Latif Jassim.
1 In the latest hostage releases, Iraq’s official news agency said 77
1 Japanese nationals w ould be freed iri response to an appeal from former
I Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. It also said 20 Italians,
i I ivc Swedes, two Germans, two Portuguese and two Australians would
I ho ;dlnwi'd In lpavr
Ii did not say when the captives would be freed, but some had already
begun to assemble at a Baghdad hotel.
They were among thousands of foreigners trapped when Iraq in
vaded Kuwait on Aug. 2. Some had been held at strategic sites as
"human shields" against attack.
Iraq has since freed hundreds of captives, but Western governments
have expressed growing fears that Iraq's Saddam Hussein is success
fully using the hostages to divide the alliance facing him
Baker, mean whi le, w as seek ing to strengthen the ant i -1 raq ci*al ilion.
He is in the Midcast to assess support for stronger steps against iraq,
including a possible military strike.
He met Tuesday in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak,
but there was no immediate word on the outcome. Egypt has sent
thousands of troops to join the multinational force assembled in the
gulf.
U.S. troops make up the bulk of the force, w hich numbers about
300,000. The Pentagon said Tuesday the U.S. troop deployment in the
region had reached 230,(XX) and was still grow ing.
In a sign of the escalating U.S. military commitment, the Marine
Corps said it was calling up more than 600 reservists from eight states
for combat roles. Up until now, the more than 34,000 reservists called
to active duty have served in su >rt roles.
_. ■ •. v - _
: f Nel?ra&kan
4- Editor Eric Planner Graphics Editor John Bruce
. 472-1766 Photo Chief A! Sc he ben
Managing Editor Victoria Ayotte Night News Editors Matt Herek
Assoc News Editors Darcle Wlegert Ch uck Green
Diane Brayton Art Director Brian ShellIto
Editorial Page Editor Lisa Donovan General Manager Dan Shattil
Wire Editor Jane Pedersen Professional Adviser Don Walton
Copy Desk Editor Emily Rosenbaum 473-7301
The Daily Nebraskan(USPS 144-000) is published by the UNI Publications Board, Ne
braska Union 34,1400 R St, Lincoln, NE, Monday through Friday during the academic year,
weekly during summer sessions
Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by
phoning 472-1763 between 9 a m and 5 p m Monday through Friday The public also has
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1990 DAILY NEBRASKAN
Marked ballots, pulled levers:
Americans show their disgust
Behind the flags and hunting and
mechanized curtains, in schools and
churches and government buildings,
Americans votedirucsday. Then, time
and again, they (placed disgust with
the government tney were electing.
“You have to .kind of hold your
nose and vote th& time,” said John
Kirley, a semi-retired consultant vot
ing in Dallas. His sentiments were
widely shared by voters around the
I country.
From outward appearances, the
election was another page frpm a civics
textbook. Voters streamed into a
Mennonitc church gymnasium in
Fresno, Calif., a relation center in
Cape Canaveral, f la., a housing proj
ect lobby in Minneapolis, a school
cafeteria in New York City.
They punched computer cards and
pulled old-fashioned cranks. They
participated in democracy.
But beneath the Surface ran a dis
turbing streak of’cynicism — about
the federal budget, about the U.S.
in’ olvcmcnt in the Persian Gulf and,
pernaps most sharply, about the dis
mal slate of political campaigns.
In northern Michigan’s rural Ben
zie County, people filed into the
Benzonia Township Hall to cast their
ballots, exchange some smal I talk and
sample Township Clerk Pat Mead’s
orange twists and sticky buns.
Precinct worker Art Fleetwood kept
up a running banter about Monday
night’s snow and this fall’s bow hunt
ing season for deer — anything but
politics.
But when talk did turn to politics,
the people of Bcn/ic County were as
disgusted as voters anywhere.
“Kick them all out!” one man said
as he walked out the door.
“Start over!” his wife chimed in.
Family physician Bob Camp l<x>kcd
over the sample ballot posted on the
wall.
“If there was a place on here for
Militant Rabbi s murder
elicits cries of revenge
NEW YORK - The assassination
of militant Rabbi Mcir Kahanc by a
gunman reportedly of Arab ancestry
drew thousands of mourners to his
funeral Tuesday against a backdrop
of cries for vengeance and of “never
again.”
“There wall be revenge. We be
lieve in revenge,” said Sol Margolis,
president of Kach International, the
li.S. arm of Kahane’s extremist party,
which advocates the ouster of Arabs
J from Israeli-held territory.
Kahanc was gunned down Mon
day night while addressing a Zionist
group at a Manhattan hotel. Police
said Kahanc was taking questions from
the crowd when the gunman slopped
4 feet from him and fired a .357
calibcr weapon.
The Israeli government appealed
for peace as police and army rein
forcements spread out in Israel and
the occupied territories to head off
revenge attacks. The deaths two Ar
abs on Tuesday were linked to Ka
hanc’s slaying.
Tens of thousands of people jammed
a synagogue in Brooklyn and spilled
onto a four-lane highway for the fu
J ncral of the 58-ycar-old Kahanc. His
txxly was to be flown to Israel for
burial uxlay.
"It is possible for the heart to well
up and cry for the horrible loss our
nation has suffered,” Rabbi Moshc
Tendlcrof Yeshiv a University said as
thousands cheered outside Young Israel
ol Ocean Parkway Synagogue.
Rabbi Herbert Bom/cr, a long
time triend and leader ol the syna
gogue where the service was held,
said Kahanc w'as always welcome
there. Many synagogues barred Ka
hanc because he sanctioned violence.
Rabbi Mcir Kahanc was a friend,
a leader, a lighter, a writer, a thinker.
He was a spokesman for the defense
of Jew s all around the world,” Bom/cr
said.
The militant Jewish Defense
League, founded by Kahanc in 1968,
has been linked by die FBI to various
acts of violence, including a 1972
tirebombing that killed one person
and injured 13 others.
The loudest applause came when
Bom/cr proclaimed that Kahanc "was
a strident voice calling, Never Again
the slogan used by Kahanc mrefer
• encc to the Holocaust.
No one, I would have voted a straight
ticket,” he said. “I am thoroughly
disgusted. 1 am more than that. I am
one step beyond disgusted.”
Turnout was heavy as usual at the
Cape Canaveral Recreation Center,
where nearly half the voters arc re
tired. Many of the others are em
ployed at the Kennedy Space Center
or its pffshoots in the aerospace in
dustry.
The common theme: Throw the
bums out.
‘There’s noth ing right today, from
the banks to the S&Ls to the war to
the budget,” grumbled real estate
agent John Jones, 54. “I'm going to
do what I can to change it.”
Jones said he voted against the
incumbents.
“It’s the first time in my life 1 ever
felt so strongly about it,” he said.
These arc the people who bothered
to vote. For every one of them, there
was at least one other qualified citi
zen who abandoned that right.
Gorbachev, Yeltsin
set up conference
MOSCOW - In a move to
ward peace on the eve of the
anniversary of the Bolshevik
Revolution, Boris N. Yeltsin ^aui
Tuesday he and Mikhail S.
Gorbachev have agreed to dis
cuss their differences.
Yeltsin, the Russian presi
dent, declined to say who pro
posed the meeting scheduled lor
Sunday, but it was the Soviet
president who approached
Yeltsin to shake his hand alter a
holiday ceremony in the Krem
lin’s Palace of Congresses.
‘‘We just agreed with Gor
bachev to meet on the 1! th one
on-one,” Yeltsin said. ‘‘There
will be very many issues and it
will be an important meeting,
he said, declining to elaborate
The meeting will be the first
between the rival politicians since
their attempt at reconciliation
over economic reform broke
down in laic summer. The rilt
put Yeltsin’s Russian Federa
tion, the Soviet Union's largest
republic, on a collision course
with the central government.