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By Ryan Thornburg
Washingtonpost.com Staff
Thursday, March 4, 1999

President Clinton and New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman (R) on Wednesday both pushed their parties to move beyond the White House scandal.

"You probably shouldn’t get in the race unless you’re prepared to have a national correspondent ask you what you did on prom night." – Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. (Foster's Daily Democrat, Dover, N.H., March 4 .

In a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Whitman said Republicans needed to repair the mean-spirited image of the impeachment process. "Republicans emerged (from impeachment) with a popular image rivaling that of the Kathy Bates character in Stephen King's 'Misery,'" she said.

Clinton, meanwhile, was in Newark, N.J., where he raised $2.15 million for Democratic Sen. Robert Torricelli.

• Call to Arms by Clinton, Whitman (The Star-Ledger, Newark, March 4)
• Whitman Says Impeachment Helped Democrats, Hurt GOP (The Star-Ledger, Newark, March 4)

Bradley Finds Lessons in Ventura's Outsider Image
Former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley, who is holding a home-state fund-raiser for his Democratic presidential bid today, told a New Hampshire newspaper that "Jesse Ventura's success was because he’s a real human being ... "not some guy who had blow-dried hair."
• Bradley Says His Common-Man View Contrasts With Gore's Insider Focus (The Telegraph, Nashua, N.H., March 3)
• Bradley's Best Shot Is to See How Far He Can Ride Reform (The Star-Ledger, Newark, March 4)

Nashville Car Crash Kills Top Gore Fund-Raiser
Two days before Vice President Gore was to raise campaign cash in his home state of Tennessee, a Nashville car crash killed his chief fund-raiser, Alex Haught. Haught was on a leave of absence from his job as chief of staff for Rep. Bob Clement (D-Tenn.).
• West End Crash Kills One of Gore's Fund-Raisers (The Tennessean, Nashville, March 4)

Bush to Defend Clinton Target, Family Name
For all his consideration for the folks back home, Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R) is throwing himself smack dab in the middle of the national fund-raising fight between President Clinton and his accusers. On Friday, Bush will attend a $1,000-a-plate Dallas fund-raiser for Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.). Clinton is targeting Dickey for defeat in the 2000 elections.
• Register to Sponsor Debates Before Presidential Caucuses (The Des Moines Register, Feb. 28)

Bush is still just mulling over his potential candidacy, but almost one sure way of getting him to step up to the plate would be for Ross Perot to get into the race. It's a family thing. Bush don't like him and his momma don't like him neither. "What an amazing, insensitive man!" former first lady Barbara Bush said of Perot in her 1994 autobiography.
• Perot Run Might Stir Feud With Bushes (Austin American-Statesman, March 4)

Ryan Thornburg can be reached at ryan.thornburg@washingtonpost.com