Hasta La Vista, Bobby

By SOPHFRONIA SCOTT GREGORY

Gloria Steinem flew to Texas all the way from New York City to call Senate candidate Kay Bailey Hutchison a "female impersonator." Actress Annie Potts of Designing Women pooh-poohed the Republican's vague stance on abortion rights, saying, "She's just the same old thing in a skirt." Columnist Molly Ivins hung the epithet "Breck girl" on her, comparing the way the candidate tossed her blond hair to the slow-motion antics of models in the shampoo commercial. But Hutchison, the Texas state treasurer, survived those and many other attacks. Last week she defeated Democrat Bob Krueger, winning the seat vacated in January by Lloyd Bentsen and becoming the first woman to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate. As Texas political analyst George Christian noted, "The gender factor has worked for her. I don't think you can overstate the issue of gender in today's politics. Women are playing political catch-up in a big way." The win took the Democratic majority down to 56 Senate seats (the G.O.P. has 44).

For both parties the month-long runoff campaign was more clownish than astute. The Democrat, for example, picked on the Republican's quick temper and produced one nasty story from a former Hutchison aide. In 1991 Hutchison, enraged that her assistant Sharon Ammann (daughter of former Texas Governor John Connally) was too slow locating a phone number of a political supporter, "just lost it," said another former employee who corroborated Ammann's account. Hutchison "hit Sharon with a notebook and kept hitting her." Hutchison denied the incident. Ammann remained adamant that it had occurred. Both took polygraph tests -- and passed.

Trailing badly in the polls, Krueger, who was appointed by Governor Ann Richards to fill Bentsen's seat until the election, attempted a Hollywood- style comeback. A former English literature professor, he appeared in a commercial in leather and sunglasses a la Terminator, confessed to stuffiness and a proclivity for bad dark suits, then spouted the line, "Was it Shakespeare who said, 'Hasta la vista, baby'?" The act of self-deprecation bombed, becoming instead one of self-mockery. A Hutchison ad's reply: "Hasta la vista, Bobby." Even Barbara Bush piped in. "I know Arnold Schwarzenegger," she said. "And Bob Krueger is no Schwarzenegger." Late in the campaign, young Republicans paraded outside Krueger's headquarters in leather jackets proclaiming June 5 "Termination Day." Krueger staff members ran out to retaliate, beating themselves over the head with notebooks yelling "It's not okay! It's not okay!" Texas' most famous syndicated political columnist, meanwhile, zinged both candidates. "It's just a real boring race between two incredible stiffs," said Ivins. "They've campaigned on cliches and image."

Sensing the unpopularity of Clinton's proposed tax hikes, Hutchison cast the election as a referendum on the Administration. Krueger obliged by voting against Clinton's budget levels. "Democratic candidates will look at Krueger and see that he ran from Clinton like a scalded dog and still couldn't get away from him," said Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican National Committee. Said Texas' other Senator, Republican Phil Gramm: "If Bill Clinton and Ann Richards can put a pretty face on this devastating defeat, they ought to be morticians instead of politicians."

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, who was a candidate for the seat before joining the Cabinet, offered a different spin. The race might have been much closer, said Cisneros, but "Krueger ran away from his President and his party." He added, "His campaign was almost a blunt rejection of the President. The President could not campaign where he was not invited and not welcome."

With reporting by Ann Blackman/Washington and Carlton Stowers/Dallas