CONFIDENTIAL NOTES CAUSE NO BIG STIR

The New York Times poked front-page fun at Senate Democrats last month for notes about party strategy that an unknown staff member unwittingly mislaid on a counter at a liquor store a few blocks from the Capitol. The more important story is how the media mislaid the importance of the notes and neglected to give it serious attention until goaded by talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

The notes were taken at a briefing at which Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle outlined for consultants the problems facing his party. The paper resounded with candid language about Democratic problems and suggestions for demogogic tactics to smear Republicans.

The importance of the notes was that they blamed the Democrats themselves -- and not such adversaries as Newt Gingrich and Limbaugh -- for the party's plight. They recognized that the Democrats have lost the confidence of Americans in drastic degree.

The notes described findings from focus group interviews by strategist Mark Mellman in suburban Detroit, Atlanta and Great Falls, Mont. The notes quoted Mellman: "There is little identity for the Democratic Party. Dems are not seem as representing the middle class or working people any more. Some think that Dems are helping the poor at the expense of the middle class. Republicans are seen as much better on most issues or else tied with us, while the Dems have no significant advantage on any issues. ... Our party has failed to accomplish important things -- 63 percent (believe) Democrats don't get things done." The statistics told an awful story: "Senate Dems have a 72 percent negative rating. President Clinton has a 64 percent negative rating." These figures, the Democrats' very own, showed the depths of unpopularity not reflected in national polls.

Mellman's suggested strategy was to depict Republicans as a tool of lobbyists and big corporations. The notes said, "Opportunities in the weeks ahead include regulatory reform -- we need to emphasize the GOP connection with lobbyists here -- 'The GOP is in bed with the special interests.'" But the notes warned that complaining of "corporate welfare" could be a mixed blessing, because "this works great individually, but not collectively, (because) each senator is watching out for the corporations in his or her state."

Some unknown Democrat who attended the meeting left his or her notes on the counter at the liquor store. And, sure enough, an equally unknown Republican picked them up. Soon a five-page typed copy was circulating through political Washington and to the media.

Peculiarly, the candid self-evaluations about how the Democrats held themselves in such low esteem excited little press attention. John McCaslin, who writes the "Inside the Beltway" column for The Washington Times, nibbled at the story. But his emphasis was how Democrats planned to get on talk shows and how their used of the Internet was ahead of the Republicans.

No other mainstream media picked up the story, nor is there any visible evidence that reporters even tried to get the notes. This prompted Rush Limbaugh to weigh into the story with a sharp attack on the media.

Limbaugh said, "I bet you that even if they found out about the memo it would be a ho-hummer to them. They'd say, 'Eh, what's new about that? ... Where's the conflict in the memo? What did they say about Newt? ... They say anything about Limbaugh in the memo? No? Then we don't care about it.'"

Limbaugh continues, "This is my point: The inside-the-Beltway crowd has become so accustomed to the way business is done that this isn't news to them. ... I just think it's a result of being inside for so long that you become desensitized to what really is interesting to people or what is newsworthy. ... If it were a Republican memo -- say it was a Dole memo -- and it had words in it like 'exploit' and words like 'we don't want the argument to be about big government versus small government because we'd lose, they'd find that news."

In a front-page story, The New York Times gave grudging credit to Limbaugh, who "assailed reporters for not making the notes into a big story." But reporter Richard L. Berke shrugged off the importance of the notes, claiming that there were "hardly alarming for a party that suffered devastating losses at the polls last year." We disagree. For party leaders to speak so candidly about their failure was a story that should have been recognized even by a rookie reporter.

Reed Irvine and Joseph C. Goulden are commentators for Accuracy in Media, a media watchdog organization in Washington, D.C.