Gephardt Assails Dukakis in Hostile Ad

The political advertising war between the Democratic presidential campaigns of Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt and Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis reached a new low Friday, when the Gephardt campaign unleashed a bitterly hostile ad attacking Dukakis for unfairly undermining rivals Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Paul Simon earlier in the campaign.

The new, 10-second ad, which began running across the South Friday night, charges that Dukakis’ own ad currently attacking Gephardt’s willingness to accept contributions from special interests is part of a larger pattern of dirty tricks.

Cites Smear Campaign

“First, the Dukakis campaign smeared Joe Biden with a negative attack video,” the ad’s narrator says. “Then, the Dukakis campaign was caught spying on Paul Simon. Now, the campaign is trying to smear Dick Gephardt.”

The ad refers to two incidents that harmed Dukakis earlier in the campaign. Last fall, two Dukakis aides were fired for leaking videotapes to the press that proved that Biden, a senator from Delaware and at the time a presidential candidate, had plagiarized a speech from a British politician. The tapes helped destroy Biden’s candidacy.

In January, another Dukakis aide was fired for attempting to pose as a Simon supporter to find out information about the Illinois senator’s campaign in Iowa.

The new Gephardt ad went on the air in Super Tuesday states just two days after Dukakis launched his ad attacking Gephardt for posing as an anti-Establishment populist while accepting contributions from political action committees representing big business and other special interests.

Dukakis does not accept funds from PACs. But Gephardt has criticized him for accepting funds from interests that do business with the state of Massachusetts.

On Friday, Gephardt released an 18-page list of Dukakis contributors that do business with the state.

Defends Attacks

Gephardt defended his new attacks on Dukakis, arguing that Dukakis had first raised the “campaign ethics” issue with his ads on Gephardt’s campaign contributions.

“I think Gov. Dukakis brought up the question of campaign ethics, and, if he wants to talk about campaign ethics, we are going to talk about it,” Gephardt said Friday.