New Lugar Ad Spotlights His ‘Common-Sense’ Conservatism

Indiana Sen. Richard G. Lugar talks up his support for the federal school lunch program in a second ad portraying himself as a “common-sense” conservative in the Republican presidential race.

The 30-second TV spot is running in Iowa and New Hampshire over the next several days, along with an ad that highlights Lugar’s support for the ban on assault-style weapons.

“The Republican Party is in danger of marginalizing its message by resorting to extremist rhetoric,” Lugar said in releasing the ad. “My campaign is about unifying Americans for common purpose.”

Lugar, as chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, blocked welfare reform in Congress for several weeks because he refused to turn the federal school lunch entitlement into a state responsibility paid for by block grants from Washington.

He eventually backed a compromise in the welfare bill that would allow pilot projects in seven states as an alternative to the federal lunch program, but President Clinton vetoed the legislation this month.

Apart from school lunches, Lugar shares the enthusiasm of most GOP candidates for moving programs out of Washington. He supports the use of block grants in education, Medicaid, welfare and law enforcement.

Lugar says in the ad that Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) exerted “great pressure” on him during the welfare negotiations but he held firm on the lunch program.

“It works as it is,” he says, adding that it gives many children the only nutritious meal they get each day.

In the same tag line he used in his gun-control ad, Lugar concludes: “You know, being a conservative doesn’t mean you have to lose your common sense.”

Dole has said little about school lunches. Rivals Lamar Alexander and Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) would give states the program.