Angry Exchanges Mark GOP Candidates’ Debate

Bob Dole flubbed a question about rape and abortion, and Patrick J. Buchanan made a spirited defense of the Confederate flag--a symbol of “defiance,” he called it--as the four major Republican presidential candidates debated conservative themes two days before this state’s crucial primary.

With the race still wide open, the contenders gathered Thursday for a one-hour afternoon debate here, sometimes displaying the good-natured camaraderie of men under unique and mounting pressure--and sometimes fuming and wagging their fingers at one another.

In the debate’s one unusual touch, each candidate was called upon to watch and defend his often-negative campaign advertisements.

At the end of the day, the candidates got together again here, this time at a “God-and-Country” rally sponsored by the Christian Coalition and attended by several hundred persons.

The audience erupted when Buchanan entered the room, and some jeered Dole’s arrival. Buchanan, whose hopes in the South Carolina primary rest heavily on strong support from the religious right, sparked cheers with denunciations of abortion, the Department of Education and the “New World Order.”

But Dole then brought them to rapt silence with an uncharacteristically passionate and moving account of his struggles to overcome the poverty of his youth in Dust Bowl Kansas and the severe wounds he suffered in World War II.

“I think I’ve been tempered. I think I’ve learned a lot from hard knocks,” he said. Dole also argued that he, not Buchanan, was the natural choice for Christian conservatives. “We’ve heard the speeches and we’ll hear more speeches, but look at the voting record,” he said.

Dole also suggested voters take a pragmatic approach in Saturday’s primary. “Bob Dole will be the Republican nominee and you shouldn’t throw away your vote,” he said.

At the debate, the most dramatic moment came when a young woman in the audience raised a hypothetical question: “If I am viciously raped by a brutal criminal, would you oppose a first-trimester abortion, knowing that a continued pregnancy would cause me mental and emotional anguish?”

“Yes I would,” Dole responded, an answer that represented a break from his position in the past. “I’m opposed to abortion as I’ve indicated before.” He left the issue at that.

When the questioning returned to him a few minutes later on a different topic, Dole, realizing he had erred, sought to restate his long-standing, oft-repeated view on the abortion issue. Dole said he would ban abortion, but would “support exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother.”

Still later, after the debate, a defensive Dole said somewhat implausibly he did not hear the part of the question regarding rape.

Buchanan began his answer to the woman’s question by expressing empathy for rape victims, calling the crime “a horrendous atrocity, and it’s happened to too many women across this country.”

He then restated his adamant opposition to abortion under any circumstance, adding that if the attacker was a serial rapist, he would be inclined to seek his execution. And he said he would urge a woman impregnated by a rapist to seek counseling and give the baby up for adoption “because I believe your unborn child is innocent, and the only guilty party here is the rapist.”

Dole, in his effort during the debate to clarify his position, had added that he “would do pretty much as Pat Buchanan indicated in this case.” The senator later told reporters he meant to agree with Buchanan only on “the counseling part.”

In their replies to the young woman, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander and publishing scion Steve Forbes said they would permit a woman to make her own choice about abortion under such a circumstance.

In another sign of the importance of the abortion issue in the GOP campaign, the National Right to Life political action committee has announced a newspaper advertising campaign supporting the antiabortion stands of Buchanan and Dole and opposing those of Forbes and Alexander.

Forbes on Thursday night privately discussed his positions on abortion and other social issues with Ralph Reed, the head of the Christian Coalition. A Forbes spokesman described the session as “amicable.”

The Confederate flag was raised as an issue at the debate by an audience member who noted that minorities found the flag “divisive and exclusionary” but that Buchanan had written in defense of its display.

“Well, I’ve got a sort of personal interest in this,” said Buchanan, noting that his great-grandfather had fought for the Confederacy against Gen. William Sherman during the Union march through Georgia.

“That Confederate battle flag, to me, is a symbol of defiance, courage, bravery in the face of overwhelming odds,” Buchanan said. “I believe that everyone should stand up for their heritage. It didn’t fly over slave quarters. It flew over battlefields. . . . “

Calling attempts to curb the flag’s use “an outrage,” Buchanan added: “My friends, there is room in America for the song of the civil rights movement, ‘We Shall Overcome.’ There’s got to be room for ‘Dixie.’ ”

Only the four leading GOP contenders were allowed on the stage for the South Carolina debate, prompting a fifth candidate, Alan Keyes, to protest his exclusion and vow to begin a hunger strike.

At times, the forum became a free-for-all, in part because of the replays of various negative ads by the candidates.

The audience, for example, was shown a Forbes advertisement accusing Alexander of raising taxes and drawing a $295,000 salary from a Washington law firm engaged in lobbying.

Alexander fumed, wagged a finger angrily at Forbes and scolded the political neophyte. “You should practice your dirty business on a race for the school board before you try for the presidency.”

That exchange prompted Dole to say: “Time out!”

Buchanan then jumped in to play an unaccustomed role, the peacemaker. “Why don’t we focus on the issues?” he said.

Dole, the leader in recent polls in South Carolina, found himself a target during much of the debate. Forbes at one point accused him of “fudging again--just like Washington always does” on such issues as taxes and term limits.

“Don’t malign my integrity here,” Dole snapped in response.

In turn, the Senate majority leader called Forbes “the king of negative advertising,” still bristling at what he called $12 million worth of Forbes ads directed at him, largely during the Iowa and New Hampshire campaigns.

Alexander quickly piled on, saying that Dole was “the prince” of negative ads.

Alexander, the only one of the four who has yet to win a primary or caucus and needs to do well in South Carolina’s vote, also challenged Dole to “tell us where you want to take the country--instead of calling Pat Buchanan names and distorting my record.”

Under such fire, Dole turned to Forbes and said jokingly: “Steve, you gotta defend me.”

To which Forbes, whose poise as a debater continues to improve, replied: “Senator, you’ve been on the public payroll for 35 years, if you can’t defend yourself by now, I can’t help.”

On other issues, Buchanan ripped into the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying: “If NAFTA is a success, I would hate to see a failure.”

The others criticized Buchanan’s protectionist trade policies, saying those policies will lead to higher taxes and job loss. “We need trade. We can’t build a wall around America,” Dole said.

That prompted Buchanan to interrupt: “Would you vote for NAFTA again today?”

Dole replied: “Not without some changes in it.”

“Good,” Buchanan said.

At another point, Alexander turned to Buchanan and said: “You’re good at what the problem is, but you haven’t got a single solution.”

Buchanan denied accusations that he favors new tariffs on all foreign goods.

“I believe in free and fair trade with free and fair traders like Germany and England, Europe. But I do not believe in being a wimp when you’ve got a country like China that puts a 40% tariff on American goods,” Buchanan said.

He called the country’s trade deficit “a metastasizing cancer in the belly of America that is eating at our substance.”

On another abortion-related question, the candidates were asked if they would apply a litmus test to their vice presidential running mate.

Buchanan said unequivocally that he would not name anyone to the ticket who is not also against all abortions--thus, he noted, ruling out retired Gen. Colin L. Powell.

Forbes said he would name a running mate who shared his views on abortions. Dole did not provide a direct answer, saying instead that he would pick a “conservative running mate, somebody who is prepared to take over on day one, if necessary.”

Alexander replied: “The answer to your question is, no.”

In his closing remarks, Buchanan repeatedly reminded voters, “I’ve stood with South Carolina.” He noted that he supported state officials who tried to prevent a woman from enrolling in The Citadel, a military academy. He supported the state again when federal officials--the “Christian bashers,” as he called them--took away the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University. And he again noted that he stood with those South Carolinians supporting the right to fly the Confederate flag.

In other campaign developments, Buchanan was questioned about a woman who works for him as a maid. He said that she is a resident legal immigrant and that he has paid Social Security and withheld taxes for her. She is Chilean and “a very nice lady,” Buchanan said.

Also, two South Carolina military leaders criticized Buchanan for opposing the Persian Gulf War. South Carolina Adjutant Gen. Stan Spears and Gen. Raymond Davis both said that Buchanan’s opposition to the war made clear that he was “no South Carolina conservative.”

In New York, meanwhile, lawyers for Dole announced they were giving up efforts to keep Buchanan off the state’s Wednesday primary ballot in 10 congressional districts. As a result, Buchanan will be on the ballot in 23 of the state’s 31 districts.

Dole and Forbes will be on the ballot in all 31 districts. No other candidates have qualified for New York’s primary. Dole’s effort to use the state’s arcane election laws to keep rivals off the ballot had generated damaging publicity in the state.

Times staff writers Marc Lacey, Eleanor Randolph and Louis Sahagun contributed to this story.

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