Invigorated Dole Attacks Clinton, Media

Campaigning across the must-win state of Texas, Republican Bob Dole on Friday unleashed a scorching attack on President Clinton while making a direct appeal to supporters of Ross Perot.

Fired up as he has rarely been in his long quest for the presidency, Dole repeatedly asked a crowd here and one in Houston, “Where is the outrage in America? Where is the outrage?” as he charged that Clinton has violated the public trust through a variety of ethical transgressions.

Dole also targeted the news media for harsh words, accusing it of trying to “steal the election” by being biased in favor of Democrats and the Clinton White House.

His criticism of the media touched off a roar of sympathy from thousands of supporters at a sports arena on the campus of Southern Methodist University here. Many in the crowd turned and angrily shouted at reporters covering the rally.

A similar assault on media coverage by Dole earlier in the day at the rally in Houston generated much the same response from his crowd there.

Dole’s bid for the votes of Perot supporters came in the wake of his campaign’s failed effort to persuade the Reform Party presidential candidate to drop out of the race and endorse the GOP ticket. In a reference to Perot’s single-digit standing in the polls, Dole urged his backers not to waste their votes in the Nov. 5 election.

“I don’t like having to run against two people because every vote for Perot is a vote for Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton knows it,” Dole said. “I think Ross Perot would know it [and] if he doesn’t want Clinton, he ought to say ‘Vote for Bob Dole.’ ”

From Texas, a state that traditionally has voted for GOP presidential candidates but is a toss-up this year, Dole headed for California after a stop in Phoenix. He arrived in Visalia Friday night and is scheduled to campaign across much of California through Monday.

In his speeches in Texas, Dole for the first time linked Clinton directly to the White House personnel security office’s possession of the FBI files of some 900 prominent Republicans and former staff members in GOP administrations.

“We have the president of the United States sitting down there with 900 FBI files, one might be one of yours. Might be yours. . . .” Dole said.

“And then we have the president of the United States, who won’t say he will not pardon somebody who did business with him and might implicate him later on. Where is the outrage in America? Where is the outrage?”

As he did while campaigning Thursday in Florida--another state that in most recent presidential elections was solidly in the GOP column at this stage--Dole expressed annoyance at what he evidently regards as an apathetic electorate.

At one point Friday he asked: “When will the voters start to focus?” Then he quickly supplied his own answer: “I think they’ve started about right now.”

Returning to his media bashing, Dole added: “When will the American people rise up and say, Forget the media in America. We’re going to make up our minds; you’re not gonna make up our minds.’ ”

*

Dole accused the media of giving Clinton and the Democratic Party “a transfusion every day--free, free.”

He added: “If they weren’t getting propped up by the media every day, this election would have been over two weeks ago.”

The GOP candidate sarcastically expressed resentment at what he deemed the soft treatment Vice President Al Gore has received at the hands of the press, with Dole referring to his former Senate colleague as “Good Ol’ Al.”

Gore has come under fire for attending a Democratic fund-raiser at a Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights, Calif., in April at which $140,000 was contributed to the party. The Democratic National Committee last week reimbursed the temple $15,000 and acknowledged it was improper to conduct a fund-raiser at a religious institution. Questions persist about whether some of those listed as donors at the event gave their own money.

This week, Gore said during a radio interview that he had mistakenly assumed the affair to be a “community outreach” event, an assertion that Dole mocked during the Houston rally Friday.

“I don’t understand why Vice President Gore goes to a Buddhist temple, where everybody’s taken a vow of poverty, and comes out with $122,000. Good Ol’ Al, he explains it to the media: ‘Oh, I was on an outreach program.’ So that would be the end of that. Nobody will look beyond that in the media. That’s the end of that one.”

The Houston rally, held in a four-story atrium, was packed with hundreds of boisterous supporters, and their frequent roars reverberated loudly in the hall--at one point prompting Dole’s wife, Elizabeth, to jokingly cover her ears. The Dallas rally attracted about 7,000 backers.

Despite the enthusiasm that marked both gatherings, Dole’s stops in Texas were indicative of the dilemma facing his campaign--trying to secure his standing in traditionally Republican states while still needing to catch up with Clinton in other parts of the country.

The most recent statewide poll in Texas showed Dole just barely ahead of Clinton, 42% to 39%. A story in Friday’s Dallas Morning News recalled that in April, Gov. George W. Bush said that if Dole had to campaign in Texas in October, “it would be a sign that we’re in trouble.”

But Friday, Bush offered a different view, telling Dole: “There should be no doubt in your mind that Texas is Dole country.”

At his Phoenix rally Friday evening, Dole’s words remained sharp. “They think they are above the law,” he said of the Clinton White House. And continuing to attack the press, he led his audience in chanting: “Tell the truth, tell the truth.”