GOP Rivals Step Up Attacks on Bush

The approaching GOP presidential straw poll in Iowa has prompted frustrated Republican candidates to sharpen their attacks on front-runner George W. Bush, including the launch of the year’s first negative ads in the state.

Last week alone, millionaire publisher Steve Forbes and former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander started airing ads in Iowa that clearly target Bush, though they never mention him by name.

The ads follow a significant escalation in both candidates’ efforts to criticize Bush on the campaign trail. Likewise, social activist Gary Bauer, another GOP contender, built a recent bus tour in Iowa around a series of pointed attacks on Bush over issues such as trade with China and abortion.

No Plans to Retaliate

Bush doesn’t appear unduly concerned about this erupting cross-fire: While his rivals are frantically crisscrossing Iowa, he’s in the midst of a two-week vacation at his family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Karen Hughes, Bush’s communications director, responded to the attacks by reemphasizing the Texas governor’s intention to avoid criticizing his rivals.

“We would hope that our fellow Republican candidates will follow Gov. Bush in talking about what they believe . . . and not attempt to tear down a fellow Republican,” she said.

Prompting the unusually early engagement is deep anxiety in the GOP field about Bush’s commanding lead in money and the polls. The attacks also demonstrate the high stakes for the candidates in the Iowa straw poll, which will be held Aug. 14 in the university town of Ames.

Many analysts believe the most financially stressed candidates--including Alexander and former Vice President Dan Quayle--could be forced out if they finish poorly in Ames, while others, like Bauer and former American Red Cross President Elizabeth Hanford Dole, could find it even more difficult to attract contributors.

Dole, for her part, is trying to ignore Bush’s shadow.

“She is not going to sling mud,” said Dole spokesman Ari Fleischer. “She is focused like a laser beam on her issues.”

But many of the contenders see Ames as their last chance to puncture Bush’s aura of inevitability before the actual primary and caucus voting begins early next year.

“When it became evident that Bush was going to enter [the straw poll], and a bunch of campaigns were in financial trouble, Ames this time became the kind of demolition derby that the Iowa caucus itself had been in past cycles,” says Jeff Bell, a senior advisor to Bauer. “There was a sense this thing was getting started.”

That’s evident in the escalating attacks on the Texas governor. Bush’s rivals are targeting him from several fronts.

Alexander’s ads, which began running on Iowa television Thursday, suggest Bush’s enormous fund-raising advantage--he raised more in the first half of the year than all of his rivals combined--is threatening to undermine the Iowa caucus by diminishing the importance of the grass-roots campaigning that has long defined the contest.

TV Ads Don’t Mention Bush

Though the ad never mentions Bush by name, its target is clear.

It opens with an announcer declaring that the Iowa caucuses have been scrapped and replaced with an auction on the White House lawn. A group of cigar-smoking men in cowboy hats are then shown waving money outside the White House and cheering a victory.

Alexander then comes onto the camera and declares--in an unmistakable reference to Bush, the son of former President George Bush--”I’ve been all over Iowa because the presidency’s too important to be bought or inherited. It ought to be earned.”

“The ad points out the difference between the style of campaign Gov. Bush is waging and the style of campaign Alexander is waging,” said Brian Kennedy, Alexander’s political director.

Alexander advisors wouldn’t say how much he’s spending on the ads, though media sources say his financially strapped campaign appears to have bought about $40,000 in television time last week in Des Moines.

Hughes, the Bush spokeswoman, parried that the governor’s fund-raising success reflects grass-roots support from tens of thousands of Republicans who are contributing to his campaign as well as expressing support in other ways. “Maybe some of the other candidates are getting a little frustrated that so many grass-roots Americans are supporting Gov. Bush,” she said.

In their thrusts at Bush, both Forbes and Bauer are emphasizing more ideological contrasts than Alexander, who occupies roughly the same center-right space as the Texas governor.

Though Forbes has been careful to avoid the sort of full-scale advertising blitz that engendered a backlash when he targeted it against front-runner Bob Dole in 1996, the publisher has steadily stepped up his efforts to portray Bush as too moderate and too indebted to the party’s establishment. This effort to sharpen ideological distinctions with Bush “will keep on building right through the fall,” said one senior Forbes advisor.

In the last few weeks, Forbes has criticized Bush for the tax increases he included in a 1997 Texas proposal (a plan that would also have cut property taxes, a fact Forbes does not mention) and for his acceptance of campaign contributions from “Washington lobbyists” and “fat cats.”

When Bush delivered his first major policy speech recently--calling for increased reliance on faith-based charities to deliver services to the poor--Forbes said he should have proposed tax cuts instead.

In his new radio ad, which is running in cities across Iowa, Forbes also never mentions Bush by name. But he targets what may be one of Bush’s principal vulnerabilities with social conservatives. During his initial campaign swing through New Hampshire in June, Bush said that as president he would not specifically require the federal judges he appoints to be opposed to abortion rights--though he did promise to appoint judges who “strictly interpret the Constitution.”

Litmus Test on Abortion

As he has barnstormed Iowa, Forbes has promised to impose such an abortion litmus test for judges. In the new radio ad, he criticizes candidates who have not taken such a pledge, accusing them of fearing “political repercussions.”

Hughes dismissed the call for such litmus tests as counterproductive, pointing out that some “legal scholars believe that judges” would be prohibited from ruling on abortion rights cases if they were required to give a specific pledge about their view before their appointment.

During his bus tour through Iowa earlier this month, Bauer also targeted Bush over the judge issue. But he opened a new front in the ideological attack, chastising Bush for raising money in Hollywood. And he criticized Bush for supporting China’s entry into the World Trade Organization.

In all, Bauer charged, Bush’s agenda would lead the GOP too close to the “new Democrat” synthesis offered by President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore. “Republican voters deserve a choice, not an echo in the 2000 presidential election,” Bauer insisted.

While these fusillades are being aimed at Bush, Forbes has run into his own turbulence.

The chairwoman of the Iowa Christian Coalition, Bonnie Gobel, has charged that Forbes’ campaign had inquired about hiring temporary workers from her employment agency to cast votes at the straw poll in Ames.

The national Christian Coalition distanced itself from Gobel’s allegation and put out a statement saying she hadn’t said it. But Gobel, who supports Quayle, stuck by the charge, which the Forbes camp vehemently denied.

The national coalition then fired Gobel. She said she will fight the dismissal. “We’re not paying anybody; don’t have to, never will,” said Bill Dal Col, Forbes’ campaign manager. “Steve Forbes doesn’t run races that way. He has plenty of grass-roots support, and we are going to deliver.”