Bush Is No-Show, and Non-Issue, in First GOP Presidential Debate of the Season

While Texas Gov. George W. Bush attended a fund-raiser in Vermont, five aspiring Republican presidents all but ignored their party’s front-runner as they jousted Friday in the first presidential candidates’ debate of this election cycle.

In more ways than one, Bush was a non-presence as businessman Steve Forbes, radio host Alan Keyes, former Reagan advisor Gary Bauer and Sens. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and John McCain of Arizona gathered at the University of New Hampshire.

Rather than a Bush-bash, as many had anticipated, the meeting moderated by ABC-TV correspondent Cokie Roberts was a supremely polite exchange in which the country’s need to embrace morality was a background theme for almost every topic.

For example, Keyes, by far the most impassioned in an otherwise staid, hourlong encounter, described “renewed moral self-confidence” as the secret to continued economic prosperity.

Forbes Criticizes U.S. Deployments

As wooden as Keyes was animated, Forbes called for increased morality in foreign affairs, blasting the Clinton-Gore White House for its “promiscuous” deployment of U.S. troops around the world.

Sounding a similar note, Bauer promised to end most-favored-nation status for China and vowed to overhaul foreign aid distribution.

“There is nothing moral about the truck driver in Manchester, N.H., working 18 hours a day and sending his taxes to the Soviet Union,” Bauer said.

Although known for their conservatism, all five GOP hopefuls at times sounded almost like Democrats as they lamented this country’s growing gap between rich and poor, the decline in public education and the frustrations ordinary citizens experience in dealing with health care conglomerates.

Health care delivery is in a state of gridlock, McCain said, because “the Democrats are in the grip of the trial lawyers, who want everyone to sue everyone else, and the Republicans are in the grip of the insurance companies.”

Often wagging her finger at the participants as if they were naughty schoolchildren, Roberts several times attempted to steer the conversation toward global issues. When she asked about the perception that Republicans are neo-isolationists, her panel responded almost unanimously that the United States should not be the world’s watchdog.

For the most part, however, the candidates seemed determined to retain a domestic focus. Education was of special concern.

Urging vouchers to allow parents to select schools for their children, Forbes advocated applying the lessons of business to education. “Education is a monopoly,” he said. “Monopolies don’t work in business. They don’t work in education.”

Turning question after question to the subject of education, McCain called for higher wages for teachers.

“There is no reason why a good teacher should be paid less than a bad senator,” McCain said.

McCain, speaking in soft, measured tones, also raised education when asked how to maintain economic prosperity. Good teachers, he said, are vital to the “information technology revolution” that he said is at the heart of America’s developing economy.

Hatch, who billed himself as the “common-sense conservative,” noted that he, his wife and their six children had all attended public schools. “President Clinton and Vice President Gore loved public attention so much that they sent all their kids to private schools,” Hatch said.

Hatch earned a none-too-subtle rebuke from Roberts when he declared that raising the minimum wage would freeze people at the bottom of the economic ladder. To help raise their economic status, he said, poor people need a president “who literally will set an example.”

Roberts cast him a withering gaze.

“Senator,” she asked, “can you eat example?”

A poll of New Hampshire voters released Thursday by the American Research Group showed Hatch trailing the pack of Republican hopefuls, with less than 1% support. Bush, who claimed he had committed to appear at a fund-raiser in Sugarbush, Vt., too long ago to attend the debate, was far ahead with a 42% rating. McCain’s 26% support reflected a 10-percentage-point gain since August.

The same poll showed Keyes’ support dropping from 4% in August to 3%. Patrick J. Buchanan, who is expected to announce Monday that he will seek the Reform Party nomination, showed a 2% rating, down from 8% in August. Bauer held steady in the new poll with the same 1% rating he showed earlier.

The poll of 600 likely New Hampshire GOP voters was conducted Oct. 14-19. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Bush Mentioned Only Twice

Bush, meanwhile, was mentioned by name only twice, when Roberts introduced the topic of “partial-birth” abortions. Her question was prompted by Bush’s comment earlier in the day that he would have voted for a ban on such procedures.

In the only reference to Bush by a candidate, Bauer called the comment nonsensical and said, “I wish he was here so we could talk to him about it.”

McCain used the question as an opportunity to note the range of options and opinions about abortion. Describing himself as “proud to be an adopted father,” he decried the polarization and bitterness surrounding the subject.

But Forbes harked back to the language of the Founding Fathers. The Declaration of Independence talks about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, he said, and “if you put liberty before life, that is a license to kill, which is what we have too often now.”

If the candidates all but pretended Bush didn’t exist while engaged in debate, off-camera they let loose. McCain said Bush disappointed New Hampshire voters by failing to show up.

“They expect to see you, to talk to you,” he said.

Bush’s absence was “an insult to the voters of New Hampshire,” Forbes said.

“An incredible insult,” Bauer added.