Republicans Strive for Dramatic Primary Finish

With the number of days in which they can strike lightning dwindling down, millionaire publisher and presidential candidate Steve Forbes imported home-state critics of Texas Gov. George W. Bush on Friday to snipe about Bush’s record on education, even as Bush went after John McCain on the issue of taxes.

The attempts at leapfrogging--by third-place Forbes and second-place Bush--opened the final weekend thrust before Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, in which Bush is trying to replicate his Iowa caucus victory and the other Republicans are pressing to upend Bush’s position as the national front-runner.

Forbes was the most aggressive Friday, going after Bush on an issue that the governor has used to attract not only Republicans but independents, moderates and Democrats whose support he would need to win the presidency in November.

Appearing here with one current and one former member of the Texas Board of Education, Forbes tried to strike at the underpinnings of Bush’s campaign--his claim of executive expertise. The officials accused Bush of favoring bureaucrats and cited Texas’ drop in national SAT ratings and continuing problems with dropouts.

“What has happened here in education is part of a pattern of smoke and mirrors and spin,” Forbes said. “Campaign promises made and then broken.”

Later, Forbes was asked about the Bush campaign’s contention that Texas test scores have been diluted by the governor’s effort to encourage all students--not just those clearly destined for college--to take the test.

“Well, obviously if you haven’t been educated, you’re not going to do very well on your SATs,” he said. “If anything, Texas has gone backward.”

Bush dismissed Forbes’ complaints as “negative campaigning.”

“Every objective analysis that looked at my state recognizes that we’re making great improvement when it comes to the education, particularly among African American and Hispanic youngsters,” Bush said at a news conference in Portsmouth.

“You can tell half stories in politics. You can try to paint any picture you want. But the people in my state, they’re the best judge. And they have given me a back-to-back four-year term.”

Bush spent his firepower reinforcing his own proposals on issues like taxes--and criticizing those of McCain. As he has in recent days, Bush sought to malign McCain by comparing him with Democrats. In the wake of Thursday’s State of the Union address, he linked McCain to President Clinton.

Referring to the $350-billion tax cut proposed by Clinton in the speech, Bush said: “The only thing about the tax cut is, it confirms my point . . . that he and John McCain agree on the size of the tax cut.”

Bush’s plan would cut taxes by $483 billion over five years, while McCain’s would slice $237 billion over five years and funnel more money than Bush into replenishing Social Security and other programs. Clinton’s cut, while numerically larger than McCain’s, would take twice the time--10 years--to be fully realized.

Later, Bush told reporters gathered at Portsmouth’s Franklin Pierce College that McCain’s tax plan would hurt institutions that rely on charitable donations. Bush, side by side with college President George Hagerty, said that McCain’s plan would limit how much donors could deduct for their gifts.

“I believe it will discourage charitable giving in America,” Bush declared. “. . . I do believe the tax code should be used to encourage charitable deductions.”

McCain’s campaign director, John Weaver, said the tax changes would close loopholes available largely to the wealthy.

“The governor acts like he is running to be host of ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,’ not president of the United States,” Weaver said.

McCain dismissed Bush’s criticism, sticking with his epistle of government reform as he scurried around New Hampshire, holding two town meetings and dropping by an Exeter museum to view a first-edition copy of the Declaration of Independence.

“I want to be president of the United States because I want to reform the government,” he said.

He also lauded the Internet as the most promising sector of the economy. McCain’s tax plan would permanently ban a sales tax on electronic commerce.

“This is the ultimate revenge of the nerds, what’s happening today,” he told high school students in Exeter.

In their different fashions, each of the candidates was pressing for advantage and looking ahead to a whirlwind of campaigning before Tuesday’s primary. Evidence on Friday suggested that the weekend could prove crucial; polls released during the day showed Bush cutting into McCain’s long-held lead.

Tom Rath, the New Hampshire political veteran who is advising Bush, said that Bush was helped by his mere presence here. Until this week, Bush has focused both on New Hampshire and Iowa; McCain, who ignored Iowa, has virtually taken up residence here.

Bush did, however, take a punch Friday from the Manchester Union-Leader, the conservative newspaper that bashed his father throughout the presidential campaign of 1988 here and is now visiting its wrath upon President George Bush’s son.

“Bush Insults NH” said the headline on its front-page editorial, which accused the candidate it called “Governor Smirk” of harboring “ill-disguised contempt” for his rivals. Not surprisingly, the paper has endorsed one of those rivals--Forbes.

However, Bush received the endorsement of another former pillar of New Hampshire conservatives, former Gov. John Sununu. Sununu ran the come-from-behind state campaign of Bush’s father. Sununu later served as the senior Bush’s first chief of staff.

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Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Maria L. La Ganga with Bush, T. Christian Miller with McCain and O’Connor with Forbes. It was written in Los Angeles by Decker.