Cheney Defends Record as Democrats Lob Shots

As Republicans hoped for a smooth build-up to their convention, vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney on Thursday was forced to launch a strong defense of his conservative voting record in Congress.

Just two days into his new life on the GOP ticket, the former congressman from Wyoming was grilled on the morning talk show circuit about votes he cast more than a decade ago against the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion rights and a resolution to urge the release of Nelson Mandela from a South African prison during apartheid.

“Obviously, I came from a conservative state and did in fact vote that way,” he said on CBS-TV’s “Early Show” in his second day of self-explanation. “But I don’t have any apologies to make for that.”

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, kicks off a five-day excursion today through states viewed as crucial to success in November and his campaign finds itself on the defensive for the first time since the contentious primary season.

In recent weeks, Vice President Al Gore, the presumed Democratic nominee, has described Bush as fiscally irresponsible and characterized his state budget as in the red, charges that Bush angrily denies.

Democratic salvos against Cheney began when the 59-year-old surfaced as a candidate for the No. 2 spot and continued Thursday as surrogates for the vacationing Gore fanned out to paint Cheney as having “an extreme voting record” and “ties to Big Oil.”

“This is a very close race, and Dick Cheney is a blank slate to most of the American people,” said political analyst Charles Cook, publisher of a nonpartisan political newsletter. “It’s a race of who paints the picture first. If the Democrats hold back, then the image comes out that here is this bright, seasoned, experienced former this, former that.”

As Bush prepared in Austin, Texas, for the GOP convention, he also leaped to Cheney’s defense, calling his political partner a “substantial person” who will be a “fabulous vice president.” Bush said he wasn’t surprised by the ongoing Democratic attacks on Cheney’s record. “It’s their constant line,” he said.

Though Cheney is not viewed as an attack dog, the usual job description of a vice presidential candidate, he defended his votes against abortion rights and lashed out at Gore, saying that the vice president had voted the same way when he served in Congress.

Cheney, speaking on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” said that while he “consistently voted pro-life, . . . Al Gore received a 94% rating from the Right-to-Life Committee. This notion that somehow I was out of the mainstream I think simply isn’t valid.”

Gore says he has shifted toward support of abortion rights as his views have evolved. His campaign on Thursday shot off e-mails noting Cheney’s role as chief executive of Halliburton Co., an oil services giant based in Texas.

“Since they’ve [Republicans] made the pick, they’ve been stumbling out of the gate,” said Kym Spell, Gore spokeswoman. “The ticket is all Big Oil. . . . This is a step backward. [Cheney represents] your father’s Republican Party.”

Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, says that in some ways the Bush campaign brought its current difficulties on itself by deciding several weeks ago to make the vice presidential selection process “part of a strategy of keeping the spotlight on them as long as they could.”

By picking a surprise--instead of one on the long list of other No. 2 candidates--the campaign ensured that it would hold the media’s attention going into the convention.

The Republicans “weren’t going to hide. They wanted this to be part of the lead-in to the convention,” Cain said. “They made the vice president the primary focus. They did this to themselves by priming the issue.”

Speaking from his office at Halliburton’s headquarters here, Cheney told CBS that he voted against the Equal Rights Amendment because it appeared that the military would be required to draft women.

“Now, I didn’t think that was a very good idea,” Cheney said. “It would still be difficult to do today, because women are excluded from certain missions in the military, from certain combat roles.”

Republicans proposed amending the measure to exempt the military from any requirement to draft women, but it was blocked by Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, the Democrat who was then House speaker, Cheney said.

On ABC, Cheney defended his votes against bans on armor-piercing bullets and plastic guns that can pass unnoticed through metal detectors. He said that the solution to America’s gun problems is the enforcement of existing law.

“I’d have to go back and dig into [gun votes] in detail,” he said. “But as a general rule, in terms of my philosophy, I was a great believer, and am a great believer today, in the 2nd Amendment, the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms.”

He was also asked about a Wall Street Journal report that the Democrats plan to attack Cheney for hosting events at the Pentagon for GOP donors. Democrats apparently hope to divert attention from the administration, which has come under fire for hosting top Democratic donors at the White House.

“It’s an effort by Democrats to try to obscure the issues,” Cheney said. “Their candidate Al Gore is under investigation by his own Justice Department for potential criminal violations. . . . We did not use political money in the Pentagon ever.”

Many political experts doubt that this current burst of criticism will have a lasting impact on the Bush campaign or the image of Cheney, the former secretary of Defense.

“Does this weaken Bush’s move to the center? Sure, absolutely,” said Martin Wattenberg, a political science professor at UC Irvine. “But the way vice presidential candidates traditionally hurt is when people say they’re not qualified. We don’t have that problem with Dick Cheney.”

Bush himself made that same argument during a short news conference at the Governor’s Mansion in Austin, insisting that the Democrats have not gotten the upper hand in defining Cheney to the American people as ultra-conservative and anti-environment.

“Secretary Cheney united people, brought people together to achieve a great victory,” Bush said, referring to the Persian Gulf War during his father’s administration.

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Times staff writer Matea Gold contributed to this story.