Bush Ads Ring the Education Bell

Seeking to take command of a traditionally Democratic issue, Republican George W. Bush on Friday began airing TV ads touting his education programs in Texas while awarding Al Gore and President Clinton failing grades for their education record. Within hours, Gore responded with an ad blasting the Bush attacks.

The 60-second commercials were released the same day that a new poll showed Texas Gov. Bush pulling within 2 percentage points of Vice President Gore among voters on the issue of education.

The “Battleground 2000” poll, a joint effort by GOP strategist Ed Goeas and Democratic consultant Celinda Lake, found the two candidates almost even when voters were asked who could do the better job dealing with education: 44% said Gore, 42% Bush.

Bush’s strong marks were “a surprise, from the Republican point of view,” said Goeas, since it’s an issue more readily identified with Democrats.

Lake termed education “a really noticeable exception” to Gore’s generally improving position among voters since the primaries began. Lake said Bush’s good marks on education were confirmed by a focus group. One participant pointed to education as the single issue on which Bush “seems both comfortable and smart,” Lake said.

The Bush education ad, which is running in the potential swing states of Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri, is a “modest buy, under $100,000,” according to campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer. It is timed to coincide with Tuesday’s Illinois primary, not because Bush needs to win but because people will be thinking about politics there, he said.

The ad’s female narrator, speaking over footage of students, parents, and Bush kissing and posing with children, says, “Under Al Gore and Bill Clinton, national reading scores stagnated. America’s high school students place almost dead last in international math tests. . . . Gore and Clinton had eight years, but they failed.”

Gore’s ad responds: “George W. Bush: From South Carolina to New York, he used dirty politics to trash John McCain’s record. Now he’s running attack ads against Al Gore. Al Gore has fought to put 100,000 new teachers in the classroom. . . . Now, for the first time, reading scores in key grades are going up across America.”

The Gore ad says that Texas under Bush ranks 45th in the nation on SAT scores. It also says that only Louisiana, New Mexico and the District of Columbia ranked lower than Texas in a 1999 study on child immunization, death and birth rates; high school dropout rates; and the rate of teen pregnancy.

Fleischer said that, as governor, Bush ended the practice of social promotion of failing students, instituted a sweeping accountability program in schools, set aside $200 million for a reading program for low-income preschoolers and appropriated $82 million for “reading academies” in schools.

As a result, African American and Latino eighth-graders in Texas ranked first in the nation on writing tests, he said, and eighth-graders as a whole in the state ranked fourth on writing tests.

Bush has proposed moving the Head Start preschool program for disadvantaged children to the federal Department of Education and “beefing up” the department with new funds. Many Republicans have called for abolishing the department.

“When it comes to education,” Fleischer said, “Bush is a different kind of Republican.”

Gore and Clinton are also criticized by a consortium of four dozen environmental and health groups in TV and newspaper ads out this weekend.

The issue ads, which show a pregnant woman and babies of different races, accuse Clinton and Gore of bowing to “pressure from the chemical industry” by “standing in the way” of a global treaty that would eliminate toxic chemicals that can be passed on from mother to child. The ads are running in major newspapers and will begin airing Sunday on cable stations in Washington, New York and Europe.

Ken Cook, president of Environmental Watch Group, said the ads were timed to coincide with a United Nations conference that begins Monday in Bonn to negotiate a global treaty phasing out toxic chemicals.

But one veteran environmentalist said that to run ads criticizing Gore at this juncture “can only help one person: George W. Bush. . . . It’s a shame, because George W. Bush is one of the most anti-environmental people to run for president in a long time.”

Cook responded: “So we’re just supposed to shut up? I’m sorry, I don’t buy it.”

He acknowledged that the ads were partially designed to attract media attention at a time when issue ads have been under scrutiny in presidential campaigns.