Gore-Bush Debate: Feisty From the Start

Standing face-to-face for their final meeting, George W. Bush and Al Gore clashed repeatedly Tuesday night over the proper size and role of the federal government, offering starkly different views of the successes and failings of the last eight years.

In a feisty debate that was contentious from the start, Democrat Gore and Republican Bush differed over health care, school vouchers, tax cuts, military spending, affirmative action and numerous other issues in a series of freewheeling exchanges.

“I don’t like it when the federal government tells us what to do,” Texas Gov. Bush said in one exchange, dealing with education, that crystallized their opposing views.

“It’s not enough to leave it up to the local school districts,” Gore said. “They’re not able to do it. Our future depends on it.”

A wrangle over the candidates’ respective tax cuts led to one of their sharpest disputes: the record of the last eight years under the Clinton-Gore administration.

The two started by reprising familiar arguments. Bush maintained that everyone who pays taxes deserves relief and will get it under his $1.3-trillion proposal. Gore countered that his $500-billion tax cut would be more fiscally responsible by leaving money for other programs, such as education and health care, as well as for paying down the national debt.

“If you want somebody who believes that we were better off eight years ago then we are now and that we ought to go back to the kind of policies that we had back then, emphasizing tax cuts mainly for the wealthy, here is your man,” Gore said, his arm extended toward Bush. “If you want somebody who will fight for you and who will fight for middle-class tax cuts, then I am your man.”

Bush vigorously disagreed. “You talk about eight years. They haven’t gotten anything done on Medicare, Social Security, patients’ bill of rights. It’s time to get something done.”

The debate opened somberly, with a tribute to the late Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, who died in a plane crash Monday night. But after a brief moment of silence, Bush and Gore faced off on the very first question, dealing with HMO reform.

Gore embraced federal legislation that would let consumers sue HMOs for inadequate health care. Bush countered by saying he too supports such legislation. But Gore pointed out differences between the bill he backs and the less sweeping GOP measure Bush supports.

Bush replied by citing his work on patient-protection legislation in Texas, saying his bipartisan approach there reflects the way he would work in Washington. It was an argument he made throughout the evening.

“I do support a national patients’ bills of rights,” Bush said. “ . . . It requires a different kind of leadership style to do it, though. You see, in order to get something done on behalf of the people, you have to put partisanship aside, and that’s what we did in my state.”

Gore, for his part, cast himself as a protector against the likes of the big pharmaceutical companies and Bush as a champion of the privileged.

“Here we go again,” the vice president tartly replied. “If you want someone who will spend a lot of words describing a whole convoluted process and then end up supporting legislation that is supported by the big drug companies, this is your man.”

On another health care issue, the two disagreed when Gore called for moving “step by step toward universal health coverage,” starting with children. “I do not think that the government should do all of it,” the vice president said.

But Bush responded, “I’m absolutely opposed to a national health care plan. I don’t want the federal government making decisions for consumers or for providers.”

The two men entered the evening running essentially neck-and-neck in opinion polls as well as the crucial state-by-state electoral college. But the greater pressure to perform was on Gore, showing how much the race had shifted in the two weeks since the two nominees’ first meeting in Boston.

Going into the debates, which Bush initially resisted, the vice president was considered by far the more tested and knowledgeable performer. He also enjoyed an advantage in most national polls as well as the electoral college count.

But after striking many as too pushy in the first debate and too passive in last week’s, Gore lost ground to Bush and revived doubts about his character and personality, which the vice president had seemed to bury with his well-received acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.

Bush, in contrast, exceeded most expectations with his even performance, particularly in the second debate, and the Texas governor sought Tuesday night merely to avoid any serious mistakes that might underline questions about his readiness for the White House.

The format was one that Gore preferred, a mock town hall session in which an audience of nominally undecided voters submitted questions to moderator Jim Lehrer, of PBS, who then pitched them to the candidates, along with some queries of his own.

The candidates were seated on wooden stools, set on the floor of the Washington University athletic center, and surrounded by an audience of partisans in the bleachers. The effect was a sort of political theater-in-the-round--with Gore the aggressor--as the nominees stood to answer questions, approached the audience and often turned to face one another.

Bush repeatedly portrayed Gore as a big-spending liberal. “He proposed more than Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis combined,” Bush said of the two Democratic presidential candidates who lost in 1984 and 1988, respectively.

Disputing the liberal label, Gore pointed to his record as head of the administration’s “reinventing government” initiative, saying it shrank the federal bureaucracy to its smallest size since the John F. Kennedy years. Gore said the media had looked at Bush’s big-spender accusation and judged it inaccurate. “Forget the journalists,” Bush replied.

Some of their sharpest differences came over school vouchers and affirmative action.

Gore accused Bush of fuzzing up his voucher plan, which would give federal dollars to parents of children in failing public schools to enroll them in private schools. “He proposes to drain more money, more taxpayer money, out of the public schools for private school vouchers than all of the money that he proposes in his entire budget for public schools themselves,” Gore asserted. His own plan would shut down failing public schools and reopen them with a new staff, Gore said.

“There has to be a consequence,” Bush countered, suggesting the threat of losing federal funding was the best way to spur education reform. “We have a society that says, ‘Hey, the status quo is fine, just move them through.’ Guess who suffers?”

Both voiced support for capital punishment, calling it a deterrent. When a questioner suggested Bush seemed “real proud” of Texas’ many executions, a grim Bush replied softly: “I’m not proud of that. Some of the hardest moments since I’ve been the governor of Texas is to deal with those cases.”

Asked about voter apathy--especially among the young--Gore touted campaign finance reform, calling it a way to lessen the influence of the special interests. Bush suggested that Gore--whose fund-raising practices in the 1996 campaign have been questioned--cannot be trusted. Referring to Washington, he said, “It needs somebody in office who will tell the truth.”

The men also clashed on affirmative action. Bush rejected quotas and said he is for “affirmative access,” vowing to create “an administration that will make you proud.” Gore said he supports affirmative action and said Bush’s mention of his opposition to quotas was “a red herring.”

Asked by one man whether they could keep their many campaign promises, Gore answered without hesitation: “I am a person who keeps promises . . . I promise you I will keep mine.”

Gore then turned to Bush and questioned whether he can keep his promise for a broad tax cut while reforming Medicare and Social Security. Bush said he could and added, “It’s time to have a fresh start.” He noted his record of promises kept in Texas, citing reforms in the state’s legal system, welfare program, education improvements.

Foreign policy received notably short shrift, after dominating last week’s debate. In response to a question on the Middle East, Bush supported the administration’s efforts to moderate a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians and Gore touted his bipartisan record while in Congress.

In their closing remarks, Gore vowed to “keep the faith” and noted that in 24 years of government service he has “never violated” his oaths of office and did not pursue personal wealth. Citing the economic and social progress of the last eight years, he added: “You ain’t seen nothing yet. I will keep that promise.”

In a clear reference to the scandals of the Clinton years, Bush used his summation to promise that if elected president, “when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the law of the land but I will also swear to uphold the honor and the dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God.”

The 90-minute session on the tree-filled campus of Washington University was the candidates’ last chance to address a mass audience before election day, now less than three weeks away. It took place just outside St. Louis, in the hotly contested suburbs of this hotly contested state, on a day stunned Missouri residents awoke to the news Carnahan had died in a plane crash while campaigning.

The Commission on Presidential Debates, the private sponsoring organization, briefly considered postponing the session after Carnahan’s death. But after discussions with the two camps, the commission decided to proceed.

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Times staff writers Michael Finnegan, James Gerstenzang and Massie Ritsch contributed to this story.

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MICHIGAN WATCHES

Undecided voters in bellwether state closely watch debate and could be key to outcome. A20