Trail Mix

Occasional morsels from Campaign 2000

Heaven’s a Dove

Some people see a dove and see, well, just a bird. George W. Bush sees dinner.

“If I can shoot some dove, I might decide to have a little dove supper,” Bush told reporters Saturday at his hot, dusty ranch outside Crawford, Texas. “They’re good to eat.”

Relaxing on a two-day break from the campaign trail, Bush put dove hunting on his afternoon activity list, alongside jogging and lifting weights.

“They don’t seem to be flocking in right now, but it is dove season in Texas,” he said. “I’m a hunter, and if I decide to shoot some dove, I’ll shoot ‘em and eat ‘em.”

How, exactly, does the Republican presidential nominee cook a dove?

“I’m not the world’s best cook, to be frank with you,” he said. “Let me just say this: They’re not going to be raw by the time I get through with them.”

Pinning Them Down

People complain that the upcoming presidential debates will be staged and scripted, but hey, some people say the same thing about pro wrestling. Thus, the World Wrestling Federation is proposing a matchup between Al “The Democrat” Gore and George W. “The Republican” Bush.

The WWF is offering each candidate five minutes to address the 12- to 34-year-old males who make up the majority of the audience of “WWF Smackdown!” the Thursday night wrestling program seen in about 5 million homes each week. During the primary season, WWF’s flagship show consistently beat the debates in TV ratings.

Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, a former WWF wrestler, has been asked to moderate the discussion.

Firing Line

Republican vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney has avoided taking questions from the national press during his campaign trips, but that doesn’t mean he is avoiding the hard questions. At a visit Thursday to Croissant Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Cheney took the heat from Mrs. Robinson’s class.

“Do you like your name?” one 6-year-old asked from the classroom’s floor.

“Do I like my name, Dick?” Cheney responded. “Yes, I do.”

“Do you have lots of money?” another pupil sitting cross-legged demanded.

Cheney, who received a $33.7-million stock package when he left a Texas energy firm to run for vice president, replied, “Not as much as I did before I got back into politics.”

Codependence

Tipper Gore has made mental health her signature cause and, according to her husband, she does much of her work at home. At a health care forum Wednesday in Portland, Ore., Al Gore said his wife, who has a graduate degree in psychology, had once contemplated launching a psychology practice. But, he said, “Her psychology practice is devoted almost entirely to me.”

Gore’s running mate, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, interjected: “For which she’s not adequately reimbursed.”

Gore, laughing, replied: “As Groucho Marx once said, ‘I resemble that remark.’ ”

Longhorn SigAlert

OK, so it’s not the 405, but traffic is getting pretty thick on Prairie Chapel Road in Crawford, Texas. That’s where George W. Bush’s ranch is drawing throngs of reporters and onlookers.

The Secret Service has asked local county commissioners to do more to control traffic and parking around the 1,600-acre ranch just west of Waco. The proposed restrictions are meant primarily as safety measures--to protect Bush and his family, as well as his neighbors and the motorists who often travel too fast on the narrow, winding roads near the ranch.

Officials had hoped they could wait to see how Bush fared in the general election. But with TV trucks with satellite dishes parked along the 22-foot-wide road outside Bush’s front gate, the changes appear to be needed now.

Are Greens Reds?

Calling all conspiracy theorists. The foreign language spoken by Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader and all three of his campaign aides on a recent West Coast trip: Russian.

By strange coincidence, two men retained as drivers for Nader and his aides were Russians, and all four Greens tried out their linguistic skills with the drivers as they road around Southern California.

“Someone alert B-1 Bob,” joked one of the aides, referring to former Rep. Robert K. Dornan, the zealous anti-Communist from Orange County.

By the Numbers

9--The number of times a George W. Bush campaign news release on Friday mentioned Al Gore.

7--The number of times the same release mentioned Bush.

11--The number of times a Gore campaign release Friday mentioned Bush.

1--Mentions of Gore in the same release.

Quote File

“I can’t think of a better place to spend it than Mississippi.”

Dick Cheney, with his wife, Lynne, on their 36th wedding anniversary

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Compiled by Massie Ritsch from Times staff and wire reports