Bush Taunts Gore in a Dead-Even Contest

Their battle for the White House a dead heat, George W. Bush and Al Gore marked the traditional Labor Day launch of the general election campaign Monday with clashes that in Bush’s case laid bare his continuing effort to impugn the vice president’s character.

Speaking at the Peach Festival here, Bush sought to portray Gore’s refusal to sign on to a Bush-proposed series of debates as akin to President Clinton’s evasions over the Monica S. Lewinsky affair.

“My opponent said he’d debate me any time, anyplace, anywhere; he went on some of the national TV shows and said, ‘If he’ll just show up I’ll debate him,’ ” Bush taunted.

“It must all depend on what the definition of any time is. It depends on what the definition of anywhere is. . . . I guess it’s the same old tired double talk out of Washington, D.C.--’No controlling legal authority.’ ‘It depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.’ ”

The latter two well-known statements were uttered, respectively, by Gore when he was seeking to excuse controversial fund-raising calls he made for the 1996 presidential campaign and by Clinton when he was questioned by independent counsel’s office during the Lewinsky affair.

As evidence that the presidential race has been dramatically altered in recent weeks, Gore campaigned above the fray. He contended that he dismissed Bush’s debate proposals because they would produce shorter, less-watched events. He referred to Bush only sparingly and elliptically. He argued, as he has in recent days, that Bush must flesh out his agenda with details.

“I believe people need specifics before the election,” Gore declared in Flint, Mich.

Gore spent most of his time touting both his agenda and the gains seen under the Clinton administration, and argued that he would extend the good times.

“I’m not satisfied,” he told more than 1,000 supporters at the Louisville Speedway in Kentucky. Then he exulted: “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”

The day’s events sharply delineated the race’s new configuration. For months, Bush has led in the polls, often by large margins, and Gore has repeatedly had to right his listing ship.

But since the Democratic convention in Los Angeles ended on Aug. 17, Gore has surged. Once ham-handed, the vice president has campaigned confidently and has been on the offensive more often than not.

The once sure-footed Bush, in contrast, has stumbled more than at almost any time since he began his campaign for the presidency in 1999. Recently, he has been distracted from his game plan and on the defensive repeatedly.

Leading up to Labor Day, polls showed the race up for grabs. A Gallup poll released last week showed Bush with 46% to Gore’s 45%--a statistically insignificant lead. Hence the importance of the traditional Labor Day launch which, while all but obliterated by the round-the-calendar nature of presidential campaigning, still is recognized as opening the period when undecided voters turn their attention to politics.

Both candidates come into the fall sprint with a strong hold on their base, yet clutching less successfully at the undecided, largely moderate voters whose allegiances swing from one party to the other. Many of those voters reside in the upper Midwest, in places like Romeo’s Macomb County, where the campaign was concentrated Monday and will be until election day.

Bush’s effort Monday was the continuation of a two-day attempt to gain ground on Gore on the subject of presidential debates. Gore has long vowed to accept all debates--so long as Bush agrees to the three sessions proposed by a bipartisan presidential commission, which has organized such events since 1988. Democrats have needled Bush about his refusal to sign on to the three debates, which were scheduled for Oct. 3, 11 and 17.

Trying to turn the tables on Gore, Bush on Sunday proposed three debates--one on a Sept. 12 prime-time edition of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” another Oct. 3 on CNN’s “Larry King Live” and the third on Oct. 17 in St. Louis, as scheduled by the commission.

Gore turned down Bush’s proposal, arguing that the Republican nominee was trying to force him into little-watched, shorter debates. While the 90-minute presidential commission debates are carried by all networks, it was unknown whether competing networks would carry the 60-minute NBC and CNN broadcasts proposed by Bush. The normal viewing audiences for the two programs are scores of millions less than the number of voters who typically watch a multi-network debate.

At his first event of the day, a Labor Day rally in the Republican stronghold of Naperville, Ill., which is west of Chicago, GOP nominee Bush went after Gore.

“It’s time to elect people who say what they mean and mean what they say when they tell the American people something,” Bush told more than 1,000 cheering supporters.

Bush sounded his familiar policy themes, advocating a stronger military, the need for education reform and his long-standing pledge to bring “honor and integrity” into the Oval Office.

He also touted his 10-year, $1.3-trillion tax cut, waving dollar bills as he described the federal budget surplus as “the people’s money” that rightfully belongs in the people’s wallets.

At one point in Naperville, he said that he would spend $1 trillion of the surplus to strengthen the military. Bush later corrected himself, saying that amount would go to the military, to reform education and to guarantee prescription drug coverage for senior citizens.

“I want the working families to put that money in their pockets,” he said.

Gore, for his part, loaded his speeches Monday with vows of a targeted middle-class tax cut, a promise to veto a larger GOP tax cut, and his plans for prescription drug coverage, debt reduction and college tuition deductions.

But as important Monday was his campaign’s effort to use the debate brouhaha to define Bush. Much as Bush was using it to portray Gore as a candidate who goes back on his word, Gore was using it to paint Bush as a candidate who does not fare well under pressure.

Bush gave Gore ammunition on that front Monday. Not realizing that his remarks were being picked up by the public address system, Bush in Naperville turned to his running mate Cheney and said, “There’s Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times.”

Cheney replied: “Oh, yeah. He is. Big time.”

As Bush arrived later for a campaign event in Allentown, Pa., he would not apologize for his comment. But he said, “I regret that everybody heard what I said.”

Clymer, a veteran political reporter, said only that he was “disappointed in the governor’s language.”

The Gore campaign, however, seized on the comment as an indication that Bush, who has vowed that he would bring civility back to Washington, was wilting under the increased attention.

“Last week, the governor broke his promise not to engage in negative personal attacks when he attacked Al Gore,” said Gore press spokesman Chris Lehane, referring to the stepped-up hostility in Bush’s remarks, as well as an anti-Gore commercial paid for by the Republican National Committee and approved by Bush. “And now, this week, facing increased pressure, he not only is attacking Al Gore, he’s also attacking the press.”

Gore himself took a relatively higher road, insisting that he had an altruistic reason for holding Bush to the commission-sponsored debates.

“This is not about what is best for George W. Bush or what is best for Al Gore,” he told viewers on NBC’s “Today” show. “It’s about what’s best for the American people.”

Gore’s running mate, Connecticut Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, campaigned with the vice president much of Monday as they concluded a 27-hour “workathon.” The multi-state trip, during which they visited with working Americans, was meant to suggest that Gore would work harder as president than Bush, whose campaign pace is more leisurely.

Lieberman left to campaign on his own Monday afternoon, praising the labor movement at a Detroit street festival.

There, he reiterated his call for injecting more religious values into public life. Previous assertions had landed Lieberman in trouble with the Anti-Defamation League, which called on him to tone down his religious comments.

“I’m going to keep saying it, because I believe that’s what most Americans believe,” said Lieberman, insisting he would not be swayed by the criticism. “It’s what unites us.”

His Republican counterpart, Cheney, got into the campaign spirit in Chicago, where the studiously reserved former Defense secretary danced the polka at a Polish festival as he wooed swing voters.

“I’m proud to have been part of the policies that helped win the Cold War,” he told an audience made up of immigrants from and descendants of former Soviet bloc nations.

Also in the critical upper Midwest on Monday was Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who attended the same Detroit labor festival visited by Lieberman, and also marched in the city’s Labor Day parade.

While Green supporters held high “Nader for President” signs, the candidate endured taunts from some Gore supporters.

“If you vote for Nader, you’re just voting for the Republicans,” yelled one tall bearded man in a United Auto Workers jacket. The union has endorsed Gore.

But others congratulated Nader. One mother pointed him out to her young daughter: “That man is running for president.”

Later, speaking at a nearby nightclub, Nader said he was heartened by the grass-roots support from labor groups, despite the decision by most of the major unions to back the Democratic ticket. The difficulty that Detroit News and Free Press workers have had in their long-running strike, he said, is evidence that the status quo needs to change.

“If you can’t win a strike in Detroit,” he said, “that shows you how totally rigged the labor laws are in favor of big companies.”

The two other best known presidential candidates are vying for control of the Reform Party nomination and the $12.6 million in federal funds that accompany it. Pat Buchanan spent the day at home, recovering from gallbladder surgery. His competitor, John Hagelin, held a rally in Alexandria, Va.

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Contributing to this story were Times political writer Ronald Brownstein, La Ganga with the Bush campaign, Chen and Matea Gold with the Gore campaign and Megan Garvey with the Nader campaign. The story was written by Times political writer Cathleen Decker.