Previous
Bush Unmoved by Forbes' Jabs As Republicans Debate
Added: (Fri Dec 03 1999)
By Alan Elsner, Political Correspondent
MANCHESTER, N.H. - Publisher Steve Forbes lashed out at George W. Bush on Thursday, but the Texas governor refused to be drawn into a brawl as all six Republican presidential candidates met in a debate for the first time.
The almost ceaseless attacks launched by Forbes on the front-runner dominated the televised 90-minute debate, carried nationally on Fox News Channel, a cable network.
For the most part, Bush ignored the criticism from Forbes, a multimillionaire who is largely financing his own campaign. The Texan stuck to his basic theme that he had a proven record of practical leadership and could bring people together and get things done.
"There's only one person on this stage who has been in a chief executive position as governor of a state, our second-biggest state, and that is me," Bush said.
Of six political analysts interviewed by Reuters after the debate, four said Bush had made no obvious mistakes but had sounded preprogrammed and had not demonstrated much depth. Two thought Bush had performed adequately.
"I thought he was insipid. He didn't wind up with egg on his face, but he sounded as if he was just reciting lines others had written. There was no passion, no verve," said Allan Lichtman, a political scientist at The American University in Washington.
Bush Said To Have Helped Himself
Against that, Andrew Smith, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire, said Bush had "helped himself by showing up and not goofing up."
Beverly Wall, a professor of rhetoric at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, was highly critical of Bush.
"He was the emperor with no clothes. His answers were boilerplate, and he certainly did not rise to the occasion," she said.
Pollster John Zogby said he thought that Bush had "just barely made the threshold of acceptability" with responses that were "programmed and lightweight."
Arizona Sen. John McCain, running a distant second to Bush in national polls but almost level with him in some New Hampshire public-opinion surveys, stayed above the fray during the debate, focusing on the need for campaign finance reform.
Conservative activist Gary Bauer emphasized his commitment to banning abortion; talk radio host Alan Keyes complained his campaign was being ignored by a racist media because he was black; and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch highlighted his Senate experience.
Front-Runner Draws On Stump Speech
There was a lot riding on the night for Bush, who needed to erase the impression that he was no intellectual. He did not make any mistakes but frequently fell back on his stump speech and the fact that he was governor of what, by area, is the nation's second-biggest state.
Bush also left himself open to criticism when he was asked how he would do with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
"If I found in any way, shape and form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take them out," he said.
"I'm surprised he's still there. I think a lot of people are," he added. It was Bush's father, former President George Bush, who declined to march on Baghdad and remove Saddam from power when he had the chance after the Gulf War in 1991.
McCain provided the biggest laugh of the evening when took issue with Forbes on whether Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan should be reappointed.
Forbes said Greenspan was holding back the economy by raising interest rates. McCain responded: "I would not only reappoint Mr. Greenspan. If he should die, God forbid, ... I'd prop him up and put a pair of dark glasses on him."
As the debate ended, Forbes' campaign announced that he had clinched the prized endorsement of the conservative Manchester Union Leader, the state's largest newspaper, in an editorial posted on the paper's Web site late on Thursday.
The paper said Forbes stood "head and shoulders'' above the other candidates, describing him as
one tough, smart customer who can be the strong, principled leader America needs."
Bush, it said in a front-page editorial for Friday editions, was "a nice guy but an empty suit with no philosophical underpinning," while McCain "could finish a strong second, in the Democrats' race."
Forbes Says Bush Was 'Awol' Before
Forbes attacked Bush in his first response for being 'AWOL' (absent without leave) in three previous debates.
Then he accused Bush, who unveiled a $483 billion package of tax cuts on Wednesday, of being a Washington insider and not advocating the abolition of the capital-gains tax or a ban on taxes on Internet commerce and said he had opened the door to raising the retirement age.
"We should get rid of the capital-gains tax, which my friend George Bush refuses to touch," Forbes said.
"This tax cut proposed by George Bush ... is small, is inadequate. It leaves the (Internal Revenue Service) in place. Don't phase in measly taxes over five to eight years. Help people now," Forbes said.
Accusing Bush of saying he would consider raising the age at which retirees are eligible to collect their full Social Security benefits to 67 or even older from the current 65, Forbes said: "Now what are they going to raise it to, Governor? Seventy? Seventy-five?"
Bush, in response, quoted an article written by Forbes in which he advocated the same thing. Bush also said what was needed was leadership to put the program on a secure financial footing.
Two Texas Tax Cuts Cited
"I'm the one person up here who has signed a tax-cut bill. I've not only signed one, I've signed two as governor of Texas," he said.
On his tax plan, Bush said he was being criticized by some people for cutting taxes too much and by some people for cutting them too little, which led him to believe he was on the right track.
Leading the field by a wide margin in national polls and with a huge money advantage over all but Forbes, Bush felt confident enough to skip the first three debates of the campaign, two of them in New Hampshire.
But his decision, accompanied by a wave of negative publicity, seemed to backfire in the state that will stage the crucial first primary of the campaign on Feb. 1.
Polls in New Hampshire show McCain has closed the big gap Bush once held in the state.
Forbes was expected to do better this year after making a credible showing in a 1996 presidential bid. But his campaign has failed to catch fire, and he has confounded friends and foes alike by refusing to run attack ads against Bush.
He launched a new ad on Thursday, however, accusing Bush of 'betrayal' by advocating a rise in the age for collecting Social Security payments.
Bauer, Keyes and Hatch are largely seen as marginal candidates with little or no chance to win the Republican nomination.