What an idiot.
http://dallasnews.com/campaign/69250_TEXAS25.html
State takes a beating from Gore
Bush team says VP bends facts about Texas
04/25/2000
By G. Robert Hillman / The Dallas Morning News
PALM BEACH, Fla. - Caught in the rough-and-tumble cycle of presidential politics, Texas is taking a licking.
In Al Gore's eyes, it's no longer Don't Mess With Texas, but Texas is a Mess. And with his sights set squarely on Gov. George W. Bush in this fall's campaign, the vice president is honing the message.
Nearly everywhere he goes these days - on a recent evening, for instance, to a Democratic fund-raiser at the oceanfront home of a wealthy trial lawyer - Al Gore pounds on Texas. "The Number 1 most polluted state in America - air, water and land," he said.
"I don't care what party you are in. I don't care what your ideology is," he said. "Most Americans want clean air and clean water and a responsible approach to protecting the environment."
In Austin, the Bush campaign dismissed the attacks as politics as usual, while doing its best to rebut them, or at least mute their effect.
"Al Gore tries to manipulate the facts for his own political purposes, and in the end it's going to hurt his own credibility," said Bush spokeswoman Mindy Tucker.
The vice president cites Texas' poor standing in some health-care and education categories - even in homeownership - as further examples of Mr. Bush's poor stewardship of the state. On social issues, he continually challenges Mr. Bush for signing legislation to allow Texans to carry concealed weapons and for not supporting tougher hate-crimes legislation. And he gets plenty of help from his fellow Democrats, from the top down.
President Clinton is targeting the Republican governor, too, and weighing in with his own sharp words.
"All he had to do was lift his hand, and they would have had a hate-crimes bill," Mr. Clinton told Democratic supporters in New York a few weeks ago. "It did not pass because they did not want it to pass, because they did not believe gays and lesbians should be protected by hate-crimes legislation."
Day after day, Mr. Gore and his allies try to undermine the governor's credibility.
"We hold the people of Texas in the highest regard, but . . . ," said Mr. Gore's press secretary, Chris Lehane.
But . . . he says, the governor's record is fair game, particularly since he routinely brags about his accomplishments. And Texas will just have to take its lumps.
"Under George W. Bush's leadership, the people of Texas have not done that well," Mr. Lehane said, "and the programs he's offering as president would have the same effect nationwide."
The Democrats' trail of supporting statistics is daunting enough to smudge any state's image: Texas ranks at, or near, the bottom in pollution, homeownership, SAT scores, mental health care spending and health insurance.
"He keeps saying he's a reformer with results. Where are the results?" Mr. Gore asked. "They're not in Texas."
Privately, Bush campaign strategists note the Republican assault on Mr. Clinton and his 12-year record as governor of Arkansas did little damage in 1992 and expect Mr. Gore's attacks to fare no better this year.
"We're in a lot better shape than Arkansas," said a Bush adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Texas is bigger and better and capable of withstanding any attacks."
'88,'96 attacks
Texas is not the first state, nor is Mr. Bush the first governor, to suffer the political fallout of a presidential campaign.
Besides the attacks on Mr. Clinton, in 1988 Mr. Bush's father, then the vice president, ridiculed the stewardship of Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis and won the White House.
Even in retrospect, "it's hard to see why some things rise up" in a campaign and other issues do not," said Bruce Buchanan, a government professor at the University of Texas in Austin.
In 1988, some analysts thought that Mr. Dukakis offered George Bush a tempting target by calling the state's economic recovery the "Massachusetts Miracle." Mr. Bush dismissed it as the "Massachusetts Mirage" and pounced on Boston Harbor as a polluted wasteland.
In 1992, President Bush barnstormed the six states around Arkansas, attacking Mr. Clinton's record on education, health care and the environment.
"If you go swimming in an Arkansas river, keep your mouth closed and hold your nose," he said, echoing Republican charges that the state's waterways were polluted with chicken manure.
At a Longview airport rally in East Texas, he proclaimed a gap the size of the Grand Canyon separating "the words of candidate Clinton running around the country criticizing me and the actions of Governor Clinton.
"This is a sorry record by any Texas standard," the president said.
Turned tables
Now, the tables are turned. Mr. Gore is the vice president running for president against the former president's son, the Texas governor.
And "Texas is a big target," said George Christian, an Austin political consultant who was President Lyndon B. Johnson's press secretary.
"I expected it, but I don't like it," said Mr. Christian, who calls George W. Bush a "good Texas governor."
"I don't think the state deserves to be poked around."
But it's happening. The questions are: Is anyone paying attention? And will it matter?
Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush are still testing each other and their campaign themes before they formally accept the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations this summer. And Election Day is more than six months away.
"If we Democrats come up with some symbols like Boston Harbor . . . it'll hurt George Bush," said Garry Mauro, the former Texas land commissioner who lost the governor's race to Mr. Bush in 1998.
"If we try to do generic, 'It's-a-small-second-rate-state' kind of attack, it's not going to go anywhere," Mr. Mauro added. "It has to be specific and have real credibility and be something for just ordinary Americans."
Still, Mr. Gore and his fellow Democrats are determined to use the governor's Texas record as a campaign cornerstone.
"It's a very big deal," said Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. "I think the public will be very interested in what George Bush has done on health care and education and other issues in Texas."
So far, though, Mr. Christian says the attacks have had little effect in Texas, or elsewhere.
"People want to live in Texas," he said, assessing Mr. Bush's stewardship. "We do have unusually bad problems here or there. But they started a long time before he got here. And I think most people realize that."
In the short term, particularly if the Gore campaign continues its attacks on Texas during this fall's blitz of television commercials, "it will probably be a bit of a downer" for Texas, said Mr. Buchanan, the UT professor.
But "in the larger sense it could be useful to the state," he suggested, because "we've got a political culture that's made pretty clear decisions in a pretty bipartisan way not to invest heavily in these areas."
And a debate about the state's priorities on education, health care and other issues, even in a presidential campaign, could be a healthy turn of events, he said.
"It may - or may not - cut later once people do tune in," he said.
http://dallasnews.com/campaign/69250_TEXAS25.html
State takes a beating from Gore
Bush team says VP bends facts about Texas
04/25/2000
By G. Robert Hillman / The Dallas Morning News
PALM BEACH, Fla. - Caught in the rough-and-tumble cycle of presidential politics, Texas is taking a licking.
In Al Gore's eyes, it's no longer Don't Mess With Texas, but Texas is a Mess. And with his sights set squarely on Gov. George W. Bush in this fall's campaign, the vice president is honing the message.
Nearly everywhere he goes these days - on a recent evening, for instance, to a Democratic fund-raiser at the oceanfront home of a wealthy trial lawyer - Al Gore pounds on Texas. "The Number 1 most polluted state in America - air, water and land," he said.
"I don't care what party you are in. I don't care what your ideology is," he said. "Most Americans want clean air and clean water and a responsible approach to protecting the environment."
In Austin, the Bush campaign dismissed the attacks as politics as usual, while doing its best to rebut them, or at least mute their effect.
"Al Gore tries to manipulate the facts for his own political purposes, and in the end it's going to hurt his own credibility," said Bush spokeswoman Mindy Tucker.
The vice president cites Texas' poor standing in some health-care and education categories - even in homeownership - as further examples of Mr. Bush's poor stewardship of the state. On social issues, he continually challenges Mr. Bush for signing legislation to allow Texans to carry concealed weapons and for not supporting tougher hate-crimes legislation. And he gets plenty of help from his fellow Democrats, from the top down.
President Clinton is targeting the Republican governor, too, and weighing in with his own sharp words.
"All he had to do was lift his hand, and they would have had a hate-crimes bill," Mr. Clinton told Democratic supporters in New York a few weeks ago. "It did not pass because they did not want it to pass, because they did not believe gays and lesbians should be protected by hate-crimes legislation."
Day after day, Mr. Gore and his allies try to undermine the governor's credibility.
"We hold the people of Texas in the highest regard, but . . . ," said Mr. Gore's press secretary, Chris Lehane.
But . . . he says, the governor's record is fair game, particularly since he routinely brags about his accomplishments. And Texas will just have to take its lumps.
"Under George W. Bush's leadership, the people of Texas have not done that well," Mr. Lehane said, "and the programs he's offering as president would have the same effect nationwide."
The Democrats' trail of supporting statistics is daunting enough to smudge any state's image: Texas ranks at, or near, the bottom in pollution, homeownership, SAT scores, mental health care spending and health insurance.
"He keeps saying he's a reformer with results. Where are the results?" Mr. Gore asked. "They're not in Texas."
Privately, Bush campaign strategists note the Republican assault on Mr. Clinton and his 12-year record as governor of Arkansas did little damage in 1992 and expect Mr. Gore's attacks to fare no better this year.
"We're in a lot better shape than Arkansas," said a Bush adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Texas is bigger and better and capable of withstanding any attacks."
'88,'96 attacks
Texas is not the first state, nor is Mr. Bush the first governor, to suffer the political fallout of a presidential campaign.
Besides the attacks on Mr. Clinton, in 1988 Mr. Bush's father, then the vice president, ridiculed the stewardship of Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis and won the White House.
Even in retrospect, "it's hard to see why some things rise up" in a campaign and other issues do not," said Bruce Buchanan, a government professor at the University of Texas in Austin.
In 1988, some analysts thought that Mr. Dukakis offered George Bush a tempting target by calling the state's economic recovery the "Massachusetts Miracle." Mr. Bush dismissed it as the "Massachusetts Mirage" and pounced on Boston Harbor as a polluted wasteland.
In 1992, President Bush barnstormed the six states around Arkansas, attacking Mr. Clinton's record on education, health care and the environment.
"If you go swimming in an Arkansas river, keep your mouth closed and hold your nose," he said, echoing Republican charges that the state's waterways were polluted with chicken manure.
At a Longview airport rally in East Texas, he proclaimed a gap the size of the Grand Canyon separating "the words of candidate Clinton running around the country criticizing me and the actions of Governor Clinton.
"This is a sorry record by any Texas standard," the president said.
Turned tables
Now, the tables are turned. Mr. Gore is the vice president running for president against the former president's son, the Texas governor.
And "Texas is a big target," said George Christian, an Austin political consultant who was President Lyndon B. Johnson's press secretary.
"I expected it, but I don't like it," said Mr. Christian, who calls George W. Bush a "good Texas governor."
"I don't think the state deserves to be poked around."
But it's happening. The questions are: Is anyone paying attention? And will it matter?
Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush are still testing each other and their campaign themes before they formally accept the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations this summer. And Election Day is more than six months away.
"If we Democrats come up with some symbols like Boston Harbor . . . it'll hurt George Bush," said Garry Mauro, the former Texas land commissioner who lost the governor's race to Mr. Bush in 1998.
"If we try to do generic, 'It's-a-small-second-rate-state' kind of attack, it's not going to go anywhere," Mr. Mauro added. "It has to be specific and have real credibility and be something for just ordinary Americans."
Still, Mr. Gore and his fellow Democrats are determined to use the governor's Texas record as a campaign cornerstone.
"It's a very big deal," said Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. "I think the public will be very interested in what George Bush has done on health care and education and other issues in Texas."
So far, though, Mr. Christian says the attacks have had little effect in Texas, or elsewhere.
"People want to live in Texas," he said, assessing Mr. Bush's stewardship. "We do have unusually bad problems here or there. But they started a long time before he got here. And I think most people realize that."
In the short term, particularly if the Gore campaign continues its attacks on Texas during this fall's blitz of television commercials, "it will probably be a bit of a downer" for Texas, said Mr. Buchanan, the UT professor.
But "in the larger sense it could be useful to the state," he suggested, because "we've got a political culture that's made pretty clear decisions in a pretty bipartisan way not to invest heavily in these areas."
And a debate about the state's priorities on education, health care and other issues, even in a presidential campaign, could be a healthy turn of events, he said.
"It may - or may not - cut later once people do tune in," he said.
Texans obviously know that Gore is lying about their state. But does anyone else? He'll keep on lying about Texas as long as his allies in the media let him get away with it.
