Section A·Page 7
The University Daily Kansan
Monday, May 1, 2000
Nation/World
Bush-McCain talks could be saved
Top Republicans' agendas clash
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Top advisers to George W. Bush and vanquished rival John McCain hope to salvage a May 9 meeting after the show-of-unity event nearly was scrapped.
Senior McCain advisers said the first face-to-face meeting since Bush drove McCain from the race likely would be postponed — if not canceled. Bush advisers said they were still confident the session would be held. Aides in both camps spoke only on condition not be identified.
In an effort to salvage the event, which is important to the political futures of both McCain and Bush, their top advisers planned to meet today in Washington.
Bush and McCain need a successful
ers. The Arizona senator, who still has presidential ambitions, wants to show Republicans he is a party man.
There are downsides for both, as well. Bush is unlikely to gain M c C a in 's endorsement, which he needs
McCain: Top advisers say meeting would be postponed
to help court independent voters. And McCain fears he could damage his political maverick image if he unites with Bush at a meeting that independent voters recognize as, in the words of one aide, a political charade.
"The status of the meeting is tenuous," said McCain spokesman Todd Harris. "We feel that any meeting between Sen. McCain and Gov. Bush should be a substantial one. We don't view a meeting whose primary purpose is to go over once again whether John McCain wants to be vice president — when everyone knows he doesn't want to — falls into the substantial category."
McCain and his advisers have been chafing ever since Bush took the unusual step last week of announcing that he would ask McCain whether he was willing to serve as vice president. McCain has said repeatedly that he does not want the job.
Bush, however, has been under pressure from some Republicans who think McCain's appeal is worth a full-court effort to get him on the ticket.
McCain's advisers were preparing a list of suggested agenda items to submit to the Bush campaign Thursday when a syndicated columnist reported that Bush advisers expected little satisfaction from the meeting and might prefer a short, unhappy get-together in Pittsburgh rather than a long, tendentious partnership.
McCain, traveling in Vietnam to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, was angered by the column. He told ales to cancel the meeting unless they could be assured that Bush wanted substantial talks.
The fallout came just as Bush was stepping up his efforts to reach out to McCain and his supporters.
Dominican political parties clash, two dead
The Associated Press
SANYO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — Bodyguards of the leading presidential candidate in the Dominican Republic shot and killed a governing party official and another man in what the opposition claimed was a response to an assassination attempt.
The most violent confrontation yet in the campaign was an indication of rising tensions and the high stakes involved in May 16 elections in this Caribbean nation of eight million people.
The opposition Dominican Revolutionary Party said someone shot at the car of its presidential candidate, Hipolito Mejia, Saturday night and that his security guards returned fire, killing two men.
But President Leonel Fernandez's Dominican Liberation Party said Meija's
security guards shot first.
The shooting took place in Moca, 90 miles from the capital, as Mejia's car was passing in front of the house of Luis Terrero Gil, 41, a local official of the Liberation Party.
Terrero, the director of the National Center for Science and Art, was killed, as was Rafael Penalo, 29, who was on the street in front of the house along with other supporters of the Liberation Party.
Francisco Javier Garcia, the Liberation Party's campaign manager, denied anybody shot at Mejia's car and said the killings were a premeditated assassination.
He said Terrero was on the patio when the shooting erupted. Terrero called out to his three children to come in from a small garden in front of the house and was then struck by eight bullets, he said.
Vietnam remembers victory with parade and amnesty
The Associated Press
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Vietnam celebrated its stunning victory against the world's top superpower 25 years ago with a remarkably unwilike parade yesterday and hopes it could battle its way out of poverty in the new millennium.
Aging architects of that victory against the United States and its South Vietnamese allies saluted as thousands of soldiers, students, women in flowing ao dais — the traditional tunic and trousers — and barefooted mountain tribespeople filed past on the grounds of the Reunification Palace.
The day belonged to a man who died three decades ago, independence hero Ho Chi Minh, whose three-story portrait hung from the palace facade. But the mood was more akin to a springtime festival than a remembrance of war.
were assault rifles, and most units marched without them. Patriotic songs like "Uncle Ho Lives in the Great Victory Day," alternated with lifting, dance-like numbers during the parade, which lasted more than an hour.
Also marking the anniversary were the release of more than 12,000 prisoners, including convicted murderers, in the country's biggest-ever ammey and a mass wedding of 25 couples at a downtown park.
The heaviest weapons to be seen
In the day's only speech, Ho Chi Minh City mayor Vo Viet Thanh focused on economic problems in Vietnam, among the world's poorest nations with an average yearly per capita income of $370.
A higher economic growth rate, elimination of corruption and less restrictive policies, Thanh said, were among the city's goals in the 21st century. He stressed that every favorable condition would be afforded to foreign investors.
Guns become focus of school legislation
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats, angry that gun trigger locks and other safety measures remain stalled in juvenile justice legislation, now have a new vehicle big and popular enough to push their cause for weeks: education.
And, as debate begins today, federal school aid programs may get caught in the crosshairs.
"You can't separate safety and security in schools from the issue of the availability and the accessibility of guns," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
On Friday, Republicans and Democrats set up "war rooms" in the Capitol to highlight their differences on who should control $20 billion in federal K-12 grants. The Democrats replicated a classroom with student desks and chairs to hold interviews and Internet chats, promoting class-size reduction and after-school funding. Republicans planned online chats and events to tout the flexibility of voucher proposals and block grants.
"We would hope it could stay a pure debate on education," Karpinski said.
"There is a clear difference between us on who should set the priorities; people are going to want to know both sides," said Joseph Karpinski, a spokesman for Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., chairman of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee. Jeffords is bringing the main proposal to his colleagues and must oversee the debate. Kennedy is the leading Democrat on the panel.
Kennedy said he and others would be united in making gun-control proposals, adding that guns used in the Columbine slayings were acquired through loopholes in laws governing gun shows.
"When you talk about security and safety in schools, most of us have historically looked at smaller class sizes, after-school programs, and better trained teachers, but part of this whole thing is having schools free from easy accessibility to guns," Kennedy said.
House lawmakers will soon consider a school-safety bill without trigger-lock requirements.
Democrats have long tried to attach gun control to other bills, but they weren't successful until the 1999 renewal of federal grants to states for juvenile-delinquency programs. However, the House and Senate plans failed to match: a Senate-passed bill set a 72-hour background check on gun-show sales and a House bill shrank the wait to 24 hours.
A House-Senate conference committee has been assigned to reconcile differences; normally when there are such differences on complex legislation, members and their advisers meet privately to work out a compromise. But politics intensified disagreements. Democrats unhappy with the pace of negotiations have demanded that House and Senate negotiators meet openly — hoping the public glare will prod them into action.
Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans have a wide gulf to bridge in rewriting the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which helps schools pay for programs ranging from boosting poor children's grades and test scores to training their teachers.
It's the first time a Republican led Congress has had a crack at the 34-year old law — often criticized for failing to properly educate the nation's poorest kids. Individual plans to change the bill range from ensuring girls take as many math classes as boys to restocking library shelves.
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