CAMPAIGN'92 UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, August 26.1992
9
Clinton and Bush vie for veterans' vote
The Associated Press
CHICAGO — Bill Clinton appealed to veterans yesterday not to oppose his presidential candidacy just because he avoided serving in Vietnam. President Bush pointedly reminded them that when his time came to serve in World War II he was scared, but willing.
The presidential candidates appeared two hours apart before an American Legion convention, first Bush extolling his experience as a wartime fighter pilot and commander-in-chief, then Clinton trying to bury the controversy over his Vietnam-era draft status.
"You know I never served in the military, you know I opposed the war in Vietnam," the Arkansas governor said. "But I want you to know this I was never against the heroic men who served in the war.
"If you choose to vote against me because of
what happened 23 years ago, that's your right,
and I respect that. But it is my hope you will cast your vote while looking toward the future with hope rather than remaining fixed to the problems of the past."
The veterans applauded.
In raising the matter before a veterans' group, Clinton hoped to blunt it as a campaign issue. He compared his action to John Kennedy's going before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960 to face head-on the issue of people voting against a candidate because of his Catholic religion.
"If I should lose this election on the real issues, I shall be satisfied that I tried my best."
Bush, too, used his appearance to defend himself — in the president's case it was against accusations that he stopped the Gulf War so soon rather than sending troops into
Baghdad to crush Saddam Hussein's government.
"We are not in the slaughter business," Bush said. "We were in the stopping of stoppage aggression, and I don't like these historical revisions. We did the right thing."
Bush, who also was applauded by the Legionaires, said his top military advisers and Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf had told him the battle had been won and it was time to stop.
In other campaign developments yesterday:
Bush flew to Detroit where he told a rally in suburban Canton that a Clinton proposal to increase car mileage standards would throw U.S. autoworkers out of their jobs. Dozens of autoworkers protested Bush's visit, waving pink skirts to suggest his policies were responsible for layoffs in the industry.
Al Gore, the Democratic vice-president
trial candidate, toured a supercomputer center in Columbus, Ohio. He ridiculed Bush's new job-training proposal, saying it was designed to save only two jobs — those of Bush and Quayle.
In Chicago, both Bush and Clinton lavished praise on the veterans and were well-received in return; Clinton was far more detailed in his promises to support veterans' programs and causes, and he received the most amplouse
Among the Legionnaires opinion was mixed on whether Clinton's lack of military service and the steps he took to avoid being drafted should be a campaign issue. But there was no mistaking the dissatisfaction with Bush over the administration's handling of veterans' affairs and the economy.
Clinton, saying he owed veterans one final statement on the issue, told the group he got a draft notice in 1969 and was told by his draft
board he could finish his school year. He said he then joined an ROTC program to avoid the draft, but soon reversed that decision and submitted to the new draft lottery, only to draw a high number and never be called.
"I would have served and gone to Vietnam if called," he said. "But I have to tell you the truth: I was relieved when I saw my number was 311, not because I didn't want to serve my country but because I believed so strongly that our policy in Vietnam was wrong."
He pledged to protect and expand veterans' health and other programs and open the Pentagon files on U.S. citizens missing in action
The president also promised to protect health programs and said the new job-training proposal he unveiled Monday would help outgoing military personnel and defense workers in transition.
A TALE OF TWO PARTIES:
THE GEOGRAPHY
4.2 million
Unknown number
of voters
Population 10.9 million 365,800 voters
Population 28.2 million 4.1 million voters
Population
76 million
14 million voters
Quayle rips Clinton, Gore on whistle stop train tour
The Associated Press
HIGH POINT, N.C. — Vice President Dan Quayle, on an old-fashioned, whistle stop train trip across North Carolina, ripped into "Tax Hike Bill Clinton" yesterday and depicted Arkansas as a land of high taxes and low incomes.
Qauyle dray cheers from hundreds of people who lined the railroad tracks in Charlotte, Salisbury, Lexington and High Point. The vice president rode on the Doris, a luxury Pullman car built 75 years ago for tobacco magnate James Duke and named for his daughter.
Quayle stood on a bunting-draped back platform and repeated the Republican refrain that Clinton had raised taxes at home and would do it in Washington.
"They're now talking about raising taxes on minerals, home heating oil, on gasoline, on wood, on paper. You name it, they're talking about taxing it," Quayle said.
"He's said that as president, "I'm going to raise taxes $150 billion. He's got a training tax increase. He's got a health-care tax increase," Quayle said in Lexington.
The Clinton campaign contends President Bush and Quayle are distorting the governor's record in Arkansas, ignoring dozens of taxes and fees he has cut. It says Arkansas enjoy the second-lowest per capita tax burden in the country.
Not according to Quayle.
In an interview with The Associated Press as his two-car train rolled between Charlotte and Salisbury, Quayle said Arkansas ranked near the bottom in per-capita income.
"Look, he's raised taxes a lot," the vice president said. "He's got a tax hike plank in his platform. Tax hike Bill will raise your taxes, you can be sure of that."
Quayle based his contention that Clinton favors environmental taxes on proposals from a recent book, Earth in the Balance, by Clinton's running mate, Sen. Al Gore, D-Tenn., an ardent environmentalist.
Quayle dismissed the idea that Clinton had not personally espoused taxes on carbon, paper, minerals and other products.
Clinton has proposed raising income tax rates on the wealthy, individuals making more than $150,000 and couples making more than $200,000, but he has said he would lower taxes on the middle class. He also backs a 1.5-percent retraining tax on companies that are not already training their workers. And he has endorsed the idea of making companies that fail to provide health insurance pay an unspecified tax to cover a government-run insurance pool.
"Let him repudiate his vice presidential tax proposals," said Quayle. "If he wants to reject them, fine, but to my knowledge he hasn't."
At every stop yesterday, Quayle repeated the Republican contention that Clinton had raised taxes and fees 128 times in Arkansas.
The Democrats have accused Bush and Quayle of knowingly repeating false information with that line. The 128 figure is a count of the lines on a party list of tax increases, despite the fact that descriptions of some of the increases take up more than one line. In addition, the list includes many state fees raised because of federal mandates.
The Associated Press
Gore slams job plan
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Sen. Al Gore yesterday accused President Bush of proposing a job program that was designed to save only two jobs — those of Bush and his running mate.
"Where've they been the last four years?" the Democratic vice-presidential nominee demanded after touring a supercomputer center here in a critical battleground state. "Why didn't they talk about jobs at the Republican convention?"
The Bush proposal and the Gore trip, which also included a stop at a program that helps welfare recipients find jobs, illustrate similar themes sounded by two campaigns.
Gore charged that the Bush job training and apprenticeship program, proposed Monday in Connecticut, represented a foxhole conversion.
Shortly before last week's GOP convention Bush took a two-day campaign trip during which he visited the superconducting supercol-
"The thing about a foxhole conversion this close to the election is that you can't trust them to follow through," he said. "They've made so many promises."
Campaign aides released a statement calling Bush's plan an imitation of presidential nominee Bill Clinton's longstanding job training proposals and stressed that Bush has not said how he would pay for his plan. Clinton would require businesses to devote 1.5 percent of their payroll to worker training and education.
lider in Texas and a welfare-to-work program in California.
Gore, a longtime computer afficionado, listened intently yesterday as an employee of the Ohio Supercomputer Center showed him computer pictures of brain imaging and discussed his work. Later, in a class for advanced computer students, he delivered a short lecture of his own on inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning and computational science.
Gore also pointedly asked the 15 students why they could not tap into the supercomputer from their regular schools.
"That was kind of a leading question," Gore confessed, then launched into a pitch for one of his pet projects — a national information superhighway linking businesses and schools in a supercomputer network.
"When people say high-tech, I think jobs," he declared. Underscoring the theme was the presence of Sen. John Glen, D-Ohio, the first U.S. citizen to orbit the Earth.
Earlier in the day, Gore denounced attempts by Republicans to identify themselves as the party of family values and suggest Democrats were lacking in that area as transparently political.
"We are strongly in favor of the traditional values on which this country is based," Gore said in an interview on NBC's "Today" show. "Any effort to pretend there is a difference is really an effort to mislead."
Foes attack Clinton taxing
The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The latest Republican publicity of donatation on Clinton Bill Clinton fault the Arkansas governor for raising taxes 128 times, buying it. In fact, the real figure is much smaller.
The Clinton campaign itself admits to 49 tax increases, including more than $260 million in tax increases for a $2-billion state budget in 1991.
The Bush-Quayle campaign's list of alleged Clinton tax increases counts four tax boosts twice. And Clinton supporters say it also would not consider a tax or an unreasonable fee.
Two of the 128 entries on the Bush-Quay list are increases in the percentage of bets the state gets from dog-and horse-racing tracks. Another lengthened the dog-racing season, which is a tax hike only in the sense that a longer season
increases the state's take from wagers.
Most of the fees on the list raise little money or target a specific audience. For example, one fee is assessed on people convicted in Arkansas courts.
President Bush, in his speech last week at the Republican National Convention, said Clinton had boosted taxes 128 times and enjoyed it every time. Vice President Dan Quayle tossed out the same figure yesterday as he campaigned in North Carolina, depicting Arkansas as a state of high taxes and low incomes.
Overall, Arkansas ranked 13th among the states in a state of state tax bills, and it ranked 45th in local tax burden, according to the 1980 Tax Commission on Intergovernmental Relations.
"The list is totally misleading," Betsey Wright, a top aide in Clinton's campaign, said of the Bush-Quease II. The campaign acknowledges 49 "actual taxes" increased under Clinton.