AUSTIN, Texas -- You know how refreshing it is when someone in politics
just up and tells the flat truth? I hope she doesn't get fired for it, but
Mindy Tucker, a spokeswoman for the Bush campaign, did so after George W.
got "off-message" and was forced to talk about the abortion issue for the
Iowa caucuses.
He doesn't like to talk about the abortion issue.
"We have a message a day," said Ms. Tucker, "and we want to stick to it. We
are not going to have one big, fat news conference on our schedule where
everyone can come ask questions about what you think is the news of the
day."
I like that. There it is, as they used to say during an unfortunate war.
I can see where campaign strategists would assume the media have no
function other than to relay a candidate's message of the day, like a giant
bullhorn. ("Message: I care," Big George Bush once said, cutting right to
the chase.) But this does raise, once more, the delicate matter of W. Bush's
ability to function outside "the bubble" so carefully created by Karl Rove &
Co.
Karen Hughes, Bush's guardian and press secretary, then attacked the
mild-mannered Cokie Roberts for being "disrespectful" to Bush on a Sunday
chat show. Said disrespect consisted of trying, several times, to get Bush
to answer the question: "Did you ever support higher taxes?" He kept
replying that he had cut taxes, which doesn't actually answer the question.
As it happens, I think Bush is within his rights to answer that he never
supported a tax increase, but it's one of those deals that requires some
context. What Bush did -- alas, he did not succeed -- was support a tax shift that would indeed have put new taxes on some folks.
Among those folks were the state's lawyers, doctors and CPAs, so you can
imagine the lobby muscle that went into defeating that idea.
But the tax shift -- closing many of the egregious loopholes that have been
lobbied into the state sales tax over the years, while giving some relief to
average citizens -- would not have produced a single additional nickel in
revenue for the state. I don't think it's fair to say it was a tax increase,
as the state wouldn't have gotten any more money out of it. It was actually
an effort to make the tax structure in this state fairer, and I'm sorry that
Bush didn't have the clout or the leadership to get it passed. (It was
defeated by the lobby and the Republicans.)
Of course, it wasn't Bush's idea to begin with. It actually came from a
select committee of powerful chairmen in the Democratic House, but he did
get on board.
Now, Bush could have explained that to Ms. Roberts, who is not exactly a
hardball interviewer, but instead he stayed "on message" ("I cut taxes"),
which is one of the worrisome things about his campaign. One consistently
gets the impression that Bush is not thinking or explaining, but parroting
what he has been told is the right answer.
It was sort of painful to hear him try to address questions he didn't have
a canned answer for. Should the Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez be given
citizenship by Congress? Bush hadn't thought about it. This move has been
mooted for two weeks now.
When Hughes was asked if reporters would be able to question Bush in a
formal setting (rather than trying to get him to answer as he goes in and
out of diners and cafes), she replied: "Are you here to cover the campaign?
Then you'll be here to cover what Gov. Bush is doing next week. He'll be
campaigning next week."
What made Bush's handlers so unhappy with the press is he was pushed into
actually saying something about abortion -- to wit, "Roe v. Wade was a
reach, overstepped constitutional bounds as far as I'm concerned" and
"usurped the right of legislatures." He has long been in favor of a
constitutional amendment to outlaw abortions, but he doesn't like to talk
about it. He also said he would oppose RU-486, the abortion pill, even if it
is approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
In a typical Bush straddle, Bush did not attend the Saturday night "Family,
Faith and Freedom" rally at which the three social conservatives in the
Republican race appeared. Bush sent a surrogate, Sen. John Ashcroft of
Missouri, in the same kind of maneuver that we have seen him pull so many
times in Texas to avoid being identified with the Christian right while
pulling their votes.
Those who saw Bush during the news conference when he was pressed on
abortion, or during the Sunday chat show interview, now know how he clings
to the message of the day. He doesn't seem to be able to handle anything he
doesn't have a standard answer for. I recommend that he stick to his
patented non-answers.
"Whatever's fair."
"Whatever's right."
"I'm all right on that."
"I'm for a balanced approach."
Meanwhile, among the D's, the conventional wisdom is that Al Gore has come
roaring back from his early missteps and is now more effective in his full
attack-Chihuahua mode. He is going after Bill Bradley for votes cast 20
years ago and is cheerfully distorting Bradley's proposals. Bradley keeps
not deigning to respond, which has never been a clever strategy.
The fact that Gore is a slashing debater should worry those supporting W.
Bush. If I were a who-can-win-in-November Republican, my money sure wouldn't
be on Bush.
Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2000 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
