Bush, Gore clinch nominations
by Ron Fournie(!
and Eun-kyung Kim
Associated Press
A1 Gore and George W. Bush, their
chief rivals already conquered, cruised
Tuesday through six Southern primaries
that ensured them the delegates needed to
clinch the Democratic and Republican
presidential nominations.
Looking ahead to a November matchup
with the GOP governor of Texas, Gore
said, “This election is a real choice be
tween two different ways” of governing.
Republican John McCain and Demo
crat Bill Bradley abandoned their cam
paigns Thursday, ending an exciting pri
mary season that tested the front-runners
and spurred record-breaking voter turnout.
Former ambassador Alan Keyes remained
on GOP ballots, but wasn’t a threat to Bush.
With suspense drained from the race,
turnout was low in Florida, Mississippi,
Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Louisiana.
“There’s just no interest in this elec
tion,” said Michael Gamer, a Democrat
ic poll worker in Mississippi.
The limited choices didn’t impress vot
ers.
“I guess I’m just going to have to vote
forbore, though I’m not really happy
about it,” said Dennis McHale, a Demo
crat from New Orleans who was drawn to
the polls by a city council election.
Gore voted for himself in the Demo
cratic primary in Tennessee, his home state,
and promised to help Americans who don’t
have jobs or health insurance.
“This election is a real choice between
two different ways of approaching those
problems, and I want to be president to
make sure we solved these problems the
right way,” the vice president told reporters.
He promised “no let up at all,” even
with the nomination fight settled.
“Whatever'energy I might feel like
putting into celebrating I am putting into
the general election instead,” said Gore,
who like Bush is appealing to the politi
cal middle and voters outside their own
party. “I’m going to reach out to Repub
licans and independents.”
Getting ahead of himself, the vice pres
ident outlined his accomplishments “as
president” and quickly corrected the er
ror: “As vice president, I mean.”
Bush dabbled with state business in
Austin, Texas, and met with Secret Ser
vice officials about their plans to take over
for state police who have been protecting
him. He had already voted for himself by
absentee ballot.
Bush’s parents, former President Bush
and first lady Barbara Bush, voted for then
son in Houston. The elder Bush had trou
ble expressing his emotions.
Clinch see page a6
Harry Hamburg KRT
Texas Gov. George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, sit on a couch in the
Executive Mansion in Austin, Texas, as they awaited the election
returns on Super Tuesday. Bush clinched the GOP presidential nom
ination with a sweep of all the Southern primaries Tuesday nighL
White House labels
comments by NRA
leader 'sad, shameful'
by Anne Gearan
Associated Press
Washington—The White House Tues
day labeled as sad and shameful a National
Rifle Association leader’s accusation that
President Clinton is “willing to accept a
certain level of killing to further his po
litical agenda.”
“I’d have to agree with The New
York Times this morning, that called it
desperate rhetoric,” White House
spokesman Joe Lockhart said on NBC’s
“Today.” “I think it is sad, but it’s also
shameful. The NRA desperately doesn’t
want to have the real debate we should
be having in this country about whether
we can keep our kids safer.”
• Whyne LaPierre, the NRA executive
vice president, who made the accusation,
didn’t back away from the words in an
NBC interview today. But he twice re
fused to repeat them.
“I think the feet is the president would
rather make NRA rhetoric the issue rather
than his own policies,” LaPierre said.
“The truth is, of the 500,000 cases the
president brags about where they stopped
felons trying to buy guns under the in
stant check, which NRA supports, he’s
prosecuted only a handful.”
Lockhart responded that enforcement
is up 16 percent during Clinton’s presi
dency, and “on all levels, state, local,
where most of the enforcements happen,
it’s up 25 percent.”
“Crime is down. We’ve put more
cops on the street. We’ve tried to take
guns off the street. The NRA has stood in
our way at every step,” Lockhart said.
Later, the president’s spokesman crit
icized Texas Gov. George W. Bush for
declining Monday to denounce LaPierre’s
remarks, saying the likely Republican
presidential nominee should have con
sidered it part of his duty as a political
leader to speak out against “outrageous
statements.”
“The way I saw it was the governor
saying that both sides should stop calling
each other names,” Lockhart said. “That,
certainly, I didn’t see as a repudiation.
This gentleman has made a statement and
it’s gone unchallenged, as far as I can tell,
by the governor and others.”
LaPierre said in a televised interview
Sunday that “President Clinton is will
ing to accept a certain level of killing to
further his political agenda, and his vice
president, too.”
“It’s pretty hard to take,” Clinton
told a Democratic crowd during a polit
ical fund-raising speech Monday night in
Chicago.
As he did earlier during two appear
ances in Cleveland, Clinton repeated
LaPierTe’s comment in a soft, almost in
credulous tone. “I didn’t like that,” he
said.
The back-and-forth seemed sure to
continue, as the White House tries to
train an unflattering light on the NRA and
its mostly Republican backers in Con
gress as Vice President A1 Gore campaigns
to replace Clinton and Democrats hope
to regain a majority in the House in No
vember.
“I’m not trying to pick a fight with
anybody,” Clinton said Monday night.
“I’m just trying to keep more people
alive.”
Clinton has issued a challenge to Con
gress to pass what he calls “common
sense gun control” before the April 20
anniversary of the Columbine High School
shootings in Colorado, although his plan
failed in Congress last year.
He wants to impose background
checks on sales at gun shows that could
take as long as 72 hours. Many congres
sional Republicans, like the NRA, want
any such checks to be instant or at least
no longer than 24 hours. Clinton also
wants trigger locks to be required on new
guns and a ban on the import of laige-ca
pacity ammunition clips.
Even in the face of Columbine and
the shooting death of a 6-year-old by a
first-grade classmate, Clinton said, the
NRA is set in its opposition.
“I want you to see what we’re up
against whenever we try to change here,”
Clinton said.
LaPierre held his ground on Monday.
He said it is Clinton who owes the par
ents of children killed by guns an expla
nation of why federal gun laws are being
so poorly enforced.
“I think he should look them in the
eye and explain why he won’t enforce
the laws against crack dealers with guns
and take them off the street,” he said in
an interview.
What began the exchange Sunday is
a new campaign in which NRA President
Charlton Heston implies in television ads
that Clinton lied when he characterized
the NRA as stubbornly resistant to rea
sonable gun-control laws.
“When what you say is wrong, that’s
a mistake,” Heston says in several of them.
“When you know it’s wrong, that’s a lie.”
‘The NR A desperately doesn’t want to have the real
debate we should be having in this country about
whether we can keep our kids safer.’
Joe Lockhart
White House spokesman
Florida judge
throws out state
voucher system
by Jackie Hallifax
Associated Press
Tallahassee, Fla.—A judge on
Tuesday threw out the nation’s first
statewide school voucher system, rul
ing that Florida’s Constitution bars pub
lic money from being spent on private
education.
Gov. Jeb Bush, who championed
the pregram, promised to find the mon
ey to keep it goiig despite what hap
pens in court. An appeal is certain.
“ Wfe’ll raise the money,” Bush said.
“This is the first inning of a long drawn
out legal battle.”
Ron Meyer, an attorney challeng
ing vouchers for a coalition that in
cludes Florida Education Assoca
tion/United teachers union, tire National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, the Florida PTA, the
League of Women Voters and a hand
ful of families and educators, claimed
victory.
“Wfe won it lock, stock and barrel”
he said.
Fifty-two children attending pri
vate schools in Pensacola under the pro
gram can finish the year, but the state
can’t implement the law in any other
way, Circuit Judge L. Ralph Smith Jr.
said.
“Tax dollars may not be used to
send the children of this state to pri
vate schools,” Smith said
School vouchers are likely to sur
face in the presidential race, with Bush’s
brother, GOP contender George W.
Bush, in support of vouchers but De
mocrat A1 Gore flatly opposed
Students at Florida schools rated
badly by the state can seek the vouch
ers for private school tuition at taxpayer
expense. Voucher values vary based on
how much a failing school spends per
student but are generally worth $3,000
to $4,000.
Only two of Florida’s 2,500 public
schools—both elementary schools in
Pensacola—qualified this year. Both
religious and nonreligious private schools
are eligible.
Tracy Richardson, who has an 8
year-old daughter attending Montes
sori Early School on a voucher, said,
“This is probably the worst day of
our lives. To send her back to the fail
ing public schools could ruin any chance
she has.”
Mary E Smith is using vouchers to
send her niece and nephew to St. John
the Evangelist School. Smith, who
has custody of 11-year-old Angela At
wood and 7-year-old Antonio Held,
called the judge’s ruling “very unfair.”
She said she has seen a major dif
ference in the children since they start
ed at the parochial school, but she can’t
afford to keep them there without
vouchers.
“They knew there was a chance
that they might stop the program from
the beginning," she said. “I’m just
going to tell them like it is. I’ll tell them
we’re going to pray about it and ap
peal.”
\bucher opponents argued that the
program violated the state constitution
by spending public dollars on private
schools and violated the separation of
church and state clause when used for
parochial schools.
But Smith didn’t take up the reli
gion issue, concluding without hearing
evidence that the law violated the con
stitution’s mandate of a free education
through a system of “public schools.”
Maine and Vermont have narrow
programs to assist students in rural ar
eas while Milwaukee and Cleveland
have citywide voucher plans.
With U.S., European support, German poised to head IMF
by Hans Greimel
Associated PRess
Frankfurt, Germany — With the approval of
the United States and the backing of his fellow Eu
ropeans, Horst Koehler is poised to head the Inter
national Monetary Fund and help prod its reform
into a more market-oriented firefighter of world
wide financial crises.
Acknowledging the strong consensus behind
Koehler’s candidacy, Japan today withdrew its own
nominee for the IMF post, former Finance Ministry
official Eisuke Sakakibara.
Koehler has won praise for his 17 months at the
helm of the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development in London, a bank set up in 1991 to
promote market-oriented economies in eastern Eu
rope and the former Soviet Union’.
It’s that experience reforming inefficient socialist
economies that won him support as a candidate like
ly to streamline the LMF, a Washington-based or
ganization of 182 nations that provides emergency
4 loans to foundering economies.
In Washington, IMF spokesman Thomas Daw
son said Portugal, which currently holds the rotat
ing presidency of the European Union, would for
mally put forward Koehler’s candidacy at a board
meeting this afternoon.
Dawson said Koehler would then need to come
to Washington to meet with members of the board,
presumably to present his views on how he in
tends to lead the organization and what reforms he
wants to make.
President Clinton endorsed Koehler on Mon
day in a phone call with Chancellor Gerhard Schroed- •
er. According to the White House, they both also
agreed that Koehler should retain the IMF’s current
management team, indicating that Stanley Fischer
would remain as deputy.
Fischer, an American who has been the acting
IMF chief since former head Michel Camdessus
stepped down in February, has also been nominat
ed for the top job by a coalition of 20 mostly African
governments.
Clinton has said he wanted to stick with the tra
dition that has a European heading the IMF and an
American at tjhe World Bank.
The United States has been pushing to refomi
the IMF after its bungled bailouts of economic crises
in Russia and Asia, where Wfestem commercial banks
were hit with heavy losses.
The German’s nomination Monday by the Eu
ropean Union follows a humiliating rebuff of its first
candidate, German Deputy Finance Minister Caio
Koch-Weser, who was rejected by the United States
as too lightweight.
A veteran of the German Finance Ministry from
1982-93, Koeliler is seen as bringing more hard-core
economic credentials to the job.
Koehler’s views on IMF reform also are ex
pected to be more in line with Washington’s and
more clearly defined than Koch-Weser’s, which
were muddled and outlined late in his candidacy.
“As far as Koehler is concerned, it is clear that
he is a hard-liner in the sense of the reform projects
brought forward in principle by the United States,”
Deutsche Bank chief economist Norbert Whiter said
in a Monday night interview with ZDF television.
That doesn’t mean that Koehler would be a U.S.
lap dog.
■ Karsten Voigt, coordinator for German-Amer
ican relations in the Foreign Ministry, called on Eu
ropean states now to develop their own concept for
reforming the IMF, noting that the United States has
been working on its own ideas for some time
while Europe has been silent.
“That has to be made up for,” he told InfoRa
dio in Berlin today. “One has to develop common
ideas about the goals with the countries of the Third
World, which after all are the ones most affected.”
He said Koehler was “excellently suited” to car
ry out this process, during which he said “many of
the ideas of the Americans will be rubbed off or have
to be rubbed off.”
Once referred to by former Chancellor Helmut
Kohl as a “treasure,” Koehler became a deputy fi
nance minister in 1990 and served as Kohl’s
“sherpa” at meetings of the Group of Seven indus
trialized countries. He was involved in economic
decisions during Germany’s reunification and played
a critical role in negotiating the treaty governing the
European monetary union.
. Koehler’s detractors say he is still a bureau
crat, just with more relevant experience.
News Briefs
■ Scientists vho
made Dolly cone pigs
London (AP) — Thegroup that cre
ated Dolly the sheep, he world’s first
clone of an adult mamnal, has produced
the first cloned pigs, rising hopes of a
new source of transpints for humans.
PPL Therapeutics, tfiich cloned Dol
ly three years ago, sail today that five
healthy piglets were bm March 5 in
Blacksbuig, Va. They \ere cloned from
an adult sow using a sightly different
technique than the 013 that produced
Dolly.
Independent test of the DNA of
the piglets - named Milie, Christa, Alex
is, Carrel and Dotcom- confirmed they
were clones of the sowthe company said
Scientists have bee studying pigs for
several years as poteitial organ donors
for people. The clonhg might hold out
hope that pigs could b genetically engi
neered so that their ogans or cells would
be more readily accoted by the human
body, making them nore easily trans
plantable. *
“I think this is t big step forward
they’ve made. I applaud it,” said Dr. Fritz
Bach of Harvard Mbdical School, who
studies genetic andimmunological as
pects of transplants fom animals to peo
ple.
■ References to
Catholicisn disappear
from BJU Web site
The often-citei statement in which
Bob Jones Universiy President Bob Jones
ID called Catholicism and Mormonism
cults no longer is m the fundamentalist +
Christian school’sWeb site.
There is a new nessage in which Jones
recounts his Chriimas Eve contempla
tion on “the growng worldwide hostili
ty toward the evangelizing efforts of Bible
Believing Christims.”
And the curicus can still find “The
Truth About Bob Jones University,” which
says its mission is t* ‘“proclaim the Gospel
to every creature. This means Catholics,
Jews, Buddhists, Mormons, Muslims,
Atheists - everylody, including unbe
lieving and religiotsly liberal Protestants.”
But gone is the “President’s Comer”
message there as lae as March 2 in which
Jones said: “The diminution of evange
listic enterprise tocults which call them
selves Christian, ncluding Catholicism
and Mormonism, is frightening.”
The language vas cited repeatedly af
ter Texas Gov. George W. Bush was crit
icized for speaking on campus Feb. 2 to
bolster his Republican presidential
campaign followirg a loss in New Hamp
shire.
Bush went onto win the South Car
olina primary over Arizona Sen. John
McCain. But McCain made the visit a
campaign issue, and Bush later apologized
repeatedly for not challenging the school’s
interracial dating ban and anti-Catholic
views.
■ Independent
counsel to file first of
three Clinton reports
Washington (AP) — Independent
Counsel Robert Ray will file a final re
port this week on the Clinton White J
House’s improper gathering of hundreds J
of FBI background files of Republican *
appointees, the prosecutor’s office an- *
nounced Monday.
The report is expected to be the first J
of three on the various aspects of the six- \
year criminal investigation of the presi- *
dent and the first lady.
Subsequent reports, all to be sent un- j
der seal to a panel of three federal appeals J
judges who appointed Ray and prede- *
cessor Kenneth Starr, will deal with the *
role of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinijj)
in the purge of the White House travel
office and the Clintons’ Whitewater deal- ‘
ings. 2,
At the White House, presidential !
spokesman Joe Lockhart said “we have [
been through six years and $60 million” }
worth of investigations. “It’s certainly J
our hope that they report out in a way J
that’s done quickly ... that’s consistent '
with the statute and done without regard 2
to politics.”
Lawyers outside Ray’s office described
the plan for reporting on the probe of the
Clintons. “The FBI files investigation has
been concluded” and “we intend to is
sue a report to the special division under
seal later this week,” Ray said in a state
ment. ____ __