Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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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. ____ __