The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, April 12, 2000, Page 7, Image 7
Nation & World
Speculation surrounds Bayh as
potential Gore running mate
by Mike Smith
The Associated Press
Indianapolis—Evan Bayh’s quick rise
'"pm Indiana secretary of state to two
term governor to U.S. senator did not sur
prise Hoosiers. Seeds of his popularity
were planted years ago by his father, Birch.
The younger Bayh has been a rising
star on the national scene for Democrats,
as well. President Clinton tapped him to
deliver the keynote address at the party’s
1996 national convention.
But A1 Gore’s running mate? Vice
President Bayh? Maybe, say some polit
ical observers playing matchmaker in the
“veeps takes.”
Bayh, whose constant courting of the
political center earned him a “Republi
crat” tag in Indiana, takes an “aw shucks”
^proach when asked publicly about
prospects of being on Gore’s ticket.
“I’m flattered by your questions, but
I think it would be premature of me to
even speculate about it,” he said in March
when Gore’s wife Tipper visited for a
fund-raiser.
The Gore camp says Bayh — his
name is pronounced “buy” — is a great
guy, “but there is no list and A1 Gore has
said it is premature to even begin talking
about this process,” campaign spokes
woman Kathleen Begala said.
That leaves others to speculate, and
some put Bayh at or near the top of their
list of possible Gore running mates.
Ron Faucheux, editor in chief of Cam
paigns & Elections magazine, has Bayh
TjXl with California Sen. Diane Feinstein
as the likely pick.
“A young, attractive vote-getter from
a GOP-leaning Midwestern state, Bayh
has eight years gubernatorial experience
(1989-97) in addition to his two-year Sen
ate tenure,” Faucheux wrote. “He is to
Gore what Gore was to Clinton: a rein
forcing choice.”
Another name mentioned is Illinois
Sen. Dick Durbin. Illinois and other Mid
west states are viewed as battle grounds
that could tip the balance in November.
When asked who Gore’s choice
should be, Durbin mentioned Bayh alone.
“I think he’s a very attractive po
tential candidate for vice president, hav
ing served as governor of Indiana, (and)
a family name legendary in the Democ
ratic Party,” Durbin said.
Like Gore, Bayh, 44, is the son of a
senator who had presidential aspirations,
and both attended St. Albans prep school,
a top choice among powerful Washing
tonians.
In 1988 at age 32, Bayh became the
youngest governor in the country. Un
like his father, considered a Great Soci
ety liberal, he has carved a reputation as
a social moderate and fiscal tightwad.
From the day he became governor,
Bayh began protecting his political im
ageasa cautious, centrist steward. While
many have claimed he accomplished no
great feats, there was never a scathing
scandal, and he was wildly popular.
There also were no new taxes.
“There appears to be nothing in Evan
Bayh’s background that would cause any
grief to A1 Gore,” said Ed Feigenbaum,
a longtime political observer and pub
lisher of Indiana Legislative Insight, a
weekly newsletter.
In Indiana, which a Democratic pres
idential nominee hasn’t captured since
Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Bayh proved
himself as one who can transcend party
lines. Gore and Republican Geoige W.
Bush are trying to do the same as they
battle for the independent vote.
In his Senate election in 1998, Bayh
won 90 percent of the Democratic vote
and 30 percent of the Republican count,
according to exit polls.
Dave Rohde, a political science
professor at Michigan State University,
agreed Bayh would do no harm to the
Gore ticket, but doubted he will be picked.
Indiana has 12 electoral votes, not a
huge payday in presidential politics. Flori
da, with 25 votes, is a bigger prize and
it’s in play, so Florida Sen. Bob Graham
makes more sense as a vice presidential
pick to Rohde.
It takes 270 votes in the Electoral
College to win the presidency.
“If the Democrats are to carry Indi
ana, they would have already won the
presidency elsewhere. So, what you want
is someone likely to bring you a state that
carries the 270th electoral vote, not the
350th electoral vote,” Rohde said.
Another criticism of Bayh is that he’s
perceived as too much like Gore—stiff,
measured, dispassionate.
Bayh said he and Gore share com
mon goals: balancing the budget, pro
tecting Social Security and Medicare, and
spreading economic prosperity to more
people.
But he said there is a lot of time un
til the Democratic Party convention in
August and Gore’s decision, and that
“many things can change between now
and then.”
“While the speculation is certainly
understandable, I think it’s premature,”
Bayh said.
‘He is to Gore what Gore was to Clinton: a reinforc
ing choice.'
Ron Faucheux
Editor in Chief, Campaigns & Elections
Bush unveils 'New Prosperity' plan
b y Glen Johnson
The Associated Press
Washington — Geoige W. Bush out
lined a plan today to give the working
poor credits for health insurance and rental
vouchers for home down payments.
He also said he plans to offer tax cred
its for banks that match the savings de
posits of poor people.
Called his “New Prosperity Initia
tive,” the $42 billion plan expands on
tax-cut and education proposals previ
ously offered by the all-but-official Re
publican presidential nominee and con
tinues his outreach to independents and
moderate Democratic voters by talking
about subjects often ignored by Repub
lican candidates.
“At the edges of affluent communi
ties, there are those living in prosperity’s
shadow,” Bush said in remarks pre
pared for afternoon delivery to com
munity and church leaders.
“The same economy that is a mira
cle for millions of Americans is a mys
tery for millions as well, Americans who
live in a world above welfare assistance
but beneath prosperity’s promise,” he
said.
One part of his plan: Expand home
ownership by giving participants in the
Section 8 rental voucher program per
mission to get a year’s worth of vouch
ers in a lump sum for a home down
payment.
Another element: Provide a credit of
up to $2,000 per family to cover 90 per
cent of health insurance costs for those
who do not qualify for government-spon
sored programs such as Medicaid, yet do
not receive insurance from their em
ployers.
“It is true that government can un
demine upward mobility, as welfare once
did,” Bush said. “It is equally true that
government — active but limited gov
ernment — can promote the rewards of
work. It can take the side of individual
opportunity.”
The Texas governor was unveiling his
proposal during an afternoon speech to
about 250 community and church lead
ers on Cleveland’s West Side — a heav
ily Democratic area.
“With the same energy and activism
that others have brought to expanding
government, we must expand opportu
nity” by targeting those “between pover
ty and prosperity,” Bush said.
The Democratic National Commit
tee, a vessel for the Democratic presi
dential contender, Vice President A1 Gore,
criticized Bush as he visited a job train
• ing center known as “El Barrio” imme
diately before his speech.
El Barrio is a nonprofit social service
agency that offers a range of services to
the city’s Hispanic community, includ
ing job training, transportation and trans
lations.
The Democrats cited a January re
port by the Texas state auditor that found
“gross fiscal mismanagement” in the ad
ministration of a $201 million “Smart
Jobs” fund overseen by the state De
partment of Economic Development.
“With a dismal job training record
like his in Texas, it’s no wonder that Bush
had to travel to Ohio to even talk about
the issue,” a committee statement said.
During his tour of El Barrio today,
Bush visited a classroom where students
were using a computer to write resumes
and job-application letters, an English
class and a class where Hispanic adults
were learning to be bilingual bank tellers.
Bush posed for photographs with the
students and laughed when one student
from Peru asked him where his cowboy
hat was.
“I left it at home,” he replied.
A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll
shows that Bush has pulled slightly ahead
of Gore in the campaign. He was sup
ported by 50 percent of likely voters com
pared to 41 percent for Gore, up from a
poll taken March 30-April 2 which
showed the two in a statistical dead
heat with Bush at 46 percent and Gore
at 45 percent.
Gore has criticized Bush’s five-year,
$483 billion tax cut proposal as a
“risky tax scheme” that leaves nothing
for other government spending and So
cial Security. Bush sees it as an under
pinning for many of his other proposals.
‘With a dismal job training record like his in Texas,
it's no wonder that Bush had to travel to Ohio to
even talk about the-issue.’
Statement
Democratic National Committee
Holocaust
from page 4
including “Hitler’s War,” said he does
not deny that Jews were killed by the
Nazis, but challenges the number and
manner of Jewish concentration camp
deaths. He called Tuesday’s ruling
“perverse” and said he would seek to ap
peal.
The 62-year-old Briton represented
himself during the nine-week, nonjury
hearing, but as the loser must pay the
huge legal costs, estimated at $3.2 mil
lion, for Lipstadt and her publishers.
Irving, who has been banned from
Germany, Canada and Australia, main
tained during the trial that he had been
the victim of a 30-year international cam
paign to destroy his reputation.
He claimed that after publication of
Lipstadt’s book, “Denying the Holocaust:
The Growing Assault on Truth and Mem
ory,” his academic work was increasing
ly shunned by publishers and agents.
Under British libel law, Lipstadt
and Penguin had to prove not only that
--
Irving distorted the historical record, but
also that the distortion was deliberate.
Lipstadt, who holds the Dorot Chair
in Modem Jewish and Holocaust Stud
- ies at Emory University in Atlanta, briefly
hugged supporters after the verdict.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak
sent his congratulations to Lipstadt “in
the name of Israel and the entire Jewish
people.”
“Her struggle and victory is the
victory of the free world against the forces
of darkness that would wish to obliterate
from memory the [depths] humanity
reached,” he said in a statement.
In an interview with Sty TV on Tues
day, Irving denied being a racist and re
peated his claim that Jewish deaths dur
ing the Holocaust have been exaggerated.
Gassings of Jews occurred, he said, “but
on nothing like the scale that’s talked
about now.”
And shortly before the verdict, Irv
ing said he had reviewed some of his the
ories during the trial, but his basic posi
tion remained that “the Holocaust has
been grossly inflated and there has been
a hell of a lot of lying by the eyewit
nesses.”
Jewish groups expressed relief at the
judge’s ruling.
“Today’s decision definitely places
Irving where he belongs — not as a his
torian, but as a leading apologist for those
who seek to whitewash the most heinous
crime in human history,” said the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based
movement dedicated to victims of the
Nazis.
“Here is a man who carried out a se
rious attempt to debunk the Holocaust,”
said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the center’s
founder. “But it is not the Holocaust that
has been debunked, it is David Irving him
self.”
During the trial, Israel gave Lipstadt
and Penguin’s lawyers the previously se
cret memoirs of Nazi war criminal Adolf
Eichmann, which contained methodical
descriptions of the genocide, including
timetables of death transports.
“It is a victory for 6 million voices
that cannot speak for themselves,” said
Rabbi Jonathan Romain, son of a Holo
caust survivor and a spokesman for Re
form Synagogues in Britain. “It is a de
feat for the Holocaust denial industry and
the bigotry that lies behind it.”
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