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Elizabeth Farnsworth sits down with our regional commentators to talk about the GOP's abortion fight, Dole's economic plan, and the prospects for next week's San Diego convention.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: For a perspective from around the country, we turn to five of our regular regional commentators: Lee Cullum of the 'Dallas Morning News,' Patrick McGuigan of the 'Daily Oklahoman,' Clarence Page of the 'Chicago Tribune,' Mike Barnicle of the 'Boston Globe,' and Cynthia Tucker of the 'Atlanta Constitution,' plus to fill in for William Wong, Deborah Saunders of the 'San Francisco Chronicle.'
Thank you all for being here. Turning to you first, Patrick McGuigan, this issue, not abortion but the issue of tolerance, language of tolerance, where it goes, what it should say, how, how important is it? Does it matter from where you sit?
PATRICK McGUIGAN, Daily Oklahoman: (Oklahoma City) Well, I think it certainly matters here in Oklahoma. Richard Wirthlin, one of the individual's who's polled on this issue a lot over the years, says Oklahoma is perhaps the most pro-life state in the country. I don't know if that's true. But it's an important issue here. People feel strongly about it.
One thing I can say is watching parts of these platform proceedings, it's very clear that whether or not there's life on Mars, there's certainly life within the Republican Party. I think these kinds of discussions are very important. The party has restated the position that it has won on since 1976, and I think that's a very important element in reconsolidating the conservative base that seems to be drifting a little bit from Dole right now. So I think that what they've done in the platform hearings will be helpful to Sen. Dole as he goes forward.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Cynthia Tucker, what do you think? Does this tolerance issue matter?
CYNTHIA TUCKER, Atlanta Constitution: Yes, I think it does, and I don't see how what the committee did yesterday could possibly be helpful to Bob Dole, yesterday or Monday or whenever it was, because one of the committee members expressed her feeling that she did not wish to just be tolerated by her party. Well, she didn't even get that. They did not even agree to say that we will tolerate the views of those in our party who have a different view on abortion.
So I think the unfortunate fact of the matter is that their refusal to have language anywhere in the platform that says we are tolerant of those with different views from ours just hardens the reputation of the Republican Party as being a party that is held hostage by its most extremist wing.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mike Barnicle, what do you think? How significant is this particular debate, the tolerance debate?
MIKE BARNICLE, Boston Globe: Well, again, off the piece at the top of the NewsHour, if there are any Martians living in this life of ours, they are all in San Diego this evening. (laughter among group)
Abortion, I think, just from talking to people during the course of an ordinary, everyday life, is the single most over-rated issue in American politics because most people don't feel it is a part of politics, nor ought it to be a part of politics. They feel it's personal, it's religious, and they don't want politicians, largely male, standing up there and talking about abortion. They just don't--it makes them uncomfortable.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Clarence, what do you think?
CLARENCE PAGE, Chicago Tribune: What's really amazing is the current debate isn't even about abortion. It's about tolerance for views, diversity of views about abortion. Look, Ronald Reagan had the good sense in 1980 to have a tolerance plank in the party's platform that year. He and the other party leaders knew that they had to broaden the GOP base if they were going to win; they had to reach out to middle-of-the-road voters out there.
In 1996, now, Bob dole has become so frightened, so scared to death of Pat Buchanan and that 6 percent of the party that want this extreme position that won't even allow rape under--I'm sorry--won't even allow abortion under cases of rape and incest, that, that they don't want to allow a tolerance plank in the platform, that--they could get away from that if it weren't for the fact that this has become the only story this week now leading into the convention which happened in 1992 as well, and now if it does go to a floor fight, they're going to have this big infomercial in prime time, on TV, that says, we are a party that fights over tolerance. That's disastrous. I can't understand why Bob Dole's allowed his campaign and the party to get in this position.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Deborah Saunders in San Francisco, does it look disastrous to you?
DEBORAH SAUNDERS, San Francisco Chronicle: (San Francisco) Yes, it does. Okay. And I always thought that Bob Dole's offer of tolerance was just crumbs. I was not all that impressed by it. I think what we're seeing right now, however, is not just a fight for a pro-choice plank in the platform or for pro-choice people to be recognized, but I think that a lot of Republicans think that Bob Dole is going to lose, and they're fighting over who has power in four years.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And the other big--where--we've lost our sound to Dallas, so I can't turn to Lee Cullum on this, but we'll try to get back to Lee in a minute--the other big news, turning back to you, Cynthia, this week was the announcement of the Dole economic plan with the tax cut and the promise to also at the same time have a balanced budget by 2002. How is this story, Cynthia, playing in your paper in Atlanta and also in the other media in Atlanta?
MS. TUCKER: Well, let me talk about how it's playing before I talk about how ridiculous I think the tax plan is. It is a case of very curious timing, in my view, if you think about it. Bob Dole sandwiched this announcement, which was a very dramatic one intended to pump some life back into his campaign, right between the close of the Olympics, which has certainly preoccupied all Georgians and I think preoccupied a fair amount of average American television viewers, he sandwiches this announcement in-between the close of the Olympics and this terrible floor fight over abortion they got in.
So he had a very narrow window. And I don't think most Americans have even digested his tax plan, his offer of a broad, 15 percent across-the-board tax cut because it was so quickly eclipsed by that ugly abortion plank--abortion fight. So I think it is a case of very curious timing, and the Dole campaign was not able to capitalize very well so far on its most dramatic proposal.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But was it big news on the day that it was announced?
MS. TUCKER: It was very big news.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Front page.
MS. TUCKER: And certainly we played it on the front page, and we have an editorial in today's paper responding to it.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And the editorial says, more or less, what you just said?
MS. TUCKER: The editorial says disastrous, it will make the deficit even bigger, and why would Bob Dole, who is such a deficit hawk for most of his years in the Senate, get so desperate now as to endorse the very thing he fought during the Reagan years?
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Lee Cullum, I think we can talk to you now, can't we?
LEE CULLUM, Dallas Morning News: I hope so.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Good, you're there, I hear you.
MS. CULLUM: Good.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Umm, before we go into the economic question, I want your comment on that too, but first, how big a deal do you think this debate over the tolerance issue is? How does it look from Dallas?
MS. CULLUM: Well, Elizabeth, I have to say that I have not found the 'Dallas Morning News' editorializing about it in recent days, and I spoke with a colleague at the 'Houston Chronicle.' They haven't been editorializing about it either.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mm-hmm.
MS. CULLUM: I have to say from my own point of view that I think it is important. I think that the word tolerance is a charged word. I think it's regrettable that Sen. Dole ever offered tolerance only to have it withdrawn. It would have been better never to have brought it up at all. And I can't help agreeing with Mike Barnicle that this issue is so private and so intimate and so steeped in religion and tradition that as a woman I'm very uncomfortable with the debate.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Lee, now on the economy issue, how big was it in your paper?
MS. CULLUM: It was big in our paper. It was on the front page. It would have been the banner story, I'm sure, except that our school superintendent resigned, and so it wasn't, but it, nonetheless, was on the front page, certainly was the big story in the 'Houston Chronicle.' Both papers editorialized pretty much against the plan. The 'Houston Chronicle' called it 'voodoo redo.'
The 'Dallas Morning News' also felt, as did the Chronicle in Houston, that the deficit comes first; however, the Dallas News did acknowledge that cutting the capital gains tax in half is a sound idea. And I think it is. It would free up capital for, for new business. And I have been told that only established corporations can get money now. There's no grassroots capital unless you're really, really brilliant. So the kind of small business that could really create jobs and really feel the economy simply can't get funded, and I think this cut in the capital gains tax could be very significant.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Clarence, how did the Chicago--how did your paper and the Chicago media in general play this?
MR. PAGE: Well, since Bob Dole gave the speech in Chicago, needless to say, it was a page one story, but it would have been a page one story anyway, I think. It's important. This major candidate has announced that he's going to move for a $1/2 trillion tax cut at a time when we're talking about balancing the budget, and he says he's going to balance the budget at the same time.
More important, this is a big flip-flop for Bob Dole. Editorially, uh, we--and of course, we've been a strong paper behind Republican candidates over the years--our paper helped to found the Republican Party back in the 1800's--and with that in mind, editorially, we said this is the new Bob Dole, we like the old Bob Dole better. But the old Bob Dole didn't believe--believed in tax cuts--that's fine. But if we're going to have a tax cut, find a way to pay for it.
The new Bob Dole says we're going to have a tax cut and we're going to pay for it with this theory--let me outline it on a chalkboard here--it's called supply side economics, something I hated for years, but now I'm buying into it--why--because I'm desperate and trying to win. And, and that was what essentially we said in our editorial, that this is the new Bob Dole, we like the old Bob Dole better. We hope that he gets back on track in some way that shows once again the kind of fiscal responsibility that he used to show.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Deborah Saunders, how did the San Francisco Chronicle play the economic plan?
MS. SAUNDERS: Well, the big story yesterday, of course, was the death sentence for Richard Allen Davis. However, the Dole tax cut did--
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Remind people, Richard Allen Davis is the person who killed Polly Klaas, kidnaped and killed Polly Klaas.
MS. SAUNDERS: That's correct. Umm, it was a page one story, the Dole tax cut. Page three had a story on the abortion plank fight. We had a page one business story in which our reporter interviewed a number of economists and business people in the area, only one of whom liked the Dole tax cut.
And the Chronicle ran an editorial that was critical, almost every major California newspaper hit Dole for criticizing supply side and now having been won over. You know, I don't know an editorial writer who's going to say that they believe that you can cut taxes, uh, balance the budget, without touching entitlements and defense spending, so obviously he did not get a lot of kudos from editorial pages in California.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Deborah, has the, the debate over the tolerance language replaced the economic story? Is that happening?
MS. SAUNDERS: You know, it is, and I think one of the reasons is, this isn't just about abortion; it's about the fact that Dole flip-flops all the time, and he doesn't seem to be able to stay on message. He promises he's going to do one thing, and then he does something else. He ends up turning everybody off, so I think one of the reasons that this gets such play is because Dole's just all over the map.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Patrick McGuigan, we're hearing a lot of negative comments about--editorial comments about it. What do you--how do you respond to this?
MR. McGUIGAN: Well, as sometimes tends to happen, we take a different point of view. We--in terms of the news coverage of this, it's in Sunday--I think it was Page 4, then there was a rather lengthy Page 8 piece, and then the day that it was announced, the day after it was announced, it was Page 2, a lot of detailed, long stories, break-out, a summary of the provisions.
In our state, the overwhelming majority of new jobs, as in most of the country, are created by small and independent business. Small and independent business people like the provisions, particularly what Lee pointed out on capital gains reductions and the 15 percent across-the-board, you know--I don't know if it's old or new, but Dole said I'm going to finish the job that Ronald Reagan started, and if Dole is elected President, he'll have a Republican Congress if things stay more or less as they are now in the Congress, and he'll be able to do that.
I think this is an important step for Dole, and I disagree with the--some of the comments I'm hearing and some of the things I've read in other newspapers.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Thank you all for being with us.
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