Bush painted the vice president as a man who would
create “a big, exploding federal government.” Gore, sighing loudly at
Bush’s points and occasionally shaking his head and smiling, cast his
rival as likely to bust the budget with his $1.3 trillion tax cut.
With the polls deadlocked and tensions
running high between their campaigns, Bush and Gore largely stuck to
substance and avoided personal attacks in Tuesday night’s event.
But the Texas governor, answering a question
from debate moderator Jim Lehrer about character, said he was disappointed
in Gore’s involvement in the 1996 campaign fund-raising scandals,
particularly his attendance at a Buddhist temple event that has been
investigated by the Justice Department.
“I
felt like there needed to be a better sense of responsibility of what was
going on in the White House,” Bush said in a twist on his oft-repeated
pledge to ring in a a new “responsibility era” in the nation. “They’ve
moved the sign ‘The buck stops here’ from the Oval Office to ‘The buck
stops here’ on the Lincoln Bedroom.”
Gore
deflected the criticism. “You may want to focus on scandals, I want to
focus on results,” Gore responded.
Gore then
turned that into a challenge for Bush to support campaign finance reform.
“This current campaign financing system has
not reflected credit on anybody in either party,” Gore said.
Bush scoffed at the suggestion, seeming to
think the vice president was referring to an earlier Gore challenge for
him to stop spending unregulated “soft money” donations, saying, “I am not
going to lay down my arms in the middle of a campaign for somebody who has
no credibility on the issue.”
American
Experience
Lehrer opened the debate by giving Gore a chance
to skewer Bush, asking him why he had cast doubt on the Texas governor’s
experience.
“I have actually not questioned
Gov. Bush’s experience, I have questioned his proposals,” Gore said before
rattling off a list of his own policy initiatives.
Pressed to explain past comments on Bush’s
tax cut proposal that seemed to indicate he had, in fact, questioned the
Texas governor’s experience, Gore said, “I said his tax cut plan raises
the question of whether it’s the right choice for the country.”
For his part, Bush wore the lack of
experience inside the Beltway as a badge of honor.
“Look, I fully recognize I’m not of
Washington. I’m from Texas. And he’s got a lot of experience, but so do I.
And I’ve been the chief executive officer of the second-biggest state in
the union.”
But Bush said Gore’s chief
experience has been failing to fulfill campaign promises, repeatedly
campaigning to expand access to prescription drugs and reform Medicare yet
failing in eight years in office to solve those problems.
“You’ve had your chance, Mr. Vice President,”
Bush said. “You’ve been there for eight years and nothing has been done.”
He also repeatedly characterized Gore’s blizzard of numbers regarding tax
cuts and health care as “fuzzy math.”
Clash on
Abortion, RU-486
Bush said he wouldn’t overturn the FDA’s
recent decision to allow the sale of abortion pill, RU-486.
“I don’t think a president can do that,” Bush
said, going on to vow he would ban late-term abortions and “promote a
culture of life in America.”
Reiterating his
support for the abortion drug and saying he also would sign a ban on
late-term abortions, the vice president said the main issue was the
Supreme Court. Bush would appoint justices who oppose abortion rights
while, Gore said, he would appoint those who support a woman’s right to an
abortion.
“Here’s the difference: He trusts
the government to order a woman to do what he thinks she ought to do,”
Gore said. “I trust women to make the decisions that affect their lives,
their destinies and their bodies.”
Military
Readiness
Bush mostly avoided the sort of fumbles his
campaign had been hoping he would avoid. But the Texas governor, who has
made rebuilding the military one of his top priorities, lost his footing
somewhat when asked about his criteria for sending U.S. troops overseas.
“If it’s in our vital national interest, and
that means whether or not our territory, our people, could be harmed,”
Bush said, “whether or not our alliances, our alliances are threatened,
whether or not our friends in the Middle East are threatened. That would
be a time to seriously consider use of force.”
Asked whether the United States should
consider the use of force to remove Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
if necessary, both candidates answered, “no.”
But Bush suggested the United States encourage Russia to mediate a
solution, prompting Gore to caution that Russia has traditionally
supported the Milosevic government.
“We need
to be very careful in the present situation before we invite the Russians
to play the lead role in mediating,” Gore said.
“Well, obviously we wouldn’t use the Russians
if they didn’t agree with our answer,” Bush said with a laugh.
“Well, they don’t,” Gore shot back.
High
Stakes
The latest ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll shows
Gore leading Bush 48 percent to 46 percent — a virtual tie given the
survey’s three-point error margin. In an ABCNEWS telephone poll of 491
registered voters who watched the debate, 42 percent said Gore won, 39
percent said Bush was the victor, and 13 percent called it a tie. However,
the difference is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.5
points.
The next two debates, also moderated
by Lehrer, will have a more “free-flowing” style that Bush lobbied for.
One will feature the candidates seated with Lehrer at a table, and the
other will be a town hall-style meeting with questions from the
audience.
Those debates will take place Oct.
11 in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Oct. 17 in St. Louis. The vice-presidential
candidates, Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Republican Dick Cheney,
will face off Thursday in Danville, Ky.
Both
Bush and Gore hoped to ride fresh momentum into key battleground states
Wednesday, with Gore headed to Ohio and Bush to Pennsylvania and Ohio.
John Berman, Dana Hill, Dean Reynolds and Terry Moran contributed to
this report.
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