Texas Gov. George W. Bush used a staunchly Republican Labor Day crowd in Naperville to launch his autumn drive to the election, striking a confrontational tone over his differences with Vice President Al Gore and urging voters to elect him as a “plain-spoken” candidate to the White House.
Bush’s feisty attitude was not reserved for his Democratic challenger, however. In an aside to his running mate before a rally outside Naperville North High School, Bush used an expletive to refer to a newspaper reporter in the crowd. Former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney agreed, and both comments were picked up by a live microphone.
The tenor of Bush’s remark, involving a New York Times reporter who has written critically about the GOP candidate’s proposals, was reflective of the newfound aggressiveness in the Texas governor’s rhetoric as the political campaign intensifies.
Bush, who has promised to bring a new tone of civility into politics, accused Gore of “Washington doublespeak” over an ongoing squabble about debates. Bush proposed debating the vice president on two television news shows. Gore had previously embraced debates on television news shows, but has now turned down the offer, contending that only a slice of American viewers would see those debates.
“It’s time to elect some folks that have got good common sense,” Bush said. “It’s time to elect people who say what they mean and mean what they say when they tell the American people something. It’s time to get rid of all those words like `no controlling legal authority.’ We need plain-spoken Americans in the White House.”
Bush’s use of the phrase “no controlling legal authority” was a shot at Gore, who used it initially to defend his disputed fundraising phone calls from his White House office during the 1996 campaign.
On a day that traditionally marks the start of the presidential season, few patches of political ground were left unturned in Chicago as Bush campaigned in a western suburb and Cheney rode the “L” to a neighborhood festival on the city’s Northwest Side where he danced a polka with a Polish-American beauty queen and served up plates of stuffed cabbage, sausage and potato pancakes.
The Democratic challengers, on their own around-the-clock political jaunt, dispatched their wives to Chicago for a Navy Pier rally with thousands of union members and their families. Tipper Gore and Hadassah Lieberman were greeted by red and blue signs that referred to them by first name only.
Illinois holds a key but still unsolved piece of the Electoral College puzzle. Rarely does a week go by that Republicans and Democrats aren’t personally scouring for votes in several pivotal states through the Midwest, where the dizzying political pace is likely to intensify in the 64 days that remain before the November election.
Under cloudy and occasionally drizzling skies Monday morning, Bush and Cheney walked the 1 1/2-mile parade route of Naperville’s Labor Day celebration. The event, like one held later at the Peach Festival in Romeo, Mich., was selected to provide Bush with an event not sponsored by traditionally Democratic organized labor.
Naperville and Romeo also are in two major television markets, Chicago and Detroit, and aides said they were trying to appeal to swing voters. In Michigan, Bush sought to link Gore’s reluctance to debate with President Clinton’s personal problems, saying it was like Clinton’s attempt to parse “what the definition of is, is.”
Gore spokesman Douglas Hattaway said Bush was “talking out of both sides of his mouth” by trying to minimize the television audience for the debates.
In Naperville, most people along the parade route appeared predisposed to support Bush, waving signs such as “Soccer Moms for Bush.” But a group of young demonstrators held up posters, including one that said, “Me and my concealed weapon are voting for Bush.” Members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 701 from Lisle booed as Bush and Cheney marched by.
Bush used the Naperville event to add a new prop to his call for a broad-based $1.3 billion, 10-year tax cut. Waving four $1 bills symbolizing the expected federal surplus, he took one bill and handed it to David Arendt, a game warden in Antigo, Wis.
Bush said the remainder of the anticipated surplus would be used to enhance Social Security, strengthen the nation’s military, improve educational programs and help pay for a prescription drug plan for the elderly, which he is expected to formally unveil Tuesday in Pennsylvania.
The most noteworthy comment from Bush was the one that was intended to be private. It came shortly after Bush and Cheney took to a makeshift stage before they formally addressed the crowd.
As Bush stood on the podium waiting for music to finish, he turned to Cheney and used a vulgar term to describe Times reporter Adam Clymer.
“Oh yeah, he is. Big time,” Cheney responded.
Both men thought their remarks were off-mike.
Karen Hughes, Bush’s communications director, said the presidential contender’s comment “was meant to be a whispered aside to his running mate” and was “not intended as a public comment.”
Hughes said the reporter has written “a series of articles that the governor has felt have been very unfair.”
As he arrived in Allentown, Pa., late Monday, Bush was asked whether he would apologize. He did not answer directly but did say, “I regret that the private comment I made to the vice presidential candidate made the public air waves. … I was making a comment … and obviously didn’t realize the mikes were picking up everything.”
The Gore campaign couldn’t let the faux pas pass. Kym Spell, a Gore spokeswoman, suggested that Bush’s “behavior under the pressures of a campaign is unfortunate and curious.”
Later Monday, Cheney refused to discuss the matter as he mingled in a Polish neighborhood where he tried to sell Bush’s tax-cut plan.
“America is ready for a leader who works for working families,” Cheney told the crowd. “America is ready for a leader who lifts our sights and finally will make us, as Americans, proud again.”
While Labor Day is traditionally a time for union activists to toast their favored Democratic candidates, Republicans did not surrender the spotlight in Chicago. While some workers hold quiet resentment over Gore’s stance on international trade issues, the influential Teamsters union also has yet to endorse a presidential candidate, leaving a traditional Democratic base less than fully energized.
“We understand there are many union members of the Republican persuasion,” said Jeff Weiss, a spokesman for the Chicago Federation of Labor. “All we can be concerned about is informing our members.”
No major national unions have endorsed Bush. But not every union has thrown its support behind the Gore-Lieberman ticket.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has flirted with third-party candidate Ralph Nader but stopped short of an endorsement. The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America did endorse Nader, the first non-Democrat choice in the union’s history.
Dennis Gannon, secretary and treasurer of the Chicago Federation of Labor, is urging his members to take neither Nader nor Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan seriously.
“Why would you want to throw your vote away when it could be very crucial?” Gannon said. “This election is going to be very, very, very, very close.”
Curtis Gans, director of the non-partisan, Washington-based Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, said 60 percent to 70 percent of union members in the United States are registered Democrats. The challenge for union leaders, Gans said, is registering all members to vote and seeing that they follow through Nov. 7.
“Personally, I don’t see that much difference between Gore or Bush,” said Neil Kijek, a Joliet gravedigger and member of the Service Employees International Union. “They’re both children of privilege and Southern aristocracy.”
Standing at the Navy Pier rally with his two children on a wind-whipped Monday afternoon, Kijek said Gore is the better alternative because he is less beholden to oil and business interests. Kijek said he plans to support Gore but added that several of his friends are leaning toward Bush.
With this year’s tight race in mind, Tipper Gore reminded the crowd that when John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960, he won by a margin of only one vote per precinct. “Every single vote counts,” she said. “Tell other people that as you explain how important this election is.”
Wendy Coffey, 34, a mother of two, listened closely to Tipper Gore in the Navy Pier ballroom. She is so puzzled that many of her contemporaries seem to be tuning out the election even as Labor Day passes, that she vowed Monday to start offering civics lessons to friends and neighbors–whether they want them or not.
“I know people’s lives are so crazy and busy,” said Coffey, of Ottawa, Ill. “But if you sit back on your couch and don’t make your choice known, you can’t complain.”
