Gore Ties Bush to Gingrich
W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 26 -- Vice President Al Gore is resurrecting an old Democratic punching bag, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, to cast doubt on George W. Bush’s plans for Medicare reform.
Trying to link the GOP presidential candidate to one of the least popular proposals of a broadly unpopular national figure, the Gore campaign is highlighting 5-year-old comments the Texas governor made in support of a Gingrich Medicare proposal.
“Elderly people will not suffer as a result of this plan,” Bush said in a 1995 television interview with KXAN in Austin, Texas. “It’s going to make the plan solvent. And Republicans will be heralded, not only for saving Medicare, but at the same time for having the political courage to balance the budget.”
Gore hopes those words will come back to haunt Bush. His aides have already distributed videotapes of the grainy, 5-year-old clip to the media and the Democratic candidate plans to repeat Bush’s words to his audiences on the campaign trail.
Mediscare Tactics?
Gore previewed his new line-of-attack Monday in St. Petersburg, Fla. — his first stop on a three-day tour aimed at highlighting his own Medicare reform proposal.
“When they say ‘reform,’ they sometimes mean ‘dismantle the program,’” Gore said of Republicans. “[Bush] supported Newt Gingrich’s assaults on Medicare.”
The “assaults” Gore referred to were the $270 billion in Medicare cuts the 1995 proposal would have been phased in over seven years.
“This is a typical Democratic scare tactic,” Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes responded, “[a] total misrepresentation of the situation.”
“They’re highlighting a plan that didn’t pass by a member of Congress no longer in office,” remarked another Bush aide. “A little thin if you asked me.”
Bush has proposed $198 billion in new spending for the federal health insurance program, but the vice president insists the criticism is fair.
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