Gore Rips Bush Over Texas Education Report

Oct. 26, 2000 -- Vice President Al Gore has launched an eleventh-hour education offensive, ripping George W. Bush’s record on the very issue the Texas governor is pledging to make his top priority if elected president.

“It takes a lot more than nice-sounding rhetoric and a few half measures,” Gore told students and supporters assembled in an auditorium at Tennessee State University in Nashville Wednesday morning. “Governor Bush has talked a lot about education in this campaign … but talk is no substitute for real change for students.”

Gore argued that despite Republicans’ claims to the contrary, students in the Lone Star State have not seen a “real change” under Bush’s tenure as governor, citing a new report by the Rand Corporation that disputes claims of rising performance by minority students in the state.

“My opponent says we can trust him to raise standards and results because he’s done it in Texas,” Gore said. “But … the [Rand] study reported that contrary to all that we’ve been told, the achievement gap for Texas students has not narrowed, it has widened.”

The Republican candidate has made education his pet issue, railing against what he calls an “education recession,” blaming the Clinton administration for presiding over a stagnating school system and holding up his home state as a model of excellence.

An hour after Gore hammered Bush’s education record, the Texas governor took to the stump to renew his call for higher student achievement and defend the Texas record.

“We can have leadership that sets high standards and high hopes for every child,” he told voters at a town-hall style meeting at Seminole Community College in Sanford, Fla. “Leadership that challenges what I call the soft bigotry of low expectations.”

Bush’s aides, meanwhile, questioned both the validity and timing of the study, which was released by the California-based think tank on Tuesday.

“If this is their ‘October surprise,’” Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes told reporters, “I welcome [it].”

Bush’s education adviser, Margaret La Montagne, pointed to an earlier report from the same group, but produced by a different team of researchers, that found dramatic improvements in Texas schools.

“The Rand assertions of July have not been taken back,” she said on ABCNEWS’ Good Morning America. “[They] say that Texas and North Carolina showed the highest rate of improvement [of] any state.”

To reinforce Gore’s newest line of attack, the Democratic National Committee quickly produced a TV ad, due to air in several battleground states this week, which cites the new Rand report and declares: “The ‘Texas miracle’ is a myth.”

Playing Defense

Gore was on the attack as he slammed Bush’s record in Nashville Wednesday morning, but the locations of both candidates reflected each campaign’s need for defensive maneuvering in this final stretch of the campaign.

Gore stumped for a second straight day in his home state of Tennessee, where a September poll showed Bush with a three-point edge. The Texas governor, meanwhile, campaigned in Florida, where his brother Jeb is governor — polls show that state as a tossup as well.

In addition to Tennessee, the vice president is being forced to campaign hard in other states won by the Clinton-Gore ticket in both 1992 and 1996, including Oregon, Washington and the president’s home state of Arkansas.

According to an analysis by ABCNEWS, there are 14 states still up for grabs. With 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House, Bush has a significant lead in states that account for 205 votes, while Gore leads in states totalling 204 votes.

McCain Links Cole Incident to Clinton

Bush began the day by highlighting his plan to reform Social Security by creating new accounts that would allow younger workers to invest a portion of their payroll taxes in the stock market, and urging undecided voters to ignore his opponent’s attacks on the proposal.

“I know it’s Halloween time, and I know the man’s trying to scare you into the voting booth,” he said at a rally at the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. “But not this time, Mr. Gore, and not this year!”

The event was more noteworthy, however, for what Sen. John McCain — Bush’s main rival during the GOP primaries — said as he made the case to voters that Bush is better suited than Gore to be the next commander in chief.

“We saw the tragedy of the USS Cole and it reminds us it’s a dangerous world,” the senator said, referring to the suspected terrorist attack that killed 17 American sailors aboard the Navy destroyer as it docked in the Yemeni port of Aden Oct. 12. “We need a steady hand on the tiller, we need the kind of leadership that George W. Bush and [vice-presidential candidate] Dick Cheney will provide this country so we cannot have those kind of tragedies ever happen again.”

A Gore aide seized on McCain’s remarks, accusing the Bush camp of trying to capitalize on the tragedy.

“This is an international crisis that we’re dealing with where lives were lost and to try and politicize that is just absolutely outrageous and very disappointing,” Gore spokeswoman Kym Spell said.

Spell later backpeddled, saying, “I just don’t want to engage Sen. McCain on this in any way.” Nevertheless, McCain, a former Navy pilot and prisoner of war, was incensed at the implication.

“I did not, would not and never have tried to take political advantage [of] the loss of American servicemen and women,” the senator said in a statement. “And I surely don’t need lectures on that point from Ms. Spell or anyone associated with the Gore campaign.”

Special Friends

McCain also accompanied Bush to his campaign event in Sanford and was set to continue on with him to an evening rally in Brandon, Fla. McCain’s insurgent bid for the GOP nomination drew record numbers of independent and new voters — his appearances with Bush are meant to help attract still undecided swing voters to Bush’s banner.

With Gore’s ideological base less energized than Bush’s, many Democrats are urging the vice president to ask Clinton to join him on the campaign trail in an effort to rally the party faithful. Though Gore campaign officials insist no joint events are planned, the speculation continues that the president will make a surprise appearance with his two-time running mate in the waning days of the campaign.

In an interview with ABCNEWS’ Nightline, Bush said a high-profile appearance by Clinton would work to his advantage, not Gore’s.

“I think it would help me if the president were out,” he said. “I think it would remind people that my opponent wasn’t standing on his own.”

With less than two weeks to go before Election Day, an ABCNEWS tracking poll shows 47 percent of voters prefer Bush, while 46 percent favor Gore — a statistical dead heat.

ABCNEWS’ John Berman and Dana Hill contributed to this report.