Bush and Gore Clash Over Key Issues in Last Debate

— -- Running neck and neck in the polls, presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore are hitting the campaign trail in an effort to seize the momentum in the final weeks of the campaign.

By Carter M. YangABCNEWS.comOct. 18— Republican candidate George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore exchanged barbs over education, health care and tax relief as they squared off in the third and final debate of the presidential campaign.

With Bush clinging to a narrow lead in the polls, Gore sought to sharpen the contrasts between his proposals and those of his Republican rival. The Texas governor, meanwhile, portrayed himself as a leader who could reach across party lines and overcome partisanship he said had crippled Washington over the last eight years.

The debate, held Tuesday night at Washington University in St. Louis, opened with a moment of silence in memory of Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, his son Roger, and political strategist Chris Sifford, who were killed in a plane crash Monday evening. The candidates each opened their remarks with commiserations for the Carnahan family, but the somber tone quickly turned combative as Gore laid into Bush.

Breaking from his subdued demeanor in last week’s debate, Gore took an aggressive tack from the outset in his last chance to stand face-to-face with Bush, seizing on nearly every question as an opportunity to criticize the governor’s Texas record and paint him as beholden to powerful corporate interests.

“If you want someone who will spend a lot of words describing a whole convoluted process and then end up supporting legislation that is supported by the big drug companies, this is your man,” Gore said, pointing at Bush as they each laid out plans for making prescription drugs more affordable for seniors.

Bush vigorously defended his proposal to expand Medicare to cover prescription drugs and vowed to end “bickering” and “finger-pointing” in Washington, which he argued has blocked progress in health care and other key areas.

When moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS asked the Republican candidate to explain the difference between his health care agenda and that of his opponent, Bush replied, “The difference is that I can get it done.” He then ticked off patients’ protections measures enacted in Texas during his tenure as governor.

The Day After

Last night’s format differed from the previous two debates — a small, carefully selected group of undecided voters from the St. Louis area posed questions to the candidates, who alternately sat atop tall stools and strolled up to the edge of the audience to respond.

“These real people last night produced the most revealing debate of the series showing sharp differences between Gore and Bush, both on questions of style and on substance between Bush’s philosophy of smaller government and the policy specifics that Gore is going to fight for,” said ABCNEWS Political Analyst George Stephanopoulos. “I think it sets the ground, strategic ground, for these final three weeks.”

“I think the formats were different. The table debate is kind of too sedate for me,” said Gore. “The podium, I think, was a little bit too hot. And I learned from that. I learned too much for the second debate, but, you know, talking with American citizens is what I like best.”

Speaking later to ABCNEWS, Bush had this to say about his opponent’s performance: “He’s an aggressive campaigner. But I don’t think it stands him well. I think attacking somebody all the time prevents him from talking about what he intends to do.”

Back to Basics

Questions about health care and education dominated much of the debate. Gore and Bush split on the solution for reforming failing schools. Bush said that if public schools don’t perform, the parents of students should be given cash to help send their children to private schools.

“When we find children trapped in schools that will not change andwill not teach, instead of saying, ‘Oh, this is OK in America, just toshuffle poor kids through schools.’ There has to be a consequence,” Bush said. “And theconsequence is that federal portion of federal money will go to the parentso the parent can go to a tutoring program or another public school oranother private school — or a private school.”

Gore countered that Bush was misrepresenting his own plan and said thefederal government should step in to fix bad schools rather than encourage parents to pull their students out of them.

“Under my plan, if a school is failing, we work with the states to givethem the authority and the resources to close down that school and reopenit right away with a new principal, a new faculty, a turnaround team ofspecialists who know what they’re doing,” Gore said.

In their answers, the candidates largely stressed the basic themes of their campaigns as they sparred aggressively over the issues. Gore continued his efforts to cast the election as a choice between “the people” and monied special interests.

“If you want someone who will fight for you and who will fight for the middle-class families and the working men and women,” he told the audience, “then I want to fight for you.”

In his closing statement, Gore took a dig at Bush for his years in private life as a baseball team owner and oil company founder.

“I have not spent the past quarter century in pursuit of wealth,” he said.

Bush continued his efforts to portray the vice president as a big-spending, pro-big government liberal.

“When you total up all the federal spending he wants to do, it’s the largest increase in federal spending in years,” Bush said during a discussion of education issues. “There’s just not going to be enough money.”

Bush hammered on that theme throughout the debate.

“This is a big spender,” he said during an exchange over the two candidates’ competing tax cut proposals. “We just have a different philosophy. If you pay taxes, you ought to get tax relief.”

But Gore vehemently denied that he was running to usher in a new era of big government.

“The federal government has been reduced in size by more than 300,000 people,” Gore said, claiming the Clinton administration had reduced the government to its smallest size since President Kennedy was in office.

“During the last five years, Texas’ government has gone up in size,” Gore added. “The federal government has gone down.”

Gore on the Attack

Under pressure to slow Bush’s momentum from the first two debates in their final meeting, Gore put the governor on the defensive for much of the evening.

One particularly pointed exchange occurred when an African-American woman asked Bush what role affirmative action would play in his administration if he were elected Nov. 7.

“I don’t like quotas,” Bush replied. “Quotas tend to pit one group of people against another…Quotas are bad for America. It’s not the way America is all about.”

Bush added that he backed “affirmative access” and signed a law in Texas which cleared the way for more minorities to attend college.

“I don’t know what affirmative access means — I do know what affirmative action means,” Gore responded. “I know the governor’s against it and I know that I’m for it.”

Gore called Bush’s reference to quotas a “red herring” and asked him if he supported affirmative action measures deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court. When Bush refused to answer, Gore said, “I think that speaks for itself.”

“No. [It] doesn’t speak for itself,” Bush shot back. “It speaks for the fact that there are certain rules in this that we all agreed to, but evidently rules don’t mean anything to you.”

On the eve of the crucial showdown, a new ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll showed the Republican candidate with a slight 48 percent to 44 percent edge over Gore.

In an ABCNEWS “snap poll” conducted immediately after the debate, viewers were evenly divided over who prevailed in the showdown, with 41 percent saying Gore was the winner, 41 percent saying Bush won, and 14 percent calling it a tie.

In deference to the crash victims, both candidates have cancelled post-debate rallies in St. Louis. Gore also has called off a rally in Kansas City, Mo., this morning. And both campaigns have temporarily pulled their commercials off the air in a state seen as vital to victory.