Des Moines Register: Forbes defends his challenges of BushBy David Yepsen/Des Moines Register
January 17, 2000
Web posted at: 10:51 a.m. EST (1551 GMT)
DES MOINES, Iowa (Des Moines Register) -- Publisher Steve Forbes denied Sunday that he is getting too negative against Texas Gov. George W. Bush
in the GOP presidential campaign. He fired back at former Sen. Bob Dole for suggesting that he is.
In recent days, Forbes' ads and campaign rhetoric have grown sharper. "It's very important that we as
Republicans know where each of us stands and what our records are before the nominating convention,"
he said Sunday. "It's far better to get these issues thrashed out now instead of Al Gore discovering
them and hitting you in the general election campaign."
Forbes made the comments during Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Press" program.
On Saturday, Dole purchased an ad in The Des Moines Register that took clear aim at Forbes and the
campaign he ran against Dole before the 1996 caucuses.
Dole won the caucuses and the Republican nomination but lost the general election to Democratic
incumbent Bill Clinton. Dole said he had to spend millions of dollars defending himself against the
attacks from a fellow Republican, which left him vulnerable in the fall.
"The relentless negative and deceptive ad onslaught in Iowa, New Hampshire and other early primary
states in 1996 left our post-primary campaign virtually broke because we had to respond. I emerged the
Republican nominee, battered, bruised and broke and a much easier target for the negative Clinton-Gore
fall campaign," Dole said in the ad.
Sunday, Forbes alleged that the Republican front-runner was actually responsible for Dole's ad.
"That ad is part of a pattern of George Bush's campaign of using others to do his attacks, of whining
and complaining and not dealing with real issues," Forbes said.
Forbes said it is wrong to blame his 1996 ads for Dole's general-election loss.
"My ads stopped in February" of that year, he said. "There's a nine-month gap between February and
November. Where was the message after that? He got tens of millions of taxpayers' dollars for the
general campaign, and this underscores what I said: No message, no victory."
Forbes said that "there are very real differences between me and George Bush. He says look at his
record. When you look at his record, you find it's full of smoke and mirrors. His tax cuts, for
example, are a phantom. . . . Most people in Texas never got them.
"The governor's record on education is smoke and mirrors. It's not been a good one. Test scores have
been dumbed down. SAT scores have not done well. Texas has gone from 40th in the nation to 46th in the
nation. "
The Bush campaign has denied Forbes' charges, calling them distortions.
Forbes on Sunday resumed his Iowa bus tour, which he hopes will energize his supporters for the final
push to next Monday's caucuses.
He said surveys of the race are "grossly inaccurate" as predictors of the outcome. "You get huge
changes in the last seven to 10 days as people really focus on who should be raising the banner in the
Republican Party," Forbes said.
"We're going to have a very nice surprise on Monday night."
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