Gore Touts Importance of Environment; Bush Focuses on Concept of Strong Leadership
AL GORE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going to do what Harry Truman said he would do: I'm going to tell the truth and they'll think it's hell!</s>BERNARD SHAW, CNN ANCHOR: Al Gore portrays himself as a truth- teller about global warming and George W. Bush's environmental policy.</s>GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: In my administration, we'll make it clear there is the controlling legal authority of conscience.</s>SHAW: Bush turns Gore's past words into a stinging message about leadership. Plus...</s>JOHN KING, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These folks come to play, and to vote, but they don't always like their choices.</s>SHAW: John King on the cards senior citizens hold in election 2000.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is INSIDE POLITICS, with Bernard Shaw in Washington and Judy Woodruff reporting from Pittsburgh.</s>JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for joining us. I am here in the battleground state of Pennsylvania to talk to voters. George W. Bush is also in this state. He will be addressing a rally in Erie in this hour and then head on to the state of Ohio. Our Candy Crowley reports that Bush's battle cry of the day is leadership.</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Military heroes on the stage; the Gettysburg Address as a backdrop; a Pittsburgh veteran's museum is his arena. George Bush delivered a somber but slighting speech on the nature of leadership. Al Gore's campaign, he said, is a fitting end to the Clinton-Gore administration.</s>BUSH: They're going out as they came in: their guide, the nightly polls; their goal, the morning headlines; their legacy, the fruitless search for a legacy.</s>CROWLEY: It was, in essence, a treatise on leadership and its importance.</s>BUSH: ... should be the most important question Americans ask before they vote: What kind of leader will a potential president be?</s>CROWLEY: It was a serious, scathing indictment of the Clinton- Gore administration. Bush's most pointed to date.</s>BUSH: When you wait for the latest polls to point the way, you cannot lead. When you hold your finger to the wind, you cannot put your finger on a problem. And when you hold onto power for power's sake, you cannot govern.</s>CROWLEY: The Texas governor accused the Clinton-Gore administration of eight years of not leading on the issues of education and Social Security.</s>BUSH: Responsible leadership does more than just sets an agenda, it sets a tone of civility and bipartisanship to get things done on behalf of the American people. In recent years there's been too much argument in Washington and not enough discussion. Too many standoffs and showdowns and shutdowns.</s>CROWLEY: Though he walked carefully through the political minefield of administration controversy, Bush left footprints nonetheless.</s>BUSH: Finally, a leader must uphold the honor and the dignity of the office to which he had been elected.</s>CROWLEY: No direct mention of Gore's legalese defense of his fund-raising calls from the vice president's office, but you did not have to read between the lines to hear it.</s>BUSH: In my administration we'll make it clear there is the controlling legal authority of conscience.</s>CROWLEY: The Gore campaign said the speech was a Bush effort to hide from his lack of experience and judgment. Al Gore, said a spokeswoman, is talking about issues. (on camera): But from the very beginning George Bush has felt that leadership is the core issue of campaign 2000. As the campaign draws to a close, he still feels that way. Candy Crowley, CNN, Pittsburgh.</s>WOODRUFF: I was also at the Republican-sponsored event we just saw in Candy's report, and I talked to some voters there. Almost all of them were already in Bush's camp. But many of them left more enthusiastic about voting for him. Ray Horvath, pro gun-rights, originally for Alan Keyes, said today's speech is just what's needed to turn out the Bush vote in western Pennsylvania.</s>RAY HORVATH: I think it's just going to fire up the base even more. It start out with an -- I think, an anti-Gore-Clinton vote. But the more people see Governor Bush, it's a pro-Bush vote and people that I know are energized. They're excited; they can't wait get to get to the polls.</s>WOODRUFF: There were a handful of undecided voters who slipped in. Graduate student Jennifer Drent voted for Bill Clinton; liked his policies, she said, but not his moral values. And as for Bush and Gore, she said there are things she likes about both of them.</s>JENNIFER DRENT: Gore is really strong on his pro-choice and a couple of other things; whereas Bush -- I really like his strong statements on Social Security.</s>WOODRUFF (on camera): Investing some of it?</s>DRENT: Yes, yes; and making sure that, you know, the 20-some- year olds will still have, you know, the opportunity to get the benefits from that.</s>WOODRUFF: Tomorrow, Ms. Drent will go to see Al Gore when he campaigns here in western Pennsylvania. It is winning over the undecideds and firing up the decideds, like these voters we just saw, that bring Bush and Gore back to Pennsylvania and its 23 electoral votes again and again --Bernie.</s>SHAW: Thanks, Judy, see you again, very shortly. Today, Vice President Gore is in the Midwest. After stumping most of this day in Iowa, he is due to arrive this hour in Wisconsin where a new poll is suggesting he has widened his lead over Bush slightly to 7 points. As CNN's Jonathan Karl explains, Gore tried to bolster his chances in key battlegrounds today by focusing on the environment.</s>JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seizing on a new U.N. report with alarming findings about global warming, Vice President Gore returned to his signature issue: the environment.</s>GORE: Unless we act, the average temperature is going to go up 10 or 11 degrees. The storms will get stronger. The weather patterns will change. But it does not have to happen, and it won't happen if we put our minds to solving this problem, and that is one of the reasons I am running for president.</s>KARL: At a raucous outdoor rally in Davenport, Iowa, Gore used the report to take a shot at George W. Bush.</s>GORE: We have a situation where the big polluters are supporting Governor Bush and they are wanting to be in control of the environmental policies.</s>KARL: Gore called global warming a moral issue and said Bush doesn't understand what needs to be done about it.</s>GORE: He says on global warming he's not sure that -- what the cause is and maybe we shouldn't do anything except just study it.</s>KARL: The Bush campaign says Governor Bush acknowledges the existence of global warming and offers a more reasonable approach to protecting the environment than Al Gore.</s>KAREN HUGHES, BUSH CAMPAIGN COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: The vice president seems to be saying, let's act and then figure out what the problem is. Governor Bush is a responsible leader who believes we should figure out what the problem is and then act accordingly.</s>KARL: Gore spent much of the day talking about the issue, addressing it during a special Iowa taping of rap star Queen Latifah's show, a nationally-syndicated program with a young audience. As Gore moves his way through the battleground states, he's telling voters that their state is the key to victory.</s>GORE: You are in the catbird seat, because Missouri is even up. The bellwether state always goes with the -- almost always has gone with the winner. Iowa is in the catbird seat. You have a chance to pick not only the next president, but the kind of future that you want for your children, and thank goodness it's Iowa.</s>KARL: Jonathan Karl, CNN, Davenport, Iowa.</s>WOODRUFF: Gore also slammed Bush's Social Security plan today, citing a study by financial experts of evidence of what he calls Bush's "fuzzy math." But the Bush camp is using the same report as ammunition against Gore. Our Brooks Jackson checked out the study and found it criticizes both candidates.</s>BROOKS JACKSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): George W. Bush says he'd pay off the national debt in just 16 years. Al Gore says he'd protect Medicare.</s>GORE: I will put Medicare in an ironclad lockbox.</s>JACKSON: But do their numbers add up? Now a new report says both candidates' claims are -- quote -- "incomplete, at times internally inconsistent, potentially misleading, and leave many questions unanswered." It was released by the American Academy of Actuaries, a nonpartisan group of number crunchers. Ron Gebhardstbauer analyzed the Bush and Gore Social Security plans.</s>RON GEBHARDTSBAUER, PENSION EXPERT, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ACTUARIES: We looked at the two campaigns, both Bush and Gore. Neither one of them really fixes the problem completely. And they do a little bit here and there, but it's not going to solve the problem.</s>JACKSON: He says Bush's plan to let younger workers put some of their Social Security taxes into private accounts would rob the government of so much money it would bring back federal deficits by the year 2015, making it impossible to pay off the debt by 2016, as promised. He also looked at Gore's plan to prop up the existing Social Security system with up to $250 billion a year in general revenues starting in the year 2011. His conclusion: "that will be far less than necessary to make up the Social Security shortfall." Eventually, Gore's plan would require new deficits, increased taxes, or reduced Social Security benefits. Medicare plans came under analysis by Guy King, former chief actuary of the federal Medicare system. King says Gore's lockbox isn't really ironclad. It's -- quote -- "imaginary" and "does nothing to cover the significant shortfalls" that begin in a few more years. He also says Bush's plan to restructure Medicare -- quote -- "does not provide sufficient detail to judge the cost or long-term impact." Both the Bush and Gore campaigns reject these findings. The Bush campaign says the actuaries underestimate future economic growth. The Gore campaign says Gore never promised his lockbox would do anything more than delay the system's insolvency. Brooks Jackson, CNN, Washington.</s>SHAW: Still ahead on INSIDE POLITICS, what voters are looking for in a candidate, and what they are seeing on television: Bill Schneider with some new results and David Peeler with the ad spending.