Bush

WASHINGTON — The Republican snarled that his opponent was a big-spending liberal. The Democrat huffed about the Republican’s loyalty to an incumbent President. The Republican tried against the odds to attract black and Latino voters. The Democrat sought to lasso conservative Democrats tempted to stray over the political line.

This is not George Bush vs. Michael S. Dukakis, 1988. It was George Bush vs. Lloyd Bentsen, 1970, battling for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, in a race that helps explain why Bentsen was tapped as Dukakis’ vice presidential nominee 18 years later.

For one thing, Bentsen won. For another, he fought off appeals by Republican Bush to curry favor with conservative swing Democrats, the same sort who are expected to make the difference this time around.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Those who look at the 1970 race as a key to the candidates’ likely behavior this year will find few surprises. It was, the wags said, a face-off between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The candidates themselves, neither a master of charisma, projected remarkably similar positions on the issues.

“They’re not too different,” said Robert Mosbacher, Bush’s current national finance chairman, who held the corresponding position in the Senate campaign.

Pressed as the 1970 race began to come up with one difference between him and Bush, Bentsen found one: “I am a Democrat and he’s a Republican.”

But there were some distinguishing quirks: Bentsen, worried that he would lose some conservatives to Bush, gained some ground by convincing voters that he was actually more conservative than the pre-Reaganite Bush.

And while the race was nominally between Bentsen and Bush, it seemed at times to be a battle of presidents. On Bentsen’s side was Texas native Lyndon B. Johnson, in the second year of his retirement. On Bush’s was Richard M. Nixon, in the middle of his first term, unspoiled as yet by the ravages of Watergate.

Not a Vitriolic Battle

Surprisingly, given the lack of discord on issues, the race did not degenerate into a sassy or vitriolic personal battle.

“It was really competitive, but there wasn’t any dirty politics or name-calling,” Mosbacher said.

That was reserved for the Democratic primary, a bitter, divisive affair in which Bentsen upset the incumbent, liberal Democrat Ralph W. Yarborough. The primary gave Bentsen a boost of publicity and was the beginning of the end for Bush, who had entered the race assuming he would battle an ideological opposite in the general election.

When he came face-to-face with Bentsen, “it was a whole new ballgame,” said Peter Roussell, Bush’s 1970 press spokesman.

Bush told voters that he, as a Republican senator under the Nixon Administration, could deliver more for Texas, and he accused Bentsen of being the “machine” candidate, groomed by Texas’ powerful Democratic hierarchy.

In a line that would be resurrected in 1988, Bush warned voters against the “big spenders” in Congress, who “recklessly spend the taxpayers’ hard-earned money.” He called for programs to battle air pollution and made forays into the traditionally Democratic Latino and black neighborhoods to corral votes.

Had Better Firepower

But Bentsen was armed with more piercing ammunition.

He criticized Bush’s support of a Nixon Administration welfare proposal, calling the package a “guaranteed annual income.” He also attacked Bush’s support of a 1968 gun-control measure that required dealers to keep records of the sale of guns and ammunition. He called the measure “the first step toward registration of law-abiding citizens’ guns,” a conscience-tweaking issue in Texas. Bush countered that he had voted against every floor amendment that dealt with gun registration.

Johnson entered the fray and told voters that he would vote for Bush for senator–if he lived in Connecticut, the state in which Bush was reared. Added former Texas Gov. John B. Connally–now a Republican–”Texas doesn’t need a Connecticut Yankee like Bush, just a good sound conservative boy like Lloyd.”

Even Bentsen’s campaign slogan–”A courageous Texan with fresh ideas”–reinforced the notion of carpetbagging, although Bush had by then lived in Texas for 22 years. Bush countered with the vague, “He can do more.”

Amid Bentsen’s criticism of the incumbent Administration, Bush stayed loyal to Nixon, calling him “stronger than horseradish in Texas.” The President paid back the favor by flying in for one campaign swing and sending then-Vice President Spiro T. Agnew in for another. But the trips only exaggerated the sense of Bush as an outsider.

GOP Heavily Outnumbered

Ultimately, according to a 1970 aide, Bush was simply unable to persuade Texas Democrats to switch. And a switch was mandatory–in the primaries those years, only 110,000 people voted Republican, while 1.5 million cast Democratic ballots.

ATLANTA — Vice President George Bush and Sen. Bob Dole, chief rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, clashed over trade policy and derided each other’s plans for reduction of the federal deficit at a presidential campaign debate here Sunday.

“I don’t think we should go down the protectionist road,” Bush declared in warning against tougher trade measures now pending in Congress at the debate staged here in Georgia to focus attention on the candidates’ views in advance of the March 8 Super Tuesday Southern primaries.

“The best answer (to the nation’s trade problems) is open markets,” Bush said, adding that he was concerned about “the inevitability of retaliation” against the United States by foreign trading partners.

But Dole, who is supporting stronger trade measures on Capitol Hill, disagreed sharply. “Every time I hear the word retaliation I am reminded that Japan and South Korea and Taiwan already block Florida oranges and Georgia peaches and Alabama melons.” Dole contended that an Alabama melon would cost about $55 in Japan because of that country’s restrictive trade practices.

‘Talking About Jobs’

“Let’s be realistic,” the Kansas lawmaker said. “We’re talking about American jobs, not protectionism.”

On the issue of the budget deficit, Dole dismissed a four-year budget spending freeze advocated by Bush as a “four-year cop-out” because the plan limits only overall spending rather than specific programs.

“He’s just going to freeze bad programs for four years and not do anything about it,” said Dole, who favors a one-year across-the-board ceiling on all spending programs, except aid for the needy. Dole contended that in four years Bush’s plan would leave the nation with a deficit of $153 billion.

But Bush disputed Dole’s figures and argued that the senator’s proposal “would cut into the muscle of defense.”

“How does your plan work?” Bush demanded of Dole.

“How does your plan work?” Dole shot back.

A Spirited Argument

Bush made his most spirited argument for his deficit plan in an exchange with New York Rep. Jack Kemp, who is vying with Pat Robertson, former religious broadcaster, to become the conservative alternative to either of the two front-runners.

Responding to Kemp’s charge that the budget freeze proposals meant that national security would be sacrificed “on the altar of mindless budgeting,” Bush said: “The freeze I’m talking about provides the President with flexibility.”

“The point is, Jack, you don’t care about deficits, you never have. You don’t think they’re important. And they are public enemy No. 1.”

“George Bush is now making my speech,” grumbled Dole, who has sought to depict himself in the campaign as the chief Republican foe of budget deficits.

Although Kemp and Bush argued about budget policy, the two were by and large in agreement in opposing changes in trade policy in contrast with Dole and Robertson. Trade has become a hot issue in the Super Tuesday Republican presidential campaign in large measure because of the impact of textile imports on the economies of South Carolina and other textile-producing states in this region.

Dole and Robertson both support trade legislation, which Bush and Kemp oppose.

‘Sounds Like Gephardt’

“Your trade talk sounds like Dick Gephardt,” Kemp told Dole at one point, referring to Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, who has based much of his drive for the Democratic presidential nomination on a controversial proposal to give the United States the power to retaliate against unfair foreign trade practices.

Earlier in the debate, Robertson introduced the trade issue into the discussion. “People that I’ve talked to can’t abide the thought that America is going to be No. 2 in the world in the 21st Century,” Robertson said. Decrying the rise of textile imports from China and the Soviet Union, the former broadcaster said: “I don’t believe we can continue to permit the deindustrialization of America.

“I’m for free trade in this country but it’s got to be fair. And I think if those people don’t deal fairly with us, it’s high time we started getting tough with them. I don’t want to preside over Uncle Sucker, I want to preside over Uncle Sam.”

But Kemp promptly took issue with that argument in impassioned terms.

‘Barriers to Imports’

“If we’re going to go to Iowa, Pat and Bob,” he said, addressing Robertson and Dole, “and tell the folks in Iowa we want to boost exports of grain and corn and soybeans and then go to South Carolina, as you both have done, and tell them you’re going to put up barriers to imports, we will be making a mistake under your leadership.”

Kemp charged that such a shift in trade policy would be like “the mistake that was made in 1929 and 1930 when a Republican Congress caused the worst trade war in the history of this world with the Smoot-Hawley tariff act.”

Calling for lower tax rates on labor and capital and stable exchange rates to spur economic growth, the New York congressman warned that putting up trade barriers “is not just protectionist, it is mindless with regard to the fact that we have to compete in an export war.

“So let’s not make the mistake we made in the 1930s.”

Sunday’s debate, like the debate staged here Saturday for Democratic presidential candidates, was sponsored by the Atlanta Constitution-Journal. It brought together all of the 1988 GOP presidential contenders for the first time since the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 16.

Republican Survivors

A prior effort to assemble all the Republican survivors on one platform failed 10 days ago in Dallas when Dole and Robertson refused to participate, charging that the arrangements in Bush’s home state unfairly favored the vice president.

Since winning the New Hampshire primary, Bush has seemed relaxed and confident on the stump, bolstered not only by his victory in the Granite State but also by his financial resources and his reputedly powerful organization in most of the 14 Southern and border Super Tuesday states.

The vice president’s chief rival, Dole, won the South Dakota primary and the Minnesota caucuses last week. But Dole’s satisfaction with those successes was dimmed by evidence of discord within his campaign organization, signaled most notably by the firing of two key advisers, David Keene and Donald Devine, by campaign Chairman William Brock.

Meanwhile Robertson campaign strategists have been concerned about the potential impact on his candidacy of the disclosures of the sexual misadventures of television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart.

For his part, Kemp, short on money and lacking the sort of Southern base Robertson can rely on among evangelical Christians, must win the backing of hard-core conservatives to stay in the race. His first objective is to finish ahead of either Bush or Robertson in the South Carolina Republican primary next Saturday, the results of which are expected to have considerable symbolic impact on the March 8 vote.

The political cartoon by Auth (Commentary, Aug. 2) was very appropriate. It’s too bad the cartoon had to be cropped for space, as I am sure that just behind the two elephants were two donkeys and many, many people, all laughing their heads off at “Noah” Bush standing there on the deck of the ark. We all know what happened to those who thought they were too wise to enter the safety of the ark. Perhaps the animals that the real Noah allowed aboard the ark had misgivings too, but they entered and settled down to ride out the storm, and in the end they were better off than those who stood outside and laughed.

Those who were unwilling to ride with Noah were doomed, just as are those who now think they are too wise to ride with “Noah” Bush (and Dan Quayle).

CLIFFORD L. LILLO, Torrance

Then-Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., talked to constituents at the St. Louis St. Patricks Day Downtown Parade in 2024. Friday, she announced her bid to take back her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 3 (UPI) — Cori Bush announced her comeback bid for the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday.

Bush, who represents St. Louis and is a former member of the progressive ‘squad,’ was defeated in her primary by well-funded Rep. Wesley Bell, D-Mo.

“I ran for Congress because I know what it feels like to be a working-class St. Louisan. Too often unseen, unheard, left out,” Bush said in an ad. “I promised to fight for St. Louis, and we delivered.”

She posted on X: “We need a fighter who will lower costs, protect our communities, and make life fairer. I’ll be that fighter.”

The funding for Bell came from a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Bush had been an outspoken critic of Israel over the war in Gaza. The PAC spent more than $8.6 million to oust her.

In June 2024, another squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., lost his primary to George Latimer, 70, who joined the race to support local Jewish leaders who didn’t like Bowman’s anti-Israel rhetoric.

Bush mentioned her defeat, saying, “Because I spoke truth, they pushed back, attacked my name, my motives, spread lies and hate.”

On X, Bell responded: “Today my former opponent, Cori Bush, entered the race for Congress. That’s her right, and in our democracy, everyone gets a say. But here’s the simple truth: Missouri voters already rendered their verdict when they voted her out of office last year and chose to move on.”

While Bush has been an outspoken critic of Israel since the Oct. 7, 2023, start of the war, other Democrats are growing weary as the war lingers.

Bell has also wavered.

“I’ve always supported Israel’s right to exist and defend itself. That hasn’t changed,” Bell said in July on X. “But supporting this government’s actions – allowing children to starve and firing on civilians seeking food — is something I can’t stand by.”

Political analyst Matthew Dowd lost his contributor role at MSNBC because of comments he made about Charlie Kirk after the young right-wing activist was murdered Wednesday.

Shortly after Kirk was shot to death while speaking on stage at Utah Valley State University, Dowd told MSNBC anchor Katy Tur that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which then lead to hateful actions.”

The angry reaction on social media was immediate after Dowd’s comments suggested that Kirk’s history of incendiary remarks led to the shooting.

MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler issued an apology Wednesday night.

“During our breaking news coverage of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, Matthew Dowd made comments that were inappropriate, insensitive, and unacceptable,” Kutler said in a statement. “There is no place for violence in America, political or otherwise.”

The network then severed ties with Dowd, according to a person briefed on the decision who was not authorized to comment.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Charlie Kirk,” Dowd later wrote on his Bluesky account. “I was asked a question on the environment we are in. I apologize for my tone and words. Let me be clear, I in no way intended for my comments to blame Kirk for this horrendous attack.”

Dowd is a political consultant who served as the chief strategist for George W. Bush’s successful 2004 presidential reelection campaign. Dowd broke away from the Republican party due to his unhappiness with Bush’s handling of the Iraq war.

Dowd previously served as a political analyst for ABC News.