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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Campaign Notes

From Wire Reports

Tuesday’s developments on the presidential campaign trail:

With friends like these…

A national co-chairman of Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaign attended a banquet last month that honored people convicted of killing abortion doctors and bombing clinics.

Michael Farris, one of Buchanan’s four campaign co-chairmen, attended the White Rose Banquet in Arlington, Va. The banquet was held Jan. 21 as a tribute to “Prisoners of Christ.”

Those honored included Paul Hill, the former Presbyterian minister now on death row in Florida for the July 1994 killing of a Pensacola abortion doctor and his bodyguard, and Shelley Shannon, a Grants Pass, Ore., woman convicted of shooting Wichita physician George Tiller in August 1993.

In a telephone interview Monday, Farris said he attended the banquet at the invitation of a friend but left early when he learned what it was about.

Comic Joan Rivers disappeared from Steve Forbes’ presidential campaign Tuesday after making a disparaging joke about Buchanan.

“I went to a party for Buchanan - a Nazi jumped out of the cake,” Rivers said Monday in an interview on KTAR-AM in Phoenix.

When a caller protested, Rivers, a longtime friend of Forbes, replied, “Tell me what you call someone who is anti-Semitic, anti-black, anti-gay. This man is anti-everything.”

When the caller continued to protest, Rivers told him, “I’m not going to listen to you because if you took offense to the word ‘Nazi,’ I don’t want to know you. Go buy yourself a bed sheet and cut out two eyes and go dance around.”

She then tried to drown out the caller by singing, “God Bless America.”

Forbes, who Monday night said Rivers could have any position she wanted in his administration if he won the presidency, apparently was not aware of her remarks at the time.

The candidates:

Lamar Alexander offered himself in Boston as an alternative to the “anger, protest, one-liners and sound bites” of Buchanan. Concentrating on New England’s upcoming primaries, Alexander said Buchanan’s proposal for import tariffs would amount to another tax on Americans. “The last time someone in Boston tried to put a silly tax on Massachusetts, there was a tea party,” he said.

Buchanan said the brutal campaign left him like “one large blob of scarred tissue.” But, in the end, he said his firebrand message of protecting American jobs and values should prevail. “There’s no doubt the Buchanan campaign has tremendous fire and energy,” he said in Phoenix.

Bob Dole was confident he would win the primary process in the end. “My view is I’ll be the Republican nominee,” the Senate majority leader said “It may take a bit longer than we planned. But we feel good about it.”

Forbes tried to cast the presidential race as a contest between Buchanan and himself. “He believes we should hide behind walls. … I see America as a shining city on a hill. He sees it as a fortress,” Forbes said in Peoria, Ariz.

NEWS OF NOTE:

Dole’s support among registered California Republicans in the race for the GOP presidential nomination has dwindled, while the ratings of Buchanan and Alexander have surged, according to a poll released Tuesday.

The Field Poll showed Dole leading with 30 percent of the California vote, followed by Buchanan at 18 percent and Alexander at 13 percent. Forbes was fourth with 12 percent.

A December survey of California’s registered Republicans found Dole solidly in the lead with 43 percent of the vote.

Dole decided Tuesday he will appear at a presidential debate in South Carolina after all.

Dole agreed to attend a business group’s debate in Columbia on Thursday without requiring any changes in the format, debate organizers said.

Buchanan, Alexander and Forbes already had confirmed they will be at the Business and Industry Political Education Committee’s debate.

Dole had said Monday he did not want to participate in more debates.

On the issues

Here are the positions of the major presidential candidates on Goals 2000, which last year gave participating states $400 million to help local school boards toughen academic standards.

President Clinton: Supporter of program he introduced after it was developed under Republican President Bush.

Alexander: Developed an earlier version, America 2000, as education secretary under Bush, and says it did not contain the top-down dictates he attributes to today’s program.

Buchanan: Would kill Goals 2000.

Dole: Criticizes the program’s proposed history standards as promoting ideas that fly in the face of American values.

Forbes: Would kill Goals 2000. Calls voluntary history standards “true atrocities.”