Campaign Notes

Hillary disses health plan

Hillary Rodham Clinton told New York’s largest health care association what it wanted to hear Thursday, criticizing her husband’s White House administration for enacting a federal budget-reduction bill that cut millions of dollars in aid to the state’s hospitals.

Under the 1997 law, New York hospitals will take a $4.7 billion hit in federal funding over a five-year period, mostly in Medicare reimbursements.

Al to Bill: Stay away

Vice President Gore, determined to win the presidency on his own, said Friday he may tell President Clinton he does not want his help on the campaign trail.

“I haven’t made a decision yet,” Gore said in a lengthy interview at The Washington Post. “I may do that.”

Drawing a parallel with his first race for the House in 1976, when he asked his father, the late senator, not to speak on his behalf, Gore said running for the White House is a “very personal quest. For me to be successful I have to have a personal connection and line of communication with the American people.”

Forbes a goner, rival says

Publisher Steve Forbes’ bid for the Republican presidential nomination has “peaked out” and has gone as far as his personal fortune can take it, rival Gary Bauer said Friday.

“He has spent $65 million since 1996 and … he’s basically in a dead heat with me in the polls,” Bauer said at a news conference. “I don’t think money can buy him any more support than it already has and conservatives will continue to consolidate behind my candidacy.”

And in the polls …

New poll numbers indicate Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has raised $9.3 million, could be the biggest beneficiary of a Bush-Forbes cross-fire, at least in the crucial New Hampshire primary.

A Zogby International poll, commissioned for Reuters and Boston television station WHDH and conducted Oct. 8-10, showed Bush maintaining a stout, but shrinking, lead over McCain in New Hampshire.

The Texas governor topped the GOP field with support from 40 percent of the 608 likely voters in the state’s Feb. 1 GOP primary. McCain was second with 21 percent. Forbes was third with 12 percent and Elizabeth Dole trailed at 7 percent.

Gore launches TV ads

Republican presidential hopefuls McCain and Bauer on Friday accused Vice President Gore of politicizing the Senate’s defeat of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Immediately after the Senate rejected the treaty Wednesday, Gore filmed a campaign ad criticizing the 51-48 vote. President Clinton also criticized the Senate’s GOP majority for its handling of the treaty vote.

Campaign calendar shuffling

Iowa and New Hampshire will be allowed to move up on the political calendar next winter, a Democratic Party panel said Friday without deciding whether several other states - including Washington - can move up their presidential primaries, too.

Washington state’s request to move its primary to Feb. 29 will be reconsidered, and the panel may hear similar requests from Arizona, Michigan and South Carolina.

Iowa will hold its leadoff caucuses Jan. 24 and New Hampshire will hold the nation’s first primary Feb. 1, the Democratic National Committee’s rules panel decided.