DOLE STRUGGLES WITH AMBIVALENCE IN ATTACKING CLINTON'S CHARACTER.Byline: Kathrine Seelye The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times Going public with his quandary of how fiercely he should attack President Clinton, Bob Dole on Sunday put the question to voters in New Jersey. ``Should I get tougher on Clinton?'' Dole asked a few hundred people on a warm autumn afternoon here at Kuser Farm Park, where Dole's bus caravan rolled to its last stop of the day. After his supporters cheered their assent An intentional approval of known facts that are offered by another for acceptance; agreement; consent. Express assent is manifest confirmation of a position for approval. , Dole, the Republican presidential candidate, asked, ``You won't get mad at me if I get a little tougher?'' ``No!'' they yelled. He then went on to rebuke the president in relatively mild terms, saying, ``He doesn't keep his word.'' Earlier in the day, in Somerville, he had a similar exchange with the crowd, as if a green light from supporters might help him resolve what has become a public debate within his campaign over his strategy. The question for the Dole camp, while he is stalled in public-opinion polls with a double-digit deficit behind the president, has been how forcefully Dole should attack the president. In Somerville, Dole bared a few more claws, but he was tame compared to his denunciations of Clinton last week in New Jersey, before he scrapped a bus trip because of a heavy rainstorm. Since then, the harshest attacks have come from others: House Speaker Newt Gingrich; William Bennett
William John Bennett (born July 31, 1943) is a American conservative pundit and politician. He served as United States Secretary of Education from 1985 to 1988. , a top Dole campaign official and Jack Kemp  The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed.Please see the relevant discussion on the . , his vice presidential running mate running mate n. 1. The candidate or nominee for the lesser of two closely associated political offices. 2. A companion. 3. A horse used to set the pace in a race for another horse. . Speaking on Sunday to several hundred people outside the Somerset County Somerset County is the name of four counties in the United States and one in England. See:
To New Jersey's suburban voters, who are worried about crime and favor gun control, he declared that Clinton's promise to put 100,000 police on the streets was an empty one. ``You won't live long enough to see 100,000 of his police on the street,'' Dole asserted, saying the true number was closer to 12,000. ``It ain't going to happen!'' Dole also charged - at a time when the government is reporting a drop in the national crime rate to its lowest level in a decade - that Clinton ``said he was for controlling guns, but he wouldn't take effective measures to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.'' Clinton strongly advocated the Brady law, which set a waiting period before someone could buy a gun and which Dole opposed while he was in the Senate. Clinton has said that the Brady law has kept guns from tens of thousands of criminals. Dole prefers a nationwide system of instant computer checks on people who want to buy any kind of firearm firearm, device consisting essentially of a straight tube to propel shot, shell, or bullets by the explosion of gunpowder. Although the Chinese discovered gunpowder as early as the 9th cent., they did not develop firearms until the mid-14th cent. . Dole belittled be·lit·tle tr.v. be·lit·tled, be·lit·tling, be·lit·tles 1. To represent or speak of as contemptibly small or unimportant; disparage: a person who belittled our efforts to do the job right. Clinton for claiming credit for reducing crime. ``The credit ought to go to the mayor here, the police chief and everybody else, the sheriff, the governor, the legislature or Mayor Giuliani in New York, that's where the credit ought to go,'' Dole said. Rudolph Giuliani, a Republican who has opposed numerous programs advocated by the Republican Congress, has yet to endorse his party's presidential nominee In United States politics and government, the phrase presidential nominee has two distinct meanings. The first is somebody chosen by the primary voters and caucus-goers of this party to be the party's nominee for President of the United States. , and it was unclear whether this pat on the back - for a major reduction in New York's crime rate - would prompt him to do so, especially since Dole is so far behind Clinton in polls in New York. |
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