Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 14, 1993 TAG: 9312140037
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
On the Clintons:
"There's a story in Washington: Why does Hillary have more Secret Service protection than Bill? Because if anything happened to her, he becomes the president."
On President Clinton's proposal for the federal government to pay for 100,000 new police officers across the country:
"You might get one here."
On Clinton's health-care proposal:
"If you think health care costs a lot now, wait until it's free."
On how Dole dealt with a critical letter from a constituent:
"I put it in one of my envelopes and put a little note in it that said `Some damn fool wrote me this letter and signed your name.'"
On counting votes:
"In our business, we don't give up on anybody. I put him down as undecided."
And so it went Monday, as the Senate minority leader - "the No. 1 Republican in the country," as he was introduced - delighted a luncheon crowd of 300 at the Radisson-Patrick Henry Hotel in Roanoke.
The occasion was a fund-raiser for freshman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, who will be making his first re-election bid next year and has reeled in some of the nation's best-known Republicans to help him raise money.
Last week, House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia spoke on Goodlatte's behalf at a fund-raiser in Harrisonburg. Monday, it was Dole, and aides estimated Goodlatte raked in more than $60,000 from the noontime event, which drew some of Roanoke's most prominent business leaders.
Dole, long known as the best practitioner of the one-liner this side of the late-night talk shows, seemed in top form - jabbing Democrats, needling Republicans and, on occasion, even poking fun at himself.
In between, Dole also landed some serious, but hardly unexpected, blows against Clinton.
He faulted the president's recent focus on crime as misguided. "Some of the gun-control initiatives elevate showmanship over substance," he said.
Dole said Clinton should concentrate instead on building federal prisons where states could send their prisoners - but only for those states that have passed "truth in sentencing" laws that require prisoners to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence.
That was a key provision in a crime bill which passed the Senate this fall but appears headed for trouble in the House. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Goodlatte will be in a position to help push for passage of that bill, Dole said.
Dole also blasted Clinton's health-care proposals for placing too much emphasis on government intervention. "If government mandates something, that's a tax," he said.
He particularly zinged the Clintons' threat to enact price controls on drugs if pharmaceutical companies don't do a better job of holding down prices.
"If you have price controls for drugs, you'll fall behind in research and development, and we'll fall behind [internationally] in one area where we're ahead," he said.
Dole said the Republicans' challenge is to come up with a health-care plan of their own that emphasizes market-based solutions.
"Republicans are just as serious as anyone about health care," Dole said. "We don't have our heads in the sand. But we don't want the government to take over one-seventh of the total economy."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB