Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 31, 1995 TAG: 9503310085
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: HARRISBURG, PA. LENGTH: Medium
Specter, 65, launched his uphill bid with a forceful rebuke of forces he said threatened to tug the Republican Party away from its winning message of smaller government and lower taxation by pursuing ``a radical social agenda which would end a woman's right to choose and mandate school prayer.''
The third-term Pennsylvania senator made his announcement in Washingto\n between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument - then again at the state Capitol in Pennsylvania.
He pledged to ``lead the fight to strip the strident anti-choice language from the Republican national platform.'' And he criticized religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and other cultural conservatives who he said opposed the constitutional barrier separating church and state.
``There is no doubt that people with deep religious and moral convictions must be active in the political process,'' said Specter, the son of Russian immigrants. He would be the first Jewish president.
As a dozen or so abortion opponents at the Washington event waved placards denouncing his candidacy, Specter said:
``Neither this nation, nor this party, can afford a Republican candidate so captive to the demands of the intolerant right that we end up by re-electing a president of the incompetent left.''
Specter, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, took only brief aim at Clinton. He said the president was not tough enough in pushing North Korea to end its nuclear program or in combatting terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB