THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 1, 1996 TAG: 9603010462
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
The other three candidates ganged up on Bob Dole much of the way in Thursday night's primary debate in Columbia, S.C.
Just once there came a lightning flash of his legendary temper.
Lamar Alexander has posed as a saint all along in boasting he hasn't used negative advertising.
Fact is, Alexander hasn't had much money to buy any spots; but he laid himself open to attack last night when he sought to defend the use of an ad accusing Dole of backing $340 billion in tax increases.
Steve Forbes jumped in to say that the ad was in error - that the amount was nearer $1 trillion.
Dole said he had voted against tax increases 60 times and that most of his other votes had been to close loopholes in tax bills.
``Some loophole closer!'' Forbes jeered.
``Don't malign my integrity here!'' Dole crackled.
Forbes didn't back off. ``It's a typical Washington game,'' he said.
The exchange suggests why Dole ducked the debate in Arizona - and thereby, some say, had to settle for third place.
Alexander and Forbes clashed when Forbes said that Alexander, while running for president, collected $295,000 from a law firm that lobbies the federal government.
``Steve, you haven't learned a single thing in the whole campaign,'' Alexander fumed. ``You know that isn't true.''
Forbes noted that the same ad did not mention any of Alexander's ``cozy business deals you did as governor.''
``You wait just a minute,'' Alexander shouted. ``My ethics have never been questioned!''
``Time out! Time out!'' cried Dole, turning peacemaker, a role he often plays as Senate majority leader.
Except for another passing comment by Forbes in an earlier debate, Alexander's private deals while governor have gone unchallenged by the candidates, nor have they drawn much notice from the media.
All four candidates said the Citadel should retain an all-male enrollment. In a cunning, tactical move, Pat Buchanan did everything but whistle ``Dixie'' to woo votes of those who wish the South would rise again.
Analysts, after the debate, rehearsed the old complaint of Dole's lacking vision; but for 35 years he has been bringing about solutions to the type of problems the other candidates are talking about.
No wonder he is, now and then, acerbic at so much gabbing, so little doing.
Bob Dole is a brooding political Hamlet, driven every so often to outbursts of soliloquies.
To be or not to be. . . president!
He is impatient of words unhinged to acts, doesn't bother to round off sentences or, at times, thoughts. Spits them out herky-jerky as he would in talking with his peers in the well of the U.S. Senate.
In Oregon last week, he was heard to mumble in a speech: ``I'm not certain what everyone is looking for in a candidate for president. Maybe (just) as soon not have one at all. Just leave it vacant. But there's going to be one. Every country ought to have one. So we're out here campaigning.''
And how much sense have the others made - Alexander talking about forming a fourth branch of the armed services to resist the invasion of illegal aliens.
Forbes parroting ``Flat tax! Flat tax! Flat Tax!'' not bothering to explain how it could exempt the very wealthy from paying taxes on investments and dividends without having people taxed down the line to replace the lost revenue. . .
And Pat Buchanan proclaiming that the day he raises his hand to take the oath of office all of the economic and social wrongs will fall.
Old Dole is in tall cotton Saturday in South Carolina, where two shrewd, smooth young Southern leaders - governor and ex-governor - interpret morose Hamlet to their people. by CNB