Quayle blasts Clinton in Omaha appearance
Candidate targets
‘ozone man,’ media
By Alan Phelps
Senior Editor
OMAHA — Vice President Dan
Quayle, aided by almostl ,300 enthu
siastic supporters, pulled no punches
Friday night in a spirited attack on
Bill Clinton at Omaha’s Epplcy Air
field.
“We’re not going to let a Dcmo
□ cratic president
team up with the lib
eral, greedy Demo
cratic Congress,”
It was a message
that Quayle re
peated often during
the short speech,
and one that went over well with the
sign-waving, cheering crowd in the
Sky Harbor building.
Quayle stopped briefly in Omaha
as pan of a swing through the West
and Midwest. He stayed the night in
Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Clinton, Quayle said, has posted a
“sorry, sorry record” as governor of
Arkansas.
“Let us take a pledge we will never
let Bill Clinton do to the country what
he has done to Arkansas.”
Quayle said Clinton would raise
taxes and increase government spend
ing. Democrats, he said, have planned
S895 billion in spending proposals.
“Who is going to pay the bill?”
Quayle asked.
Quayle urged the crowd to remem
ber what life was like under the
country’s last Democratic president,
Jimmy Carter.
“Remember where interest rates
were?Twenty-one percent. The farm
ers don’t like it. The students don’t
like it.” >■* •
America had hostages in Iran, he
said, the Soviet Union was in Af
ghanistan, “and we had a president
who blamed ilon the American people.
. . . Let us not repeat that mistake
again.”
Quayle also hammered on Sen. Al
Gore of Tennessee, Clinton’s running
mate.
“I don’t think we want the ‘ozone
man’ running the country,” he said,
referring to Gore’s reputation as an
environmentalist. “We want the
- 44
American people want
to trust their president.
Would you trust Bill
Clinton to be presi
dent? Would you trust
him to take care of the
family? How about the
family farm?
- Vice president Quayle
-ft “
American people running the coun
try.”
“Ozone man, ozone man,' the
crowd chanted.
The Republicans, Quayle said, have
ideas for the future, and George Bush
is “the one who is turning the country
around.”
“I hope the media in the back of the
room (arc) listening very carefully,”
Quayle said, pointing to photogra
phers and camera operators on the
press riser, “because we arc going to
win this election.”
Later, Quayle blasted the press
again.
“A lot of pundits have said the
election is over. Do you want the
media to decide on how this election
is going to be?”
He asked the crowd if they thought
the media had been fair to either him
self or Bush. They yelled “no.”
“Then let’s annoy the media and
elect George Bush,” he said to a re
newed roar from the audience.
Quayle said that, despite what the
media would have Americans believe,
“character is an issue in this cam
paign!”
“American people want to trust
their president. Would you trust Bill
Clinton to be president? Would you
trust him to lake care of the family?
How about the family farm?”
To each question, Quaylc’s sup
porters yelled “No!”
“Maybe I’m being too hard on Bill
Clinton,” Quayle said to a another
resounding “No!” from the crowd.
“Hit ‘cm again, hit ‘cm again,
harder, harder,” they chanted.
A “wafllc, wafllc” chant started
after the vice president, to the delight
of the audience, said not only that
Clinton “waffled” on the Persian Gulf
war, but that the Arkansas governor
had “pulled a Clinton,” a phrase the
Republicans have used to mean com
ing down one way on an issue, only to
change later.
“You can’t pull a Clinton and be
president of the United Slates,” he
said.
_I
Julia Mikolajcik'DN
“Let us take a pledge we will never let Bill Clinton do to the country
what he has done to Arkansas,” Quayle said to supporters Friday
during his stopover in Omaha.
Education teleconference yields few proposals
By Andy Raun
Staff Reporter
Systemic change was the subject of the day
Friday as politicians and educators from across
Nebraska participated in an educational plan
ning teleconference.
During aclosing panel discussion, U.S. Sen.
Bob Kerrey, Gov. Ben Nelson and other educa
tion leaders and politicians expressed concern
for change in education. However, few con
crete proposals arc forthcoming.
The teleconference, called “A Nebraska
Town Meeting to Develop a Common Vision
■
for School Transformation," originated at Ne
braska Educational Television headquarters in
Lincoln. Teachers, adm inistrators, school board
members and others watched and interacted in
the program from the Lincoln studio and at 50
down-link sites connected by satellite.
Craig Christiansen, an Omaha teacher and
president of the Nebraska Slate Education As
sociation, said more authority should be given
to classroom teachers as part of the quest for
educational excellence.
He said teachers needed more latitude to
design curricula and decide how to implement
technology in the classroom.
Kerrey said he agreed with Christiansen but
thought teachers could not be given more au
thority until they were provided with financial
incentives for being innovative and designing
effective programs.
Kerrey decried the use of standardized test
scores as the sole use for evaluating school
systems’ effectiveness. He said schools would
have to teach students better problem-solving
skills instead of belter test-taking techniques
before the real-life benefits of public education
could increase.
Joe Luljchar ms, the Nebraska comm issioncr
of education, said teleconferences like Friday’s
were effective for defining the agenda for edu
cational change. He said the state needed to
research the likely effects of various kinds of
educational reform.
Policy decisions such as changing to a 12
month school year need to be made at the local
level, Nelson said. Bulcfforts like the Nebraska
2(XX) comprehensive study arc useful and need
more promotion and wider participation, he
said.
Capi. R J DaSilva, 1-800-524-212(>, Omaha, NE
--
I Plan may upgrade ethnic studies
By Heather Sinor
Staff Reporter___
A proposal lo improve ihc Institute
for Ethnic Studies and Area Studies
could make Nebraska the leader in
Native American Studies, an official
said last week.
John Peters, dean of the College of
Arts and Sciences, said a new pro
gram would attract more minority
faculty to UNL, bring in external re
search funding and enhance curricu
lum.
Due to the recent success of the
Healing the Hoop Conference, Peters
said Nebraska was in a unique posi
tion to become the leader in Native
American Studies.
He said the institute and area stud
ies programs needed lo be changed.
Peters said the programs now oper
ated under insufficient funding, re
stricted resources, limited visibility,
unclear research goals and under
graduate major programs that needed
revision.
He will discuss with faculty in his
college his proposal to create three
new programs: Native American stud
ies, Latino and Latin American stud
ies and African and African-Ameri
can studies.
These programs would revise and
improve the existing ethnic studies,
African studies and Latin American
studies programs and would have sepa
rate budgetary, administrative and
curricular entities, he said.
Peters’ goal is to generate faculty
discussion. He said he anticipated
strong support and some individual
concern for the proposal.
If the faculty did approve the plan,
Peters said, he would include funding
for the program in his budget meet
ing, Nov. 19.
“I’m prepared to do it,” he said.
Perot
Continued from Page 1
While Perot said he was against
gun control laws that would ban weap
ons from law-abiding citizens, he said
the country needed "harsh” penalties
for using firearms in crime.
He said if a “dumb, drunk, high
on-drugs” criminal was contemplat
ing robbing a convenience store, “I
want something in his head that says,
'll just ain’t worth using a gun.’
“We’ve had periods of time in our
country where things got pretty law
less. You jusi have to lighten down.
Remember Dodge City?” he asked
the crowd.
But Perot said that any major pro
gram must have the massive support
of the people before it was set in
motion. He said that if he was elected,
“I go as your servant. I work for you.
“You’re the boss, and I’m Ross.”
Perot called on the audience mem
bers to ignore the polls that show him
trailing in third place and work for
victory.
“Each one of you gel five more
people, and it’s a slam-dunk, home
run, 50-statc win,” he said. “Let’s go
for it!”