Specifics, not character, swayed voters, analysts say
WASHINGTON (AP)— Future candidates
take note: Going negative this year turned out
to be no match lor going specific. Showing
compassion was imperative, and economic
values worked better than family values.
Town meetings, talk-show TV, books and
w pamphlets of lofty plans —
^EIV$ in all these ways candidates
courted voters who insisted
that politicians get serious.
Which came first — people
worried about the economy
or presidential candidates
who said they should be wor
%V4LYSV> ried? Democrats say the first
and Republicans the latter.
“The economy is not as bad as we’ve been
told, and we were unable to push through that
perception,” Vice President Dan Quayle said in
a campaign post-mortem. “That takes a strat
egy,” he added.
Bill Clinton promised spending on jobs,
education, training and infrastructure; he
pledged to work for health care reforms and
racial harmony. Many voters came to believe
Clinton would make their futures more secure
and many dismissed President Bush’s relent
less discussion of his rival’s alleged character
Haws.
“We made the election about the American
people and their problems and less about poli
ticians and who they are,” Clinton strategist
James Carvillc said Thursday on NBC’s “To
day” show.
“Their incomes were declining_They felt
like the job base was deteriorating,” Carvillc
said. “A candidate that slicks to that will gen
erally be more successful, and, I might add, an
administration that slicks to solving those prob
lems will be more successful also.”
Interviews with voters leaving polling places
found they placed low priority on issues such as
foreign policy, education, abortion and family
values. Nor were voters interested in renewing
conflicts over the Vietnam War. Marital fidel
ity and even honesty did not loom large in their
calculations.
Bush didn’t compile a pamphlet of eco
nomic proposals until September.
One disaffected Bush strategist complained
that Clinton used his pamphlet — “Putting
People First” — as a prop.
“Nobody read it, nobody knew what was in
it,’’ the strategist, who insisted on anonymity,
said.Then he added, “We didn’t have such a
prop. That was more evidence of incompe
tence.”
Bush was unable to quell the concerns of
voters worried about job security. His eco
nomic proposals: cut the capital gains tax, cut
the personal income tax rate, let voters check
off a deficit-reduction box on their tax returns.
Bush’s stump speeches roamed from law
yer-bashing to Arkansas-bashing to the end of
lhc*Cold War. Before he settled into a deter
mined challenge of Clinton’s character, he
auditioned a whole series of issues that failed or
backfired.
Chief among them were “family values,"
Republican attacks on Hillary Clinton, anti
abortion positions and other facets of the reli
gious right agenda.
The GOP convention in Houston celebrated
the kind of traditional family that fewer and
fewer Americans recognize as their own.
“That was a terrible mistake the Republi
cans made down here,’’ Carvillc said this week
on ABC’s “Nightlinc." The message was “we
ought not like some people in society," he said,
adding that was not exactly what financially
squeezed voters were waiting to hear.
Americans could lose US Air controls
in British Airways deal, officials say
WASHINGTON(AP)—The Bush
administration said Thursday that a
bid by British Airways to buy a S750
million share of US Air could result in
American investors losing control of
the nation’s sixth-largcsl airline.
The Transportation Department
said the proposal would change
USAir’s operations, financial struc
ture and management.
In an order asking for public com
ment on the transaction, the depart
ment said it would require “the merg
ing of most business functions of the
two airlines.”
“Key decisions by USAir would
require the approval of directors ap
pointed by British Airways,” the de
partment said. “The transaction raises
questions about whether USAir would
continue to operate under the control
of U.S. citi/ens.”
A British Airways spokesman said
in London that that airline “will coop
erate fully with the proceeding and
remains hopeful we will achieve a
positive result.”
Under the deal, British Airways
would give financially struggling
USAira$750millioncash infusion in
return for 44 percent of the airline’s
common stock and a 21 percent vot
ing share.
Current law limits foreign owner
ship to 25 percent of voting slock.
Overseas interests already own a 4
percent share of the airline, so the
British Airways share would be lim
ited to 21 percent.
A senior U.S. official, who com
mented on the condition of anonym
ity, -said the concern over possible
foreign control of OS Air did not stem
primarily from the financial or stock
arrangements.__
JUMBO SOFT PRETZELS!!
, I
130 N. 13th - Lincoln, NE 68508 (402)477-2177 '
Nuns deaths revive row
over U.S.-Liberian ties
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) —
Slayings of five American nuns
trapped in the siege of Monrovia have
revived bitterness about the U.S. role
in Liberia.
“The Reagan government and the
Bush administration have to share
some of the responsibilities for what
has happened,” Roman Catholic Arch
bishop Michael Francis said in an
interview.
He and others believe the United
Stales has a moral responsibility to
help end the country’s brutal, nearly
thrcc-ycar-old conflict.
In Liberia-related developments
Thursday:
• U.S. officials said Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi, trying to install a
radical regime in Liberia and perhaps
exert influence on the entire region,
had been funncling weapons to rebel
leader Charles Taylor’s group.
The officials said Libya had been
involved in the conflict from the bc
ginning and recently increased its arms
shipments, using Burkina Faso as a
transit point.
In November 1990, the Bush ad
ministration threatened to withhold
aid to Burkina Faso if it did not stop
supporting Taylor.
•The Suite Department announced
it was recalling its ambassador from
Burkina Faso to protest that country’s
arms shipments to Taylor’s NPFL
faction. Spokesman Richard Boucher
said Burkina Faso had ‘‘actively un
dermined” the peace process in Liberia
but declined to say where Burkina
Faso got the arms.
• An AP reporter has spoken to
Taylor fighters who say they received
training in Libya and Burkina Faso.
Taylor in March 1991 invaded Si
crra Leone alongside Sicrc Lconian
rebels ihaltraincd with him in Guinea.
This year, Gambia accused Taylor
of being behind the rebels who at
tempted a coup there.
Taylor began the war with an inva
sion from Ivory Coast on Christmas
Eve 1989 that initially was a popular
rcbcllionagainstabrutalandlnbalistic
military dictatorship.
Samuel Doc was an illiterate mas
ter sergeant when he seized power in
a bloody 1980 coup, the same year
Ronald Reagan won elections.
“Reagan ’s government gave hal f a
billion dollars to Doc in the first four
years, more than they had given in the
entire history of this country” founded
by freed American slaves in 1847, the •
archbishop, Francis, said.
He said the U.S. government ig
nored the fact that most of the money
lined the pockets of Doc and a clique
from his Krahn tribe, while Doc op
pressed the nation of 2.3 million
people, killing opponents, and win
ning U.S. approval for rigged elec
tions in 1985.
In return, he said, the United States
had carte blanche to use Liberia as a
CIA listening post through Voice of
America installations and the Omega
navigation plant, one of the world’s
six biggest ship-tracking stations that
the archbishop said also was used to
monitor Soviet satellites.
“All we have to show for that
period is arms, arms and a big army
they (the Americans) helped train,”
Francis said.
In Washington, U.S. officials said
that at the lime of the Doc takeover in
1980, the Un ited Slates had the option
of “culling and leaving or trying to
work with him.”
Sex can be a headache
for some, doctors say
LONDON (AP) — “Nol tonight
honey, I’ll gel a headache” is more
lhan an excuse for people who truly
suffer from sex-induced headaches,
doctors say.
A new Danish study reassures those
who gel headaches only al ter orgasms
that they may have a temporary prob
lem.
The syndrome, known as benign
coital headache, or orgasmic
cephalgia, has been well-known
among headache specialists for years.
Little is known, however, about why
orgasms trigger hcadaches or the like
lihood of recurrences.
The study is published in the Nov.
6 issue of the British Medical Journal.
“If a patient with migraine or ten
sion headache once has an episode of
benign coital headache, he or she is at
great risk of having recurrent attacks
said Dr. John Ostergaard, an investi
gator at the University Hospital of
Aarhus.
“Other patients, not ordinarily suf
fering from headache, can be reas
sured about the favorable prognosis
of this disorder,’* he said.
BATMAN'S BEST FRIEND ISN'T
ON THE STREETS TONIGHT
People said that Commissioner Gordon had heart. He was a tough cop, and proud of it.
Eating right, exercise, vacations—those things were for guys not so tough.
Tobacco was part of it. A smoke would jump-start the day, help
him get through a long night, mellow out the bad hours.
Then one day all the pain in the woHd collected in his chest and squeezed.
Jim Gordon's heart wasn't working right anymore. That made
it hard to be tough. And even harder to be proud.
for information about helping your heart to work , AmOriCOH H©Ort ||1 J|j
right, call or writ# your nearest American Heart Association. ASSOCiOtiOD Sr
*