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Bush is not ready to be president: Democrats

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October 31, 2000 

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - George W. Bush is aiming his presidential campaign toward California, saying he'll upset Al Gore there because he's working hard to earn votes the vice president has taken for granted.

Gore's running mate, Joseph Lieberman, said bluntly that Texas Gov. Bush is not ready to serve as president, and Gore seconded that Democratic theme.

The Bush camp accused Gore of a divisive campaign headed toward "one of the most negative finishes" ever, and it pledged the Republican nominee will be positive in his last week and a day, on a theme of bringing America together.

"I've got a record," Bush told more than 200 Latino supporters in Anaheim Hills, California, on Sunday. "I am a uniter, not a divider. That is how I have led as the governor of a great and diverse state. That is how I will lead from the White House."

Gore and Lieberman campaigned on a bus tour of Michigan, one of the closely divided states that could hold the balance in the Nov. 7 election. They were driving on to Wisconsin on Monday, to work in a state rated a tossup now, despite a pattern of voting for the Democrat in presidential elections.

"The American people face a big choice next week between two very different paths of our future," Gore planned to say Monday in a speech that aides described as "closing remarks" to the electorate. "With so much at stake, prosperity itself is on the ballot. I want to take the nation forward to extend our prosperity and make sure it is shared by all and not just a few."

Bush planned appearances at an elementary school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, before traveling to Burbank and Fresno, California. He was appearing on NBC's "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno on Monday night; Gore will be on the same program Tuesday night.

On the road with Gore, as in interviews on three network TV talk shows Sunday, Lieberman kept to his message for the final days of the campaign: "George Bush is not ready to be president of the United States."

The Democratic vice presidential nominee and Connecticut senator said that was based on Bush's record, experience "and particularly his proposals in this campaign ..."

Gore skirted saying that directly, but his chief spokesman, Chris Lehane, said there were troubling questions about Bush - "call it experience or judgment or priorities."

Endorsing Gore in its Sunday editions, The New York Times said Bush lacks the experience and knowledge for the presidency. The vice president told reporters, "... My already high estimation of The New York Times has risen even further."

Before a crowd of more than 10,000 in Muskegon, Michigan, on Sunday night, Gore touted his experience from two dozen years in Congress and the executive branch. "I haven't spent the last 24 years in pursuit of personal wealth. I've spent it in public service," he said.

Bush strategist Karl Rove said the Republican nominee "has demonstrated through the stewardship of the second-largest state that he's ready to be president."

Gore campaigned Sunday from the pulpits of black churches in Detroit, trying to stir Election Day turnout by a crucial Democratic constituency. "This state (Michigan) has the ability to decide this close election," he said. "This community has the ability to decide what this state decides."

President Bill Clinton, meanwhile, preached at two predominantly black churches in the Washington area, saying Gore will represent their interests and needs. "Now, you need to know and you need to show on Election Day," he said.

Bush's closing campaign will begin in states that once had looked safe for Gore, given Democratic voting habits in the last two elections and, in some cases, far longer than that, spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

"We see this as a clear opportunity to take away those Democratic states," Fleischer said, listing California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota and Iowa, where Bush will be hunting votes through Wednesday.

In the Pacific Northwest, and perhaps elsewhere, consumer advocate Ralph Nader's minor party candidacy is a threat to Gore because he could take away votes that otherwise would be Democratic. Both Lieberman and Gore are trying to persuade voters tending toward Nader that they risk electing Bush by tipping close states to him.

Nader said so what. "If Gore cannot beat the bumbling Texas governor, with that horrific record, what good is he?" he said on ABC.

Fleischer said the best evidence that Gore's early advantage in California is vanishing "is the very fact that the vice president juggled his schedule to go to California this week."

Gore was nominated at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, but has not been in the state since Sept. 20. Nor has his campaign broadcast television commercials there, using its money in swing states elsewhere, particularly the Midwest and Florida.

"We've been advertising and reaching out to voters of every background in every part of the state," Bush told his Latino audience. He has campaigned in California 10 times since clinching the Republican nomination.

Bush had promised at the start of his California campaign that he would not concede and quit the state as his father, the former president, did in 1992, and as Bob Dole effectively did in 1996, to concentrate on more promising targets.

But Bush has problems in Florida, where his brother Jeb is governor, and where Republicans initially thought their ticket was safe. Instead, the state is rated a tossup, and some surveys favor Gore.