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- <text id=92TT0974>
- <title>
- May 04, 1992: The Campaign Goes Into Low Gear
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- May 04, 1992 Why Roe v. Wade Is Already Moot
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 15
- NATION
- The Campaign Goes Into Low Gear
- </hdr><body>
- <p>Quitting, quibbling and carping, candidates skip the elevated
- debate
- </p>
- <p> The presidential campaign didn't come to a complete stop last
- week, but it did slow down long enough for one White House
- hopeful to get off. David Duke announced that he would end his
- quest for the Republican nomination and promised not to launch
- a third-party bid this fall. Score one for Patrick Buchanan
- (assist to H. Ross Perot).
- </p>
- <p> Less propitious was word that Paul Tsongas had suffered a
- relapse from lymphatic cancer as recently as 1987. Tsongas
- insisted that he had not misled the public last fall with
- stipulations of good health. "There was never a recurrence," he
- said, "in our minds." Maybe not, but coming from Tsongas, who
- sold himself as a straight-talking pol, the reversal will make
- it easier for Bill Clinton to pass him over as a running mate.
- Now there are doubts about Tsongas' credibility -- along with
- his health.
- </p>
- <p> Meanwhile the frontrunners concentrated their fire on each
- other. Clinton derided George Bush's environmental record as
- "reactive, rudderless and expedient" and called on the President
- to attend a global-environment summit in Rio de Janeiro in June.
- Bush, who has been forced to play catch-up on foreign policy and
- education, had been hoping to get ahead of his rival by focusing
- on trade matters. But Clinton's "theme of the week" attack
- trumped Bush's own effort, and the President hurriedly launched
- a counterattack on Clinton's environmental record. "This man,"
- said Bush spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, "does know pollution. He's
- got it. He's caused it."
- </p>
- <p> Bush's very public dithering over whether to make the Rio
- trip only underscores his image as indecisive. Bush wants to go
- but is hemmed in by conservatives who believe that U.S.
- participation in such global parleys undercuts American power.
- Buchanan called on Bush to forgo the Rio meeting and instead
- "send a telegram" to the conferees explaining that the U.S.
- would not "yield one iota of our sovereignty to these global
- parasites."
- </p>
- <p> Otherwise, Buchanan continues to simmer: he vowed to
- support the party nominee this fall and ended his feud with
- G.O.P. chairman Rich Bond when he said, "George Bush is entitled
- to have the chairman he wants."
- </p>
- <p> And Ross Perot? His telephone hasn't stopped ringing. Last
- week he averaged 30,000 calls a day.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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