The Telegraph
Advertising war between Republican candidates
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN, Telegraph Staff,12/13/96

	CONCORD: The advertising war between Republican presidential candidates 
drew blood Tuesday with U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, accusing magazine 
publisher Steve Forbes Jr. of airing a commercial making "verifiably false" 
charges about him.
  The Forbes commercial attacks both GOP front-runner Bob Dole and Gramm 
for their roles in the 1990 budget summit agreement, which removed the 
spending restraints of the Gramm-Rudman deficit law and raised taxes by $100 billion.
  "There is an ad by Steve Forbes that is totally inaccurate and that I 
believe is dishonest", Gramm said Tuesday.
  "He does not have the right to run an ad that is verifiably false which 
is simply not true."
  Forbes defended the ad and said Gramm was playing the political 
insiders' game of helping to negotiate the 1990 budget summit plan only 
to vote against it to protect himself politically.
  "The role of Senator Gramm, it happens all too often in Washington. And 
that is they get involved with something, he headed up the negotiations, 
he was one of the key players in that agreement, and then when the 
agreement is made .... he
 votes against it so that way he can be in effect on both sides of the 
issue", Forbes told reporters.
  The Gramm and Forbes campaign did agree on one issue regarding the 
ad, it tells the truth about Dole's record on the budget agreement.
  David Carney, a key adviser in the Dole campaign, said he hadn't seen 
the ad and couldn't comment on it.
  But Carney said it was unusual for any candidate 10 weeks before a 
primary election to air a commercial that lumps two opponents together.
  "We'll see if that's effective, but before this campaign is over 
there are going to be plenty of charges and countercharges about 
candidate ads", Carney said.
  "Isn't this the 12th or 13th ad Steve Forbes has run in this primary? 
We'll see what kind of effect this one has, I guess."
  "The commercial began airing on WMUR-TV Monday night and is part of a 
$34,000 buy for the week on that station.
  Unlike every ad Forbes has aired to date in New Hampshire, this one 
makes no mention of him except for a brief disclaimer on who paid for it, which appears on the screen before the commercial begins.
  Both the Forbes and Gramm campaigns cited statements made by Gramm back 
in 1990 to buttress their claim.
  Back in 1990, according to the ad, Dole directed Gramm to head up the 
summit negotiations and that Gramm helped "engineer a staggering, $100 
billion tax increase."
  It also makes the allegation that Gramm said the agreement would help 
balance the budget by 1994.
  But in 1994, the federal budget deficit was $203 billion, the ad said, 
and Gramm and Dole can't be trusted with promises they make in this 
campaign.
  "Bob Dole. Phil Gramm. Washington politicians. It's time for a 
change", the ad states in its closing.
  Gramm said he walked out of the negotiations on the budget summit when 
talk turned to raising income tax rates. In all three votes on the matter, he said, he voted against the agreement in 1990.
  Gramm said Forbes deliberately misrepresents the past by quoting 
statements made by Gramm not about the final agreement but an earlier version that had included an increase in the gasoline tax but no increase in income taxes and much smaller spending 
cuts.
  Those changes were made after the U.S. House had rejected the earlier 
version and sent negotiators back to the drawing board.
  "You can't be more clear than I was on the subject", Gramm 
said. 
  Despite this assault, Gramm said he doesn't believes the Forbes ad 
will hurt his campaign.
  "I don't believe the people in New Hampshire are going to be swayed by 
something which is verifiably false", Gramm said.
  Gramm's state campaign chairman, fellow U.S. Sen. Bob Smith, said 
this strategy of Forbes will backfire.
  "Here in New Hampshire, honesty and integrity count for something. This 
type of advertising represents the type of mudslinging, deceitful 
campaigning that people in New Hampshire reject", Smith said.
  "Mr. Forbes will find that traveling down the low road will be a lonely 
journey for him in New Hampshire."

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