The Boston Globe 
    Gramm hits Forbes in negative ad war
    By Peter S. Canellos, Globe Staff, 12/15/95
       
       Sen. Phil Gramm yesterday joined the first one-on-one negative ad
       war of the 1996 presidential campaign, unveiling his own attack ad
       to correct what he says are lies in an ad by publisher Steve
       Forbes.
       
       The Forbes ad said the Texas senator ``engineered'' a $100 billion
       tax increase as part of the unpopular 1990 budget deal. In fact,
       Gramm was part of the negotiating team for the budget deal, but
       he repudiated the final agreement and voted against it.
       
       Gramm's commercial suggests that just as ``Phil Gramm's campaign
       starts to roll,'' Forbes ``starts negative commercials. One
       problem: They're not true.''
       
       Gramm, in an interview this week, said, ``I don't think simply
       because somebody has a lot of money to spend on ads they have the
       right to run an ad that is verifiably false.''
       
       Gretchen Morgenson, Forbes' press secretary, said the Forbes ad,
       running in New Hampshire this week, is literally true: ``All our
       ad says is that Gramm negotiated, engineered - whatever word you
       want to use - the $100 billion tax hike. That's a fact. The fact
       that a month later he changed his mind doesn't change things. Are
       they denying that he was the engineer of that $100 billion tax
       increase?''
       
       Both camps said that the negative ad war came about because their
       man is gaining in private polls; in fact, both lag far behind
       Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas in all published polls.
       
       The Forbes campaign is running another negative ad, this one aimed
       at Dole. It attacks him for supporting an $18 million upgrade of
       the subway connecting Senate office buildings: ``Steve Forbes says
       no, it was wasteful spending,'' the ad proclaims. ``Bob Dole says
       yes. Bob Dole voted for a new subway to run three blocks from
       senators' offices to the Capitol.''