CAMPAIGN ’88 : Iowans Get Apologies From Bush, Babbitt

Just when you think Iowans have milked everything possible out of the race for President--so much time and doting attention from the candidates--they surprise you and extract something more. The latest: apologies.

Cedar Rapids High School student Annette Gallagher told reporters that she was humiliated on Monday when Vice President George Bush tore up her campaign flyer in front of hundreds of people. Gallagher complained that she was “being made a fool of by the vice president.”

A quick call from a campaign aide expressed Bush’s apology. The vice president was trying to make a point about Republican presidential rival Jack Kemp, not pick on a high school girl, she was assured.

The event involved a campaign flyer distributed by Kemp, a representative from New York. It accused Bush of waffling in his opposition to abortion. Gallagher read from the flyer in asking Bush an unfriendly question about abortion.

Bush walked into the crowd and asked to look at the piece of paper. Seeing it was from Kemp, he ripped it up and declared, in French: “Fini!”

Finished, that is, except for the apology.

Then there is Bruce Babbitt, the former governor of Arizona and dark-horse Democratic candidate for President.

A week ago at a debate among the candidates in Des Moines, Babbitt could not resist a lighthearted poke at one of his rivals.

“Al, it’s good to see you back,” Babbitt said to Sen. Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.), who has virtually written off Iowa and seldom campaigns there. “I thought they might start putting your picture on milk cartons.”

When the laughs died down the next day, Noreen Gosch of West Des Moines pronounced herself aghast. She is the mother of a boy missing since 1982, and whose disappearance inspired a campaign to put pictures of missing children on milk cartons.

Whereupon Babbitt apologized. “It was an inappropriate remark,” he said.