Bush, Dole Show Ire : An Exultant Kemp Draws Blood in N.H.

MANCHESTER, N.H. —  It was the stuff of Jack Kemp’s dreams. As television cameras whirred, Vice President George Bush emphatically ripped up a Kemp campaign flyer. Then the other Republican presidential front-runner, Bob Dole, spent a day firing retaliatory shots at the New York congressman.

“Looks like we’ve engaged the enemy,” chortled Kemp campaign spokesman John Buckley.

“They’re just going absolutely wild,” Kemp said of Bush and the Kansas senator, “and we’ve risen in the polls.”

Double-Digit Status

Indeed, besides grabbing the attention of Bush and Dole last week, the one-time heir-presumptive to New Hampshire’s conservative electorate has jumped in two surveys to double-digit status here, on the strength of a controversial series of attacks on the Republican hierarchy.

Gone are the broad, thematic visions the 52-year-old Kemp vowed would dominate his campaign: the “ultimate triumph of freedom” over communism, the remedying of urban blight, the fight for family values.

Instead, as Kemp circled New Hampshire last week, he bit like a political pit bull into a clutch of new issues. Trailed by reporters, he marched into senior citizens’ homes and accused his competitors of “scaring” the elderly by threatening to strip their Social Security benefits--arguably fanning such concern himself.

He swamped television and radio stations in the state with a series of ads charging that Dole and Bush want higher oil prices--fighting words in the oil-dependent Northeast. The ads marked the first anti-competitor approach of the political season, heretofore littered largely with ads that made only veiled, unnamed references to one’s opponents while stressing personal attributes.

The move left Bush and Dole united for perhaps the first and last time in 1988. Both camps described Kemp’s gains as temporary, his ads as wrong and said they are worried only about each other.

‘Hatchet Men’

“Kemp and Gordon Humphrey (the New Hampshire senator and Kemp supporter) have become the hatchet men of the 1988 campaign,” said Dole spokesman Paul Jacobson, resurrecting Dole’s own 1976 campaign nom de guerre. “Kemp has not contributed a whole lot to this campaign, other than a lot of noise.”

Despite Kemp’s apparent move in the polls, most political analysts still believe the race for the Republican nomination here, as nationally, is between Bush and Dole.

The crown prince of optimism doesn’t buy it. “It’s a three-man race,” Kemp says.

Kemp’s optimism depends on voters embracing a message that stands starkly apart from those of his Republican counterparts, to say nothing of the Democrats. Both Bush and Dole rate the federal deficit as the biggest problem facing the next President and offer as their respective solutions a line-item veto and a spending freeze.

But Kemp de-emphasizes the importance of the deficit and the economic shadow it casts. Enough growth and a stable dollar, his supply-side argument goes, and the deficit will virtually take care of itself.

‘Capital Formation’

“The real question is how do we encourage more capital formation?” Kemp told reporters at a Concord press conference.

“The answer to the deficit is growth, not pain,” explained Roger Stone, senior political consultant to the Kemp campaign. “People don’t buy pain. . . . We don’t think people want it.”

For all Kemp’s economic optimism, however, his message lately has been oddly--and apparently effectively--negative.

He smiled greetings at voters, shaking hands with those close by and pointing, in a manner befitting a retired quarterback used to gesturing downfield, at those he could not reach. But at times his campaign style seemed strained, even belligerent.

At a debate over Social Security with former Delaware Gov. Pierre S. (Pete) du Pont IV, Kemp grew noticeably irritated when Du Pont asked the audience to raise their hands if they thought the Social Security system would still be solvent when they retired. Kemp and three others raised their hands.

Asks Senior Citizens

The next day, before a new audience, Kemp went out of his way to ask a group of senior citizens to raise their hands if they thought Social Security should be considered a “welfare system” or if they want to “privatize the system.” Appearing bewildered, none responded.

“Pete took his poll yesterday, I just took a poll,” Kemp said. “. . . It is absolutely silly to ask senior citizens of America (or) young people the question as to whether the benefits are going to be available. They don’t know the actuarial tables.”

Most noticeable--in part because it drew such a strong response from his competitors--has been Kemp’s new aggression on Social Security and oil import fees.

The barrage began with radio commercials in which Kemp supporter Sen. Humphrey belittled Bush and Dole for what he said was their support for higher oil prices.

“They’re Washington insiders,” the ad continued. “Jack Kemp, he’s one of us and it’s us against the Establishment.”

The radio advertisement also jabbed at Bush’s patrician beginnings: “George Bush never had to worry about paying an oil bill,” the ad said. A shorter television ad launched last week aired without the upper-class slap.

A Costly Necessity

The issue drew wide attention in New Hampshire--where cold temperatures make home heating oil a costly necessity and the vacation industry is dependent on low gasoline prices.

The advertisements, and Kemp’s new remarks, tell voters that Bush went to Saudi Arabia in 1986 to “keep oil prices up.” Dole, listeners are told, favors an fee on imported oil that would lead to higher prices.

Both candidates beg to differ. Dole aides point out that the Kansas senator has said he would support an oil import fee--if a rebate was given to areas like New Hampshire where home heating costs are high. Bush aides said that the vice president called on the Saudis to stabilize then-plummeting oil prices because the price drop had restrained domestic production and thus threatened increased dependence on foreign oil.

A new, low-key Bush commercial that began airing in New Hampshire Friday rebuts Kemp’s claims without naming the congressman.

The second barrel of Kemp’s new approach concerned Social Security, and again he drew angry denials from his competitors.

A television ad aired in Iowa and due to be broadcast in New Hampshire charges that Bush and Dole voted to “cut future Social Security benefits.” A mailer sent out to older voters in both states featured a brown, seemingly government-issue envelope bearing the words, “Important Social Security Information Enclosed.” The envelope did not carry any indication that it was campaign material.

Bush Cast Tiebreaker

The ad referred to a 1983 Senate vote to cut some benefits as part of a massive package to rescue the Social Security system from insolvency and a 1985 deficit-fighting effort that included a temporary freeze on Social Security cost-of-living raises. Dole voted for the insolvency package and the freeze, while Bush approved the freeze to break a Senate tie. President Reagan, who initially supported the freeze, backed off after lobbying by Kemp and the freeze was never implemented.

Dole criticized the Kemp mailer as “marginal” and said that if Kemp had had his way in 1983, “the envelope would have been empty, there wouldn’t have been any checks for Social Security.”

Kemp and his campaign aides defend their strategy and contend their words are accurate. “If the truth hurts, that’s their problem,” said spokesman Buckley.

Already, the ads have won results. A Los Angeles Times Poll taken last week showed Kemp with 18% of the vote, within striking distance of Dole’s 22% but well behind Bush’s 35%. A Gallup poll released Jan. 13 put Kemp at 15%, Dole at 23% and Bush at 38%. Previously, Kemp was stranded in the 8-9% range in a series of polls.

Oil Stance Wins Support

And when Kemp toured a General Electric plant in Hooksett, outside Manchester, several employees said they support him specifically because of his oil-price stance.

But broad problems remain for Kemp. His chances of placing better than fourth in Iowa are slim, according to Republicans there. In New Hampshire, Kemp is battling Du Pont and former religion broadcaster Pat Robertson for conservative bragging rights--a fight that must be waged while simultaneously running after the better-known Bush and Dole.

Campaign consultant Stone compared Kemp’s current standing to that of Democrat Gary Hart in 1984 and Reagan in 1976, back in the polls and capable of surprise. Left unspoken was the singular problem: Despite primary victories, neither man corralled the nomination in the years cited.

Whatever the odds, Kemp made clear, his aggressive issue tactics will continue.

“It’s a lot better,” he said, “than a debate over resumes.”