ORTLAND, Maine - As Al Gore kept up his criticism of George W. Bush over health care yesterday, the Texas governor offered a fresh response, saying that many of the vice president's proposals are the same ones he and President Clinton talked about in 1992 yet failed to enact.
''It's not only on the issue of prescription drugs, it's on the issue of middle-class tax cuts, as well,'' Bush said as he flew from the parched dirt and 100-degree heat of Texas to the brilliant sunshine, with considerably cooler temperatures, of the Down East coast.
After his stop in Maine, Bush returned to New Hampshire, the state of his most stinging defeat in the primiaries. Greeting about 120 supporters at the Pease International Tradeport in Portsmouth last night, Bush said there were ''no hard feelings at all. I'm a better candidate as a result of the New Hampshire primary. I gave it my all. I came in second place, but that's not going to happen in the general election.''
In a brief interview, Bush also said that Raymond L. Flynn, the former Boston mayor and ambassador to the Vatican, had asked to meet with Bush last night at a fund-raiser at the Rye, N.H., home of Cabletron Systems co-founder Craig Benson. Bush said he didn't know the reason for the meeting, and a call seeking comment from Flynn was not immediately returned.
At his campaign appearance yesterday in Portland, Bush told his audience, ''Remember in 1992, the campaign was, `Vote for us, we're going to provide middle-class tax cuts.' And guess what happened? There was no middle-income tax cuts; there was a tax increase.
''The rhetoric in '92 was, `We're going to do something about prescription drugs,' and nothing has happened. So, my point is, it's time to give somebody else the opportunity to get something done,'' he said.
The Gore campaign responded with its own recollection of the political rhetoric.
''I think if you ask the average American the question that Republicans asked, `Are you better off now than you were eight years ago?'' the average American is going to answer `yes,''' said a Gore spokesman, Kym Spell.
''The fact of the matter is, the Clinton-Gore administration has made tremendous progress in reducing crime, reforming welfare, reducing class sizes, bringing down the deficit, and working on shoring up Social Security and Medicare.''
In his New England swing, Bush continued his two-week focus on education.
With US Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine looking on, Bush participated in an education round-table discussion at Moore Middle School in Portland. Former governor John McKernan was the moderator, and three of the participants were educators Bush brought with him from Texas. The other three were current or former Maine education officials.
Bush made a pitch for giving local schools control of federal education money in exchange for accountability standards, citing one of the parents accompanying him, Norma Garza, of Brownsville, Texas.
''One size does not fit all,'' Bush said. ''I assure you the school in the district where Norma is from is really different from the schools in Caribou, Maine.''
He also responded to Gore's criticism late Monday that he ''put up or shut up'' on a prescription-drug plan for senior citizens. Next week, the governor plans to expand upon his idea to force insurers participating in Medicare to offer drug coverage.
''I felt like his comments underlined the point I make that if we want to get something done in Washington, we have to change the tone of the discourse. It's not very presidential to me,'' Bush told reporters aboard his campaign plane.
Another Gore campaign spokesman, Chris Lehane, replied: ''This is from a campaign that has put up an ad touting a prescription drug benefit they do not have. ... They cannot defend the indefensible nor can they explain the inexplicable: Why don't they have an agenda to help America's families?''
Yesterday, Gore continued his weeklong health care push during a visit to Albuquerque, promoting a plan to insure all children by 2005.
There are 11 million uninsured children nationwide; Gore said his plan would ensure that parents are ''never left powerless and broke in the face of rising health care costs.'' His plan also would cover 7 million parents who qualify for the existing Children's Health Insurance Program.
The program, enacted in 1997, is aimed at middle-income children whose parents are too affluent for Medicaid but too poor to buy their own insurance. Gore's proposal would, through a series of incentives to states, expand the program to include families earning up to 250 percent of the poverty level - or a family of four earning about $41,000 a year, Gore aides said.
The plan would also encourage states to let families earning more than that to buy into the Children's Health Insurance Program or into Medicaid. It would provide incentives to make sure all children who qualify for children's program are enrolled.
Gore also contrasted his plan with that of Bush, who has not moved beyond the concept of pushing private insurance to provide drug plans for seniors.
''I hope my opponent will also present to you specifics. He has not presented any plan to address this problem'' of children's health care, Gore told a group gathered on a school lawn. ''But again, it's all about you. You deserve a full discussion of all the issues that need to be addressed.''
The Gore campaign also mocked the Bush trip to Maine, saying the state would miss out on school repairs under the Bush education plan, which does not focus on ''bricks and mortar'' programs.
According to Lehane, the Gore spokesman, 85 percent of the 721 public schools in Maine - 612 schools - are crumbling. Gore has proposed a $115 billion education plan that includes school repairs.
Glen Johnson, traveling with Bush, reported from Portland; Anne E. Kornblut, traveling with Gore, reported from Albuquerque.
