OHNSTON, Iowa - Backpedaling from a stance he took last week, Governor George W. Bush of Texas agreed yesterday to repudiate racially insulting remarks by a politician in South Carolina.
Responding to a challenge from Republican opponent Alan Keyes during a presidential debate here, Bush said state Senator Arthur Ravenel was ''out of line'' when he said the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was actually for ''retarded people.''
Four days earlier, Bush had said it was ''up to the senator'' to decide whether he should apologize.
But when pressed by Keyes to demand an apology from Ravenel, Bush said yesterday, ''I agree with you, Alan. His comments are out of line and we should repudiate them.''
The governor's shift came during the fourth Republican debate in two weeks, in which the six contenders squared off for the last time before the Jan. 24 Iowa caucuses.
It will be the first contest in an election, still 10 months away, that has raised at least $150 million in campaign funds.
The forum was serious, avoiding some of the featherweight topics focused on in earlier debates, and displayed the vitriol over tax cuts that has developed between Bush and millionaire publisher Steve Forbes in recent days.
Senator John S. McCain of Arizona also wrestled with Bush over taxes, fleshing out his tax-cut plan before voters he has hardly visited during the campaign.
McCain announced months ago he would skip Iowa as part of an insurgent-candidate strategy that focuses on winning New Hampshire on Feb. 1 and South Carolina three weeks later. But yesterday, he tried his hand at farm lingo anyway, calling Bush's tax plan ''all hat and no cattle'' - in other words, all show.
Bush is promoting a plan that would slash taxes by $483 billion over five years, which he says would offer cuts to all earners in all tax brackets.
McCain has offered a proposal that is roughly half that size - $237 billion over five years - arguing that some of the existing surplus in the federal budget should be used to shore up the Social Security system instead. Bush has said the two goals - making tax cuts and funding Social Security - are not mutually exclusive.
The two candidates are in a tight race in New Hampshire, where both have launched tough television ads in the days leading up to the primary. But the harshest attacks came from Forbes, a longshot candidate who is under criticism for his use of negative ads. Yesterday, Forbes called both McCain and Bush ''timid tax cutters.''
Bush, appearing comfortable and upbeat, also went after McCain on taxes, challenging his proposal to make taxable employer benefits such as transportation and continuing education.
Bush challenged McCain: ''Why would you say, to a single mom who's getting educated, that she's got to pay taxes on those benefits?''
''The first thing I'd say to a single mom is, `I've got a tax cut for you, and Governor Bush doesn't,''' McCain said.
''That's not true,'' Bush shot back.
Later in the debate, after a question about the so-called marriage penalty, Forbes accused Bush of never delivering on a tax cut he promised Texas as governor. Bush, gesturing calmly, dismissed the claim: ''You know something, Steve? Nearly 69 percent of Texans said overwhelmingly in 1998, `You're the man, we appreciate your tax cuts.'''
The debate, hosted by the Des Moines Register at the headquarters of Iowa Public Television, began with a question from a citizen regarding what each candidate would do to ensure affordable long-term health care. Both McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, and Gary Bauer, a conservative who served in the Reagan administration, emphasized providing health care to military veterans.
Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah referred to his record on home health care legislation. Keyes, Forbes and Bush warned of the perils of leaving health care decisions up to the federal bureaucracy.
The most glaring opinion gap was over ethanol subsidies to farmers - a policy that every candidate but McCain supports, and which many analysts believe could damage the Arizona senator in this agricultural state.
Overall, however, the candidates agreed in principle on almost everything, leaving them little choice but to hammer away at the familiar issues of abolishing abortion, posting the Ten Commandments in schools, and restoring values to the White House.
Bush, who is at least 30 percentage points ahead of second-place Forbes in most Iowa polls, appeared as comfortable as he has in any debate so far. In particular, he was given the chance to discuss his commitment to returning control of public education to states, as well as his desire to shore up Medicare and Social Security.
At one point, Keyes said Bush did not object when a small Texas town approved Spanish as its official language. Bush, who speaks Spanish, said, ''No es la verdad.'' Translation: Not true.
Bush's reversal on the South Carolina senator's remarks came a day after the NAACP in Texas pleaded for the governor's support in getting the Confederate flag removed from the state Supreme Court building.
Bush faced questions about his sensitivity to racial issues last week, when he not only refused to condemn the remarks by Ravenel, a Charleston Republican who had made small contributions to earlier Bush campaigns, but also declined to weigh in on whether South Carolina should fly the Confederate flag - to many a symbol of slavery and racism - over its State Capitol.
Tomorrow, the two Democratic candidates, Vice President Al Gore and former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley, will return here for another debate. The caucuses are a week later. The Iowa Republican Party said yesterday that approximately 110,000 registered Republicans, or 20 percent of the state total, are expected.
