Clinton ready to take policy hits from wife, Gore

By Ann Scales, Globe Staff, July 2, 1999

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton yesterday promised to "take no offense" if Vice President Al Gore criticizes Clinton's decisions in the course of his campaign for the top job.

Clinton also acknowledged that if Hillary Rodham Clinton decides to run for the US Senate from New York, some of their private disagreements over policy matters might become public.

"That's the way democracy works," he said.

The president, speaking at a joint news conference with the visiting Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, promoted Gore as the most qualified choice for his successor. And, while careful not to knock Gore's Democratic challenger, former senator Bill Bradley, Clinton did not praise him either, saying Bradley has not told the American public what he would do if elected.

During some of his most expansive public comments to date on the shape of the 2000 presidential race, Clinton also took a swipe at Texas Governor George W. Bush, who this week smashed all political fund-raising records by raising nearly $36.3 million in four months. In the process, Bush has worried Gore supporters, who have Bradley nipping at their fund-raising heels. Bradley raised $11.5 million, narrowly trailing Gore's $18.2 million for the first half of this year.

Clinton said that if Bush decides not to accept matching federal funds for his campaign -- and the spending limits that go with that money -- then he would be in lock step with a Republican Party that is "unanimously hostile" to overhauling the campaign-finance system. "They don't believe in it," he said.

"And the American people are going to have to make up their minds whether this is an important issue to them or not," Clinton said. "Money may be important, but ideas are even more important."

On that score, he said Gore is "as nearly as I can determine the only candidate of either party who has yet actually told the American people what he would do if he got elected."

With Mubarak standing beside him as the two leaders pledged new energy at reigniting peace efforts in the Middle East, Clinton was relaxed and chatty when the questions turned to presidential politics, clasping his hands and resting them atop the lectern.

When an Egyptian reporter questioning Clinton said there was "so little time before the next American elections, which are just around the corner," the president gave a mock frown and asked, "Seventeen months?" -- indicating that he indeed was counting down to November 2000.

Clinton denied recent reports of tensions between him and Gore -- brought about by the vice president's efforts to distance himself from the scandal-tarred president -- saying he was "frankly bewildered by those reports."

After they appeared, aides to Clinton and Gore directed their staffs to "knock it off" with respect to talking about problems with Gore's campaign or offering opinions about their relationship.

"I honestly do not know what the source of the stories are. But they are not in my heart or my mind," Clinton said.

When Gore formally announced his campaign for president two weeks ago, he told Tennessee reporters that there had been many occasions when he has disagreed with Clinton over the past 6 1/2 years.

Clinton said yesterday that if Gore "disagrees with a decision that I make as president during the next year and a half, then, of course, he will have to say so. And I will take no offense at that."

Clinton said he didn't ask Gore to become vice president so he would always agree with him. "It would be a dreary world, indeed, if we all agreed on everything."

And, he said, "If my wife decides to run for senator from New York, then some of the disagreements that we've had in the past over decisions I've made as president" may become relevant.

Yesterday, he seemed to give Hillary Clinton a chance to distance herself from his proposed Medicare plan, acknowledging disagreements among some teaching hospitals in New York, Massachusetts, and California over budget cuts that those hospitals and other health-care providers say would be too severe.

"I would encourage the senators from New York or anyone else who's concerned about this to bring those concerns, bring the facts to the table," Clinton said. "I do think that's a legitimate issue."

He said he wasn't surprised that Bradley had raised a respectable $11.5 million. And he denied that he was trying to criticize Bradley by mentioning his failure so far to outline his vision as president.

"He has said himself that he has not laid out his case for being president and said that he wants to wait till the fall to do it," Clinton said. "I am not 'digging' him. I have nothing bad to say about him. That is a fact."

He went on to say that Gore deserved credit for saying why he wanted to be president and what he would do if elected.

But when asked if Bradley is qualified to be president, Clinton said, "The American people will have to decide who's qualified and who's not."

And in an unabashed endorsement of Gore, he added, "There is nobody in the race who is running, or who could run, who has had as much experience in as many different ways" as Al Gore.