McCain targeted in New York

By Anne E. Kornblut, Globe Staff, 3/2/2000

T. LOUIS - Unleashing perhaps his most withering attack yet on Senator John S. McCain, Governor George W. Bush yesterday released a new radio advertisement accusing McCain of opposing breast cancer research, using a cancer survivor to underscore his claim that McCain ''opposes many projects dedicated to women's health issues.''

The 60-second radio spot, being released in the critical March 7 primary state of New York, features Geri Barish, a woman who introduces herself as having fought to find a cure for breast cancer for 20 years. Barish starts out by saying she ''had thought of supporting John McCain in next week's presidential primary.''

''So I looked into his record. What I discovered was shocking,'' she says. ''McCain opposes funding for vital breast cancer programs right here in New York.''

The language of the ad, which accuses McCain of opposing funding for the North Shore Long Island breast cancer project, the New York University program in women's cancer and unspecified breast cancer mapping programs, is among the toughest used by the Bush campaign thus far. Previous Bush ads have criticized McCain's own negative advertisements and various parts of his campaign platform, but never on such a sensative topic as breast cancer.

At the same time, the advertisement marked a new political thrust by Bush: pushing McCain to the right.

For nearly six weeks, Bush has cast his opponent as a pseudo-liberal, linking his name to President Clinton's and dismissing his tax cut plan and campaign finance reform program as friendly to Democrats. This ad, however, released in New York six days before the primary and aimed at both women and liberal New York City, suggested Bush is now shifting to head off support for McCain in the more independent-minded political climate of the Northeast.

McCain aides immediately objected to the ad's claims. He has voted for medical research funding increases, and supports legislation that would double the budget of the National Institutes of Health, spokeswoman Nancy Ives said. And she said McCain has ''supported increased funding and the treatment of life-threatening diseases, including breast cancer.''

McCain's opposition is not to the projects themselves but to the ''pork barrel'' methods in which they were inserted into unrelated federal funding bills, she said. The NYU funding was slipped into an Energy Department bill; the Long Island North Shore funding was part of a Labor Department bill. ''In these two instances, McCain is not objecting to these programs based on the merits,'' Ives said, but was ''objecting to the process by which unauthorized programs are inserted, in the dark of night, into these spending bills.''

Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said the information in the ad was taken directly from McCain's campaign Web site. He said that Bush, in contrast to McCain, ''would support funding for those programs.'' And Fleischer scolded McCain for trying to claim the title of crusader against pork-barrel spending without taking responsibility for the programs that would be cut.

''If it's tough,'' Fleischer said of the ad, ''it's his words that are tough. And his actions are tougher. He can't have it both ways.''

Twice, the woman in the ad calls McCain's opposition to breast cancer research ''shocking.'' And in the end, she concludes: ''Next Tuesday, John McCain won't have my vote. We deserve a candidate with a record on women's issues we can trust.'' The only mention of Bush is at the very end, when a voiceover says the ad was paid for by his presidential campaign.

Ives said the ad was ''the Bush campaign trying to distort John McCain's record. ... They've seen the latest polls in New York. ... This is a desperate tactic that the voters of New York simply won't stand for.''