Bush Camp: Hold The Phone

Republican leaders are saying Al Gore's latest campaign tactic in Michigan - phone calls offering Texans' anti-Bush testimonials - is the sign of a desperate candidate.

Thousands of Michigan residents are receiving the messages, which say George W. Bush breaks promises and would harm Social Security.

In one call, Charlotte Cherry of Houston says "Governor Bush has accepted $1.3 million from corporate polluters and he's allowed them to keep polluting while my kids suffer."

In another, Ann Friday of Arlington, Texas, says her husband died after neglect in a nursing home four years ago - and that Bush has signed legislation that has weakened rather than strengthened nursing home regulations.

In another call - no longer being used - actor Ed Asner says "George W. Bush has a proposal that would undermine Social Security, even scuttling current benefits."

More Texas Testimony Dems shoot - and score - on Bush with new video. Will anyone watch it?

Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes said it's "despicable for the vice president" to suggest that as governor Bush is responsible for the death of Friday's husband.

"It is wrong for Vice President Gore to try to use a tragedy involving an elderly woman for his own political purposes, especially when the facts show that Governor Bush has strengthened nursing home regulations in Texas," she said.

Hughes said it would be just as wrong for anyone to suggest that, as vice president, Gore has had anything to do with deaths in the more than 2,500 nursing homes throughout the United States.

The New York Times reported in Saturday's editions that Cherry, who recorded the call about pollution in Texas, is involved in a longtime effort to get the Texas governor to recognize concerns about pollution from plants near their homes.

"After I did that message, I had a chill down my spine," Cherry said in an interview with the Times. "I probably made some people mad, but I can't help it. I'm not trying to dstroy the man, I'm just saying he had a chance to do something positive and he didn't."

Gore's deputy campaign manager Mark Fabiani said the calls were "completely factual" and would continue.

In a telephone interview, Friday, 70, defended the call and said Bush should not be president.

"He promised to make nursing homes better for people like my husband, but he broke that promise. And I voted for the guy," she said, adding that nursing home complaints in Texas have doubled since Bush became governor.

"What's important to me is that George Bush didn't do what he promised," she added.

The Michigan Democratic Coordinated Campaign paid to have the calls by Cherry and Friday recorded and sent automatically to Michigan voters' phones, said spokesman Chad Clanton.

The Asner call was sent out by the Democratic National Committee and Michigan Democratic Party.

A poll released Friday by EPIC/MRA of Lansing and conducted for the Detroit Free Press and WXYZ-TV in Detroit had Gore at 44 percent and Bush at 42 percent two weeks before the election, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

A separate poll released Friday by Marketing Resource Group of Lansing showed Bush at 45 percent, Gore at 39 percent. The Tuesday through Thursday poll of 500 likely voters had a 5-point margin of error.