Bush Meets Rush
Texas Gov. George W. Bush chatted privately with conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh for an hour Wednesday, but didn't sew up an endorsement.
But Bush says he wasn't seeking an endorsement when he paid a late-night "courtesy call" at the Missouri home of Limbaugh's mother.
Limbaugh, who grew up in Cape Girardeau and was back home on vacation, called the governor "an old friend."
Bush was in Missouri for an appearance Thursday at an agricultural bagging service where he planned to promote a Christian volunteer organization aimed at helping out farmers during times of need.
"It's a bellwether state, it's a swing state and it's an early state," Bush told reporters. "This is a primary season that could end pretty quickly."
In an interview with The Associated Press shortly before arriving at the Limbaugh family home about 10 p.m. Wednesday, Bush summed up the campaign's competitive nature with a line used by President Clinton.
"The politics of personal destruction and those who exercise it are going to be rejected by the electorate," Bush said.
Without naming names, Bush seemed to criticize GOP opponent Steve Forbes for doing just that in the 1996 primary season against Republican front-runner Bob Dole.
"Remember, there's one person in this race who can write a check," Bush said. "In 1996, the campaign got very ugly because that person who could write the checks ran negative ads against everybody else in the field. I will defend my honor."
Bush says he expects to win this weekend's Iowa straw poll but generally doesn't put much stock in the polls.
Meanwhile, some of Bush's competitors are taking a swipe at the front-runner over a recent magazine interview.
The article in Talk magazine quotes Bush as saying "I don't know" whether the number of abortions in Texas has gone up or down during his tenure as Texas governor.
"Probably down," Bush says in the interview, "Not because of anything we've done though. We haven't passed any laws."
He has been criticized by some conservatives for not taking a stronger stance against abortion.
Bush also was asked about his handling of the case of Karla Faye Tucker, a convicted murderer executed in Texas last year despite pleas for clemency from around the world.
The article recounted Bush's comments about the case, specifically about Tucker's appearance on television asking for clemency. Writer Tucker Carlson describes Bush as mimicking Tucker, writing: "Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me."'
GOP presidential hopeful Gary Bauer said this week he was dismayed that Bush would react that way about so serious a matter.
"I think he made a very bad decision to mock somebody he had life-and-death control over," Bauer said in an Iowa news conference.
"That as a very difficult moment for me and anybody who covered me during that period knows how tough that was," Bush told the AP. "It was a serious, somber time. Mr. Carlson misread, mischaracterized me. He's a good reporter, he just misunderstood about how serious that was."
Bush was also quoted as using profanity on several occasions in the interview, something Republican candidate Pat Buchanan criticized.
"I saw that article and I was mildly astonished," Buchanan said Monday. "There are no saints in this business, but I would urge the governor for his own good to clean up the language in these interviews."