Sparring And Spinning
The Bush and McCain camps are pulling no punches as Tuesday's primaries in Virginia and Washington state approach.
Top campaign operatives for the Texas Governor and the Arizona Senator appeared on CBS News' Face The Nation on Sunday.
Karen Hughes, spokeswoman for George W. Bush, took aim at rival John McCain's conservative credentials.
"The recipe for a Republican to win in November is not by adopting the Democrats' philosophy on key issues like tax cuts and education reforms," she said. "If John McCain went up against Al Gore, it wouldn't be a debate. It would look like a ticket."
McCain strategist Mike Murphy called his candidate a "conservative who can win" in the fall.
"The worse it gets for Bush, the crazier their spin (against us) becomes," Murphy added.
Hughes needled the McCain camp about deliberately drawing Democrats and independents into the GOP primary process.
"As we head towards Super Tuesday, that won't be able to happen. The Democrats have to stay home in their own party and not make mischief in the Republican primary." she said.
Murphy claimed the Arizona Senator has the momentum in the GOP race.
"We're excited. We have a long way to go in Virginia. We started out way behind. Governor Bush has become a regional candidate playing well in the South and nowhere else."
The GOP candidates have to remember "you got to live up to your standards that you have set," said William Bennett on Face The Nation.
Bennett, a conservative writer and former Education Secretary, said "there has been lowball on both sides" in the Republican race for President.
He took Bush to task for visiting Bob Jones University, the South Carolina school which bans interracial dating -- and which some perceive has an anti-Catholic bias.
"If you call yourself a compassionate conservative, it's a problem to go to Bob Jones. That's the difficulty," said Bennett. "It wasn't that a bunch of other people went to Bob Jones. George Bush said, 'I'm a different kind of conservative.'"
But Bennett also criticized McCain about calls which his campaign made to Catholics during the GOP primary campaign in Michigan, telling them about Bush's Bob Jones visit.
"If you call yourself the 'Straight Talk Express', you better talk straight. I don't think this was straight talk," he said.
McCain acknowledged on Sunday that he approved the calls before they were made in advance of the Michigan primary -- and stood by past assertions that the calls did not say Bush was a bigot.
McCain's staff originally denied they were being made, which the Arizona Senator said was because the questions they were asked mischaracterized the calls as labeling Bush a bigot.
The calls "said exactly what is fact, and that is he (Bush) went to this university." McCain told ABC's This Week.
"There was no charge in that trascript of those phone calls that said he was anti-Catholic or anything else,"
The calls were acknowledged just before the polls closed in Michigan.
In the Democratic race for President, Bill Bradley has not had seen the good political fortune against Vice President Al Gore that McCain has had against Bush.
Bradley told Face The Nation on Sunday that both he and McCain are the reformers in the race for the White House.
But the former New Jersey Senator noted he and McCain differ sharply on issues besides campaign finance reform.
"I'm pro-choice, he is not. I'm pro-gun control. He is not. I want to protect the environment. He has a bad record. I'm making investment in education and health care. He doesn't make anyÂ…I think I offer a stronger appeal to independents across the country."
Bradley claimed he's the better Democrat against McCain than Gore, because questions persist about the Vice President's role in the 1996 campaign fundraising scandal.
"Al Gore cannot be the reform candidate. John McCain has said he is going to beat Al Gore like a drum" on the scandal, said Bradley. "I think that that makes it very difficult for Al Gore to be able to get independent voters. As I look at the fall campaign, clearly I could beat John McCain. I believe I could beat George (W.) Bush."