Will Vice President Gore or underdog Bill Bradley win the hearts of Arizona Democrats?
The party’s state presidential primary is March 11, but you can register your opinion now in a survey on our Web site, www.tucsoncitizen.com.
We’ll publish the results will be published in Tuesday’s Tucson Citizen.
The Associated Press
• A confident Bush calls his rival’s education plan ‘vague.’
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES – Warming up for tonight’s debate, John McCain vowed to get past discord over religion and turn to issues. Picking one such issue, George W. Bush needled him for not having much of an education plan.
McCain faced criticism yesterday from social conservative Gary Bauer, who had endorsed him shortly after ending his own Republican presidential candidacy.
Bauer said McCain should apologize for an ”ill-advised and divisive” speech that compared religious right leaders Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell to leftist activists Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton.
But Falwell weighed in with charitable words on McCain’s behalf.
”I personally think that the senator in a moment of frustration said things that he normally would not say,” Falwell told Roanoke, Va., TV station WSLS. ”And it’s out of character for him to be that way.”
Falwell said McCain got bad campaign advice. ”I don’t believe John McCain is a bigot or hates Christians or hates anybody,” Falwell said.
An increasingly confident Bush predicted yet another round of victories and worked to create a sense of inevitability.
”When I’m the nominee, I’m going to set the tone for the party,” said Bush. ”That’s what a leader does.”
McCain dismissed predictions of almost any sort in this wild and woolly primary campaign – including his own.
”Every prediction so far has been wrong, including mine,” he said. ”My predictions are not totally worthless, but next to it.”
But he conceded his campaign got sidetracked in recent days and said it’s time to get back to issues.
”I’m going to focus on that rather than respond to continued assaults on my character,” he said. ”The people of this country deserve a campaign that’s based on the issues.”
Bush previewed a new line, attacking McCain for being vague on education.
”It’s not going to take you long to hear his (plan),” Bush said at a Missouri rally. ”There’s not much to my opponent’s – with all due respect.”
Bush has a detailed plan to use federal education aid to reward and penalize states according to how students perform on standardized tests, including a national sampling exam.
He hasn’t been too keen lately to emphasize the strong federal role in his plan, insisting he’s for local control of schools. McCain’s education platform is not so involved – it stresses ”no strings” money to schools.
The candidates were preparing for their final debate before Super Tuesday, when voters in 13 states choose Republican delegates. California is the largest prize.
Bush and Alan Keyes will be in Los Angeles for the debate while McCain plans to appear via satellite from St. Louis.
”We are closing by about a point or two a day here in California,” McCain said of polls. Bush pointed to his sweep this week in Virginia, North Dakota and Washington state as ”a sign of what’s going to happen in California next week.”
McCain struggled with fallout from his Virginia Beach speech attacking Robertson and Falwell as ”agents of intolerance.” He’s been hoping that speech, delivered near the home of the Christian Coalition, will serve him well among moderate Republicans in less conservative states.
”I stand by the speech,” McCain said. ”I did not and will not retract anything I said in that speech.”
PHOTO CAPTION: The Associated Press
Sen. John McCain salutes a former South Vietnamese soldier and POW at a rally yesterday in Little Saigon in Westminster, Calif. The Asian community greeted McCain with cheers.
McCain’s aim in Arizona: get out the vote tomorrow
TOM COLLINS Phoenix Citizen Bureau
PHOENIX – Returning to friendly ground, John McCain’s Arizona campaign is back to Politics 101: Get out the vote.
With his home state’s primary tomorrow, staffers and volunteers with the Arizona senator’s presidential campaign have been working phone banks and walking neighborhoods in Phoenix and Tucson, and putting South Carolina behind them.
”We’re just trying to turn out the vote. It’s very basic,” said Arizonan Wes Gullett, deputy national campaign manager for McCain 2000.
The campaign has bought a few radio spots, but stayed out of more-expensive television ads, instead focusing on volunteer door-to-door, telephone and early voting efforts, he said.
The day after McCain’s defeat by Texas Gov. George Bush in South Carolina, Gullett was distributing literature and polling place information to about 20 volunteers outside a McDonald’s in Chandler.
He told them to hang the fliers over doorknobs, ”just like the pizza man.”
Bush’s campaign, meanwhile, is conserving cash in Arizona, said a McCain supporter, Arizona House Speaker Jeff Groscost.
He disputed claims that attempts to portray McCain as a moderate will affect the Arizona race.
He said the massive support from Arizona’s conservative GOP establishment was evidence of the senator’s credentials. He said Gov. Jane Hull is the only notable defector who supports Bush.
Groscost dared the Bush campaign to hit the airwaves with anti-McCain advertisements here.
”That just increases the margin of John McCain’s victory,” Groscost said.
After the ”ugly, bitter” South Carolina GOP campaign, a win is a win, said Gullett.
”They said they were going to beat us here when they started,” he noted.
Roger Hyles, 35, a Chandler Intel engineer who spent 10 years in the Army, said he got involved with the McCain campaign through the Internet.
McCain’s promise to improve American military pay led him to get involved, he said.
”That’s a big issue militarywide,” Hyles said.
Hyles blamed Bush campaign attacks for McCain’s loss to Bush in South Carolina.
Suzy Howell, 55, who edits a Phoenix-area business review, was once a Democrat.
She changed her registration to Republican to vote for McCain, whose book on his Vietnam prisoner of war experiences, ”Faith of My Fathers,” was her inspiration.
Volunteering at a Phoenix phone bank this weekend, Howell said she was calling 40 to 50 voters an hour.
Her last political involvement was with the 1972 presidential campaign of Democrat George McGovern.
She said she probably voted against McCain as recently as his 1998 Senate re-election race. But without McCain, the presidential field looked bleak, she said.
CITIZEN ONLINE POLL RESULTS
If the Arizona Republican primary were held today, most Tucson Citizen readers said they would vote for U.S. Sen. John McCain for president.
Total responses: 107
Total for McCain: 69
Total for Bush: 32
Total for Keyes: 6
DETERMINING FACTORS
McCain Bush Keyes
Moral values 31 13 1
Taxes 6 13 0
Soc. Sec./Medicare 10 3 0
World affairs 10 0 0
Campaign finance reform 9 0 0
Abortion 2 0 2
Education 2 3 0
Responses were accepted online from Feb. 14 until Feb. 20.
Gannett News Service
Gannett New Service
WASHINGTON – Nearly 30 percent of the nation’s biggest industrial, municipal and federal facilities have been in serious violation of the Clean Water Act in recent years, dumping almost 270 million pounds of toxic pollution into waterways in 1997 alone, a report released yesterday says.
Arizona was No. 43, with 290,258 toxic releases in 1997.
The report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a non-profit environmental and consumer advocacy organization, blames the Environmental Protection Agency for not doing enough to enforce the law against polluters. EPA spokesmen had no immediate reaction.
”The government is letting polluters continue to use our waterways as dumping grounds for toxic chemicals,” said Jeremiah Baumann, who co-wrote the report, titled ”Poisoning Our Water: How the Government Permits Pollution.”
”Despite the clear intentions of the Clean Water Act to eliminate the pollution of our waters, polluters continue to brazenly violate the law,” Baumann said.
The Clean Water Act, passed by Congress in 1972, set the goal of making all waterways safe for fishing and swimming by 1983.
Today, about 40 percent of U.S. rivers, lakes and estuaries still are too polluted for fishing or swimming, according to recent congressional testimony by EPA officials.
The report’s findings include:
• States with the most toxic pollution in 1997 were Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Texas, Mississippi, Ohio, Florida and New Jersey.
• The bodies of water receiving the most toxic chemicals were the Mississippi River, the Connequenessing Creek in Pennsylvania, the Brazos River and the Houston Ship Channel in Texas and the Alafia River in Florida.
• The 10 states with the highest percentage of major facilities that were violating Clean Water Act restrictions were Utah, Florida, Rhode Island, Ohio, Alabama, Tennessee, Connecticut, Wyoming, Nebraska and Indiana.
Polluters included oil refineries, chemical companies, pulp and paper mills, drug companies, fertilizer makers, tanneries, and metal and steel-making plants, the report says. In many cases, the pollution was discharged into waterways through publicly owned sewer treatment systems.
The report is based on EPA data, specifically on the Toxics Release Inventory of 1997 and the Permit Compliance System database for 1997 and 1998, obtained by PIRG under the Freedom of Information Act.
EPA and state governments issue permits to public and private facilities under the Clean Water Act that limit the amount of pollutants they can discharge into the water. The law was designed to gradually toughen permit requirements so that eventually no toxic pollution would be released.
However, permit standards have not been tightened, and enforcement against polluters who violate permit restrictions has been weak, the report says.
”EPA has sanctioned a permitto-pollute system rather than a pollution elimination system,” the report says.
Baumann and co-author Richard Caplan advocate mandatory minimum penalties for polluters. Currently, penalties vary from state to state, with California and New Jersey having the toughest enforcement laws, Caplan said.
A bill by Rep. Frank Pallone, DN.J., would require all states to set mandatory minimum penalties for serious violations of the Clean Water Act.
”Mandatory minimum penalties will help ensure that polluters, not taxpayers, pay for the damage they create,” the report says. ”The worst polluters should know that there will be repercussions for breaking the law.”
MAP: U.S. waterways clogged with toxins
Source: U.S. Public Interest Research Group/Dave Mather, Gannett News Service
The Associated Press
The Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The first face-to-face meeting since the New Hampshire primary is also the last before South Carolina votes, and John McCain and George W. Bush have different challenges in their debate tonight.
For McCain, it’s to regain the high ground as a reformer after being pounded on his record by Bush and running a negative ad against him.
For Bush, it’s to maintain the pressure on McCain without appearing too negative himself and alienating groups such as women and independents in Saturday’s vote. Aides to the Texas governor said he planned to dig into McCain’s record on Social Security.
McCain stopped short today of saying he went too far in attacking Bush. The candidate said he stopped running negative ads to break the cycle of charges and countercharges.
”It was a realization that the campaign was spiraling down into something that I would not have been proud of at the end,” he said on NBC’s ”Today.”
A new Los Angeles Times poll found the race between the two Republican presidential contenders to be a statistical dead heat among likely voters. Bush leads McCain by more than 2-to-1 among conservative Republicans, while McCain leads Bush by the same margin among moderate independents and Democrats.
The 90-minute debate, sponsored by the South Carolina Business and Industry Political Education Committee, also includes the third candidate left in the race, radio talk show host Alan Keyes.
The Bush and McCain campaigns tried to strengthen weak spots yesterday.
Bush focused on education as an issue that could appeal to moderates, particularly women. Advisers were fretting over internal polling indicating that Bush’s sharp attacks on McCain may be hurting him with women voters.
McCain began rebroadcasting two TV commercials that tout his conservative credentials, including one that notes his anti-abortion voting record and efforts to take pornography off the Internet.
Los Angeles Times – Washington Post News Service
Richard Lowry, editor of the conservative National Review, has some advice for George W. Bush:
”He should run an ad saying, ‘Why is the media in love with John McCain? One hundred thirty positive editorials in The New York Times the last three years. How many did Ronald Reagan get? Zero.’ That would be hitting him where he lives.”
Such attacks are already starting. Some GOP leaders, elected officials and Bush campaign strategists have decided in recent days to turn McCain’s positive coverage into a liability among conservative voters in the South Carolina primary. They have grown increasingly concerned that the Arizona senator is being buoyed by the generally upbeat coverage of reporters who spend each day chatting with McCain on his campaign bus.
”Being the darling of the liberal media elite does not help candidates with most Republican primary voters,” said Haley Barbour, a former Republican national chairman, who is backing Bush. ”The Boston Globe endorsed Senator McCain. The New York Times gives Senator McCain a big wet kiss on the front page every day. The liberal media would love to move the Republican Party to the left, and they think McCain is the vehicle.”
One party official put it this way: ”Bush should say, ‘He’s really a Democrat in disguise. That’s why the media love him.’ ”
Michigan Gov. John Engler, a Bush supporter, said last week that his candidate has been hurt by ”a fawning press that built the Bush campaign into mythic proportions and then turned their affections to John McCain to see if they could create a race.”
Some journalists have been feeling the heat. ”The Bush people continue to complain that the media likes McCain and he gets more favorable treatment,” said Lee Bandy, a political reporter for the State, South Carolina’s largest newspaper. ”They’ve been on my back for two or three weeks.”
Bush’s campaign will raise the issue in passing, aides say. ”John McCain is a media darling and is treated as such,” said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer. ”The press is in the best position to say whether they have sacrificed anything for a seat on the bus.”
McCain spokesman Howard Opinsky said his boss has earned the coverage by ”speaking his mind, being honest and giving reporters the access that Governor Bush is afraid to give for fear of making a mistake. To say that McCain is getting coverage because he’s some sort of liberal misses the point. He’s not a scripted candidate who has to check with his advisers each morning to decide what to say.”
Bush’s father tried a similar tactic in 1992 with bumper stickers that said: ”Annoy the Media – Reelect Bush.” This time around, the frustration is evident among some younger Bush advisers. ”I never knew what the price of journalists was: a free ride on the bus and a bunch of doughnuts,” one said. ”They are so desperate for someone to like them, they’ve been stiffed by politicians for so long that when someone takes down the rope line and says, ‘Come on board, we’ll eat doughnuts and tell dirty jokes,’ they love it.”
JOYESHA CHESNICK Citizen Staff Writer
Sen. John McCain’s victory in New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary won’t prompt bigwig contributors to reach for their wallets just yet, local political observers say.
McCain must continue to trample front-runner Gov. George W. Bush in South Carolina and beyond for that to happen, they said.
And even if it occurs, it doesn’t guarantee him a viable shot at the presidency.
”Gov. Bush has raised a lot of money. A lot of the party’s leadership have been supporting him and they will continue to support him regardless of the outcome of New Hampshire,” said Joe Pennington, chairman of the Pima County Republican Party.
”As we get farther, however, if McCain continues to win, things will change. People will have to say, ‘If Bush can’t beat McCain, can we reasonably expect him to beat the Democratic candidate?’ ”
Even Bush supporters agree that McCain’s 49 percent to 31 percent win last night was a boost to the Arizona senator’s campaign.
But they say the nomination is still very much up in the air.
”Certainly, John McCain ran an excellent race in New Hampshire and deserves the praise that is coming his way,” said Jack Jewett, senior vice president of Tucson Medical Center and chairman of Pima County’s Bush for President campaign.
”But New Hampshire traditionally supports the maverick. And McCain fits that image. . . This was round one.”
South Carolina’s Feb. 19 primary will be a ”better test” for the two Republicans, since nearly 40 percent of New Hampshire voters are independent, Jewett said.
”What is clear is that McCain did well among independents. South Carolina is a more pure Republican turnout,” he said.
But Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll, a member of the McCain 2000 campaign, pointed out that McCain also won the Republican vote in New Hampshire.
”When you look at the Republican turnout for McCain, it was huge,” he said. ”Independents played a great role, but he held his own with Republicans.”
Carroll predicted his candidate would be successful in South Carolina, as well.
”This kind of victory could catch fire. And it gives us a lot of local pride,” Carroll said.
Mike Hellon, Arizona Republican National committeeman, said McCain’s win was larger than he expected.
”I predicted a four- to six-point victory,” he said. ”If we got a couple of breaks, it could go to eight to 10 points, and anything above 10 is a blowout. None of us dared predict the size of victory it was.”
Hellon believed the momentum would give McCain a ”very, very good chance of winning South Carolina and he will win Arizona.”
The Arizona primary is Feb. 22.
Pennington agreed McCain has a good shot in South Carolina because a high percentage of the state’s registered voters are retired military men and women who might be attracted to his record as a war veteran.
”And money follows momentum,” Pennington said. ”And of course, media coverage follows momentum.”
He cautioned, however, that Bush is far from being beat.
”To have a loss in any race at this point is a negative,” he said. ”With that said, can a candidate overcome that? We only have to look at the 1992 primary where the Democratic candidate (Bill Clinton) who became president came in second in New Hampshire.”
Democrats had a mixed reaction to McCain’s win.
”That’s not of a great concern to the Democratic party,” said Martin Bacal, Democratic National Committeeman for Arizona. ”But it gives the appearance to most people that McCain appears to have more depth.”
C.T. Revere, Citizen political writer, contributed to this report.
The Associated Press
• He may need to counterattack ads and stave off a strong run by Bush.
The Associated Press
PHOENIX – Presidential hopeful John McCain could be forced to spend precious dollars in his home state to defend himself, a marked digression from his campaign strategy.
Attack ads paid for by independent associations that disagreewith his stance on campaign finance reform could siphon away money he needs elsewhere by forcing him to buy television air time in Arizona.
McCain’s campaign already is airing commercials in New Hampshire and South Carolina to blunt attack ads. Those adverse ads are paid for by independent associations that disagree with his plans to limit socalled ”soft money” contributions from special interest groups to political parties.
If similar attack spots appear in Arizona, McCain will run his same ads here, spokesman Doug Cole said.
”The bottom line is you have to respond,” Cole said. ”They are making our case against soft money for us.”
McCain proudly points out that he has never lost an election in Arizona and insists he will carry the state when it holds its Republican presidential primary Feb. 22. Recent polls have him in a virtual statistical tie with Texas Gov. George W. Bush.
Until this point, McCain has said he would not spend a lot of money in Arizona, saving it for states such as New Hampshire and South Carolina.
”We are comfortable with our strategy here in Arizona,” Cole said. ”Our goal is to campaign actively with our grass-roots supporters.”
McCain has exceeded his fundraising goals, but his preparations to buy costly air time in Arizona may signal a vulnerable spot in his campaign plan, University of Virginia political science Professor Larry Sabato said. ”Despite what he says, they must know they have a real race on their hands in their home state.”
McCain has built up his campaign to the point where he is considered Bush’s chief rival for the Republican nomination and even leads much of the recent polling in New Hampshire, site of the nation’s first primary next week.
Back home in Arizona, however, voters have not shown overwhelming allegiance to McCain. Polling results throughout the campaign have shown a close race between McCain and Bush.
Bush has visited the state several times to add to his unprecedented campaign millions, collecting endorsements from Gov. Jane Hull and other prominent Republicans along the way.
Bush also has been airing television ads in Arizona for weeks.
Mike Hull, executive director of Bush’s Arizona campaign, said Bush will not concede the state without a fight.
”It’s a full effort here,” he said. ”Anything we can do to get the word out.”
Bush has raised more than $70 million, enough to campaign wherever he wants. While Bush has nothing to lose by running hard in Arizona, the stakes are high for McCain, Sabato said.
”If Bush is even reasonably close to McCain in McCain’s home state, it will send a very disturbing message to people in the rest of the country,” he said. ”These are the people who know him best.”
In contrast, McCain could win by 20 percentage points and not impress voters elsewhere, Sabato said. ”It’s just plain a loser for McCain. He’ll have to spend money and he’ll have to listen to it (criticism). If he loses, he’ll hear it for years.”
C.T. REVERE Citizen Political Writer
As the presidential primary season gets under way, Sen. John McCain is starting to pull away from the Republican pack in the battle to win his home state, a recent poll suggests.
McCain has an eight-point lead among likely Arizona voters over national front-runner George W. Bush in a Behavioral Research Center/Rocky Mountain Poll.
The poll, based on interviews with 524 voters from Jan. 18-23, gives McCain a 42-34 edge over the Texas governor to win Arizona’s Republican presidential primary Feb. 22.
No other candidate registers in double digits in the state, but 10 percent of those queried said they were still undecided.
McCain has been steadily gaining ground in Arizona, increasing his support from 21 percent in July. At the same time, support for Bush has dropped from 37 percent to 34 percent.
Publisher Steve Forbes, who finished a strong second behind Bush in the Iowa caucuses, is running third among Arizona voters with 9 percent support.
Former ambassador Alan Keyes – also coming off a surprisingly strong finish in Iowa – came in at 3 percent in the poll, and conservative activist Gary Bauer got 1 percent.
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who withdrew this week after finishing last in the Iowa caucuses, received 1 percent of the support.
In the Democratic race, Vice President Al Gore has widened his lead over former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley.
Gore, who got the nod from 53 percent of those questioned, is enjoying his largest lead in Arizona and his first rating of higher than 50 percent. Bradley has 24 percent, with 23 percent of Arizonans saying they were uncommitted.
The Democratic primary will be held March 11.
Gannett News Service
Gannett News Service
ABOVE MOHAVE COUNTY – Remote, rugged and nearly uninhabited, the northwestern corner of Arizona is a remnant of the West as it once was. President Clinton hopes to ensure the land stays that way forever.
As early as tomorrow, Clinton is expected to proclaim a million acres of this landscape the new Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument. It’s a step that will sharply divide the people who love this wild country.
Environmentalists such as Kim Crumbo are delighted by the impending announcement. Crumbo, who has lived in northern Arizona for 30 years as a river guide, park ranger and environmentalist, thinks the monument designation will save the land. ”A wonderful move,” he said happily.
But local ranchers, including Tony Heaton, are in despair. They foresee trouble, and perhaps an end to their way of life. ”It seems we’re becoming an endangered species,” Heaton said.
It takes determination and a lot of driving on bad dirt roads to get to the plateaus and cliffs that are expected to be part of the designated new monument. But that won’t keep tourists from flooding here, as they did to southern Utah after the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was declared there in 1996.
Visitors to the Arizona wilds find an unforgiving landscape of rust- and ivory-striped ridges, high plateaus forested with pinyon trees, and deep, twisting canyons. In the summer, the western edge of the area can see temperatures in the 90s; in the winter, the higher elevations are snowy and bitterly cold. A few small springs offer the only year-round water source.
Standing in the pinyon-dotted valley that shelters the buildings of the Bar Ten Ranch, Heaton gestures toward the dun-colored hills to either side. ”To us, it’s great, just the best place on Earth,” he said.
Heaton’s grandfather, an orphan, came here in the late 19th century and became a millionaire selling cattle and mustangs. But cattle ranching is no longer the source of wealth that it used to be. Nowadays, Heaton earns much of his income feeding and housing tourists who visit the ranch after they’ve boated down the Colorado River.
Although he doesn’t make much money on cattle, Heaton continues the work because it’s part of his heritage and a chance to work outdoors with his family. But he worries that his way of life could not survive a new monument, which would virtually surround his ranch. A monument, he argues, would exploit the land, not preserve it. ”With the public coming in, they’re not going to stay on the roads,” he predicted. ”They’ll cut gates. They’ll leave trash. There’ll be competition for water.”
His biggest concern, he says, is the grass. Roughly 90 percent of the pasture his cattle graze is on public land. Officials have said that ranchers probably would be allowed to graze their herds on the monument lands. But Heaton is skeptical. Once ranching is no longer viable, he said, his neighbors will start to sell their land.
”Most of the ranchers are descendants of the early settlers,” he said. ”There aren’t a lot of newcomers because people don’t sell their land. This monument might force that to happen.”
Environmentalists say they have sympathy for the ranchers. But they also say ranching can bring problems.
Crumbo, who works for the Flagstaff-based Southwest Forest Alliance, has hiked through and flown all over this land. Compared to the Grand Staircase park in Utah, the Grand Canyon-Parashant ”is more austere, more forbidding to get into,” Crumbo said.
Flying over a high plain known as the Shivwits Plateau, Crumbo points out of the Cessna’s window to a vast, empty square in the middle of the thick pinyon forest. It was scraped clear by ”chaining” – dragging a heavy chain between two bulldozers – so more grass could grow for cows.
The growth of St. George, Utah, a booming resort and retirement community, also threatens the land, Crumbo says.
The land that would make up the monument is already owned by the Bureau of Land Management. Crumbo argues that federal ownership alone isn’t enough.
Monument status would ”force the BLM to say, ‘Here’s what we’re going to protect.’ ”
Crumbo believes that one thing will probably change if the expected monument is established. That is cattle grazing ”These guys are hanging on by their teeth,” he said.
MAP: Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument
Source: Bureau of Land Management/USA TODAY/Tucson Citizen
The Associated Press
The Associated Press
BETHESDA, Md. – A University of Pennsylvania researcher said he was ”fully comfortable” with a decision to include in a gene therapy experiment an Arizona teenager who later died.
Dr. James Wilson, head of a Pennsylvania research team, said yesterday he and his team decided to conduct the gene therapy on Jesse Gelsinger even though a blood test showed evidence that 18-year-old’s liver was not functioning well.
Gelsinger, who died in September, is the first death as the direct result of a gene therapy experiment.
Wilson was to formally defend his work today before a National Institutes of Health committee that is investigating Gelsinger’s death and considering measures to sharpen federal oversight of gene therapy medicine.
The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee also is considering new guidelines that force public disclosure of any deaths or serious illnesses, called ”adverse events,” that occur among patients in the gene experiments.
Yesterday, Food and Drug Administration officials charged that Gelsinger ”did not meet the entry criterion” for taking part in the clinical trials and should not have been included by the Pennsylvania researchers.
The FDA also said the researchers failed to properly report other ”adverse events” from their gene therapy trials.
Wilson denied the allegations against his team’s research efforts.
Gelsinger’s death prompted the extraordinary three-day RAC hearing that has attracted an auditorium full of patients, researchers and drug company scientists.
The Tucson teen-ager suffered from a genetic liver disorder and was enrolled in an effort to correct his condition by inserting normal genes into his liver. He died within days following a gene injection.
Kathryn Zoon, chief of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation, said ”preliminary findings” of an FDA investigation show Gelsinger had elevated ammonia in his blood, an indication of a distressed liver, at the time he received the gene injection.
”The entry levels for ammonia (readings) were not met,” Zoon said.
Wilson, in a statement, said Gelsinger did meet the FDA requirements when he enrolled in the trial, but that his ammonia levels were ”slightly elevated” just before the gene therapy injection was made.
”We remain fully comfortable with the clinical decision to use alternate pathways to lower that level and proceed with the trial,” Wilson said.
Using genes to correct or even cure conditions from cancer to heart disease is considered one of the most promising therapies on the medical horizon.
He also said the FDA was notified of the two other patients who suffered liver damage.
The researcher issued a statement, but refused to answer questions yesterday.
The Associated Press
• James Stockdale says critics of the GOP candidate’s temper are out of line.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON – James B. Stockdale, the highest-ranking prisoner of war in Vietnam and later a Reform Party vice presidential candidate, says John McCain is ”solid as a rock” and that the harsh treatment he endured as a POW made him mentally stronger and more stable.
Stockdale said he was not surprised by assertions that the Republican presidential contender’s flashes of temper are a sign he was psychologically affected by his POW experiences and may not be fit for the White House. Stockdale dismissed the idea.
”The military psychiatrists who periodically examine former prisoners of war have found that the more resistant a man was to harsh treatment, the more emotionally stable he is likely to become later in life,” Stockdale wrote in an article published Friday in The New York Times.
Stockdale, who was Ross Perot’s running mate in 1992, said he got a call from a friend who is close to the GOP presidential campaign of Texas Gov. George W. Bush ”soliciting comments on Mr. McCain’s ‘weaknesses,’ ”although the Bush campaign has denied fanning the speculation.
”I think John McCain is solid as a rock,” Stockdale said he told the caller, whom he didn’t name. ”And I consider it blasphemy to smudge the straight-arrow prisoner-of-war record” of McCain.
Stockdale, a retired Navy vice admiral, was a POW for eight years, half of them spent in solitary confinement. He said that at one point McCain replaced him in one particularly unpleasant structure.
McCain, critically injured when his plane was shot down during a bombing mission over Hanoi in 1967, was held 5 1/2 years.
MARY BUSTAMANTE Citizen Staff Writer
It didn’t take Bob Walkup long to make good on his first campaign promise.
The Republican’s first public appearance after being elected mayor Tuesday night was at Carrillo Intermediate Magnet School, 440 S. Main Ave.
It was there in late September that students in third, fourth and fifth grades ”elected” him mayor in a mock vote.
That day, he promised if he were elected by voters he would return to the school as the new mayor.
”(Tuesday) there was an election for mayor, but you were the first people in the whole city to vote for me,” Walkup said to more than 120 students seated in the school cafeteria yesterday.
”I owe you a lot.”
In the mock election, students picked Walkup, even though he was late to a candidate debate.
Because he was tardy, Walkup only had enough time to tell a twominute story about how his dog, Laddie – normally a very good dog – bit him on the hand that morning.
His opponents had talked about how they would curb violence, drug and alcohol abuse and take care of stray animals.
But the kids apparently liked the dog-bites-man story best.
He won the school’s election, taking 111 votes to Democrat Molly McKasson’s 93, and Libertarian Ed Kahn’s 19.
So yesterday, Walkup showed up at the school not only with his wife, Beth, and granddaughter Emily Carter from Albuquerque, N.M., but also with Laddie.
Needless to say, the rescued-from-the-pound, usually non-biting, German shepherd mixed-breed was a hit.
But the 8-, 9- and 10-year-olds didn’t want to talk about Laddie. They wanted to talk about issues.
”What are you going to do about Proposition 200?” one student asked.
”Do you remember when the water was brown?” Walkup asked rhetorically. ”Yuck! As the mayor, I must never allow you to have brown water again. It has to be safe and clean and you have to be able to drink it.”
As for gangs and violence, Walkup said politicians, parents and students must all stand up and say they are not going to go along with violence.
”Be kind to each other like you are to animals and there won’t be so many gangs when you get older,” he said.
Walkup asked the group how many were afraid to walk to school each day. A dozen or so raised their hands.
He said he would do whatever he could to have a city full of ”happy kids” – noting he was a happy kid himself.
When a student asked him what he would do so people could have better-paying jobs, Walkup said he he would work to get well-paying jobs in Tucson so that when they grew up there would be good jobs for them.
”It’s one of the saddest things when we educate and train them and then our young people have to leave this community because there are no jobs for them,” he said.
His advice for the students: The smarter you are, the more important a job you will get and the more important the job, the more money you’ll make.
Walkup promised that, as mayor, he would ”come back in the future and tell you more stories and tell you what’s happening in the city.”
Principal Henry Vega thanked Walkup for ”keeping your promise to come back. That tells them a lot about you.”
Vega reminded his students that the mayor-elect ”could have been at the University of Arizona or El Conquistador resort or the Tucson Convention Center, but he chose to come back where the children are.”
Vega noted the school’s proximity to City Hall.
”We have children and teachers here . . . who would be glad to help,” he told Walkup.
Ariell Files, 9, said she liked Walkup because he ”cares about animals and wouldn’t hurt a person.”
Amanda Carrillo, also 9, said it was good Walkup was ”going to get jobs for us.”
Nine-year-old Francisco Alvarado said the mayor-elect was ”nice and has a good sense of humor.”
That’s important in a politician, the young boy figured.
His mother, Rose Alvarado, who also was at school to listen to Walkup, said the students seemed to be impressed by the way he got along with them.
”They were not ‘just kids’ to him. They were people who had opinions and he got down to their level. He really related to them,” she said.
PHOTO CAPTION: VAL CAÑEZ/Tucson Citizen
Tucson Mayor-elect Bob Walkup high-fives third-grader Santi Bahti, 8, as pupils file into the cafeteria at Carrillo Intermediate School, 440 S. Main Ave., yesterday to hear his speech.
Gannett News Service
Gannett News Service
As his poll standings rise in New Hampshire, Republican Sen. John McCain begins running the first television ad of his presidential campaign today. The 60-second biographical ad is running only in New Hampshire; McCain is not campaigning in Iowa, which will hold caucuses in January.
AD TEXT:
Announcer: ”He was a young Navy pilot who volunteered for duty in Vietnam, and was shot down over Hanoi. Lieutenant Commander John McCain dragged off by an angry mob. When found to be the son and grandson of admirals, was offered early release. He refused.
”McCain’s commitment to country and fellow prisoners bought him repeated beatings and 5 1/2 years in prison.
”He returned home, spirit unbroken, again devoting himself to his country.
”Navy officer, congressman, senator – taking on the establishment and defying special interests, and never forgetting those heroes with whom he served. Today John McCain is ready to lead America in to the new century, his mission to fundamentally reform government.
”More experience and more courage than anyone. Ready to be president and leader of the free world.”
McCain: ”I swear to you that from my first day in office to the last breath I draw, I will do everything in my power to make you proud of your government.”
Announcer: ”John McCain for President.”
ANALYSIS:
McCain’s biography is a theme the campaign has been sounding in radio ads. This ad, which uses footage of McCain as a downed pilot being attacked by North Vietnamese and as a POW, tells a story of heroism that other candidates can’t match. As McCain’s ad-maker, Greg Stevens, says, ”It’s the story, stupid.”
McCain’s refusal of early release when a POW is consistent with the military’s code of conduct, which requires that prisoners be released in the order in which they were taken.
The Associated Press
The Associated Press
HANOVER, N.H. – Next time, Gov. George W. Bush’s rivals for the Republican presidential nomination will debate against him instead of about him.
”I’m sure Gov. Bush will be very active in this campaign, particularly since we’re moving up so rapidly in the polls,” said Sen. John McCain, who trails Bush but is gaining.
McCain said he’d have preferred to have Bush participate in the forum at Dartmouth College last night because New Hampshire voters deserved it.
The Arizona senator, publisher Steve Forbes, conservative activist Gary Bauer, commentator Alan Keys and Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah went ahead without Bush, meeting for the second time in a week in a 60-minute question-and-answer format.
They sparred at times, but it was no slugfest as they stated their positions on taxes, abortion and assorted other issues, without much argument. It was not direct debate. They got questions in turn, 90 seconds to answer, no rebuttal time.
In the New Hampshire polls, McCain trails Bush by 12 to 16 points. The others are far behind, registering in single digits. McCain said he does not discount them, recalling that he was down there, too, not long ago.
But he says he is gaining traction, and he sought to add to it last night by sticking to his message of reform, a point he made on almost every question put to him. He said patients’ medical rights, school voucher funding, money to meet the needs of military families, and his standard, political finances, are all in need of reform that can’t happen until the power of special interest money is curbed.
Forbes took the hardest shot of the night at Bush for his absence.
”Perhaps in the future, at a forum like this, if we call it a fundraiser he might show up,” said the magazine heir, who is financing his own campaign.
Bush already has said he will come to the Republicans’ debate in Manchester, N.H., on Dec. 2. And the absentee got a solo interview on WMUR-TV, a local station, two hours before the hourlong debate it co-sponsored with CNN.
He said he regretted missing it, but preferred to be at a ceremony honoring his wife, Laura, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. ”I’m sorry I’m not there, I look forward to the debates, I’ve got a lot to say,” Bush said.
”I know I’ve got a lot of work to do, I take nothing for granted,” he said.
Only a front-runner would get that TV treatment. But it also showed that Bush is wary of the absentee argument against him. His campaign issued statements explaining his absence. He had planned to stay out of debates until January.
Bauer did take a slap at Forbes on another point, saying that his proposed flat tax would favor corporations over families. ”Gary, you’re wrong,” Forbes countered.
McCain urged Republican openness to differences on the abortion issue, repeating that he is firmly opposed to the practice. None of the more conservative candidates challenged him on it.
”We can have respectful disagreements on specific issues, and we can work together on this one,” he said of the party’s most divisive social policy dispute.
Vice President Al Gore and former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, the Democratic candidates, met in their first question-and-answer debate Wednesday night. When the moderator at the GOP forum asked who in that crowd had watched the Democrats, McCain’s hand was one of those that went up.
