Word: banning
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...when he needed it, a way to end the tobacco war with Katie Couric and perhaps win some points with soccer moms who worry about crime when they vote. Best of all, it was something he had wanted to do for months: end his opposition to Congress's 1994 ban on 19 types of so-called assault weapons. As majority leader, he had fought the ban; as a primary candidate he had promised to repeal it; as a presidential candidate he craved the sensible center. So his aides were delighted early last week when he told them he planned...
...Haley Barbour thought Dole would be foolish to offend loyal gun owners (and big-time contributors) in order to court a larger audience. And when House Speaker Newt Gingrich got wind of Dole's plan just after breakfast, he was furious. Dole had once promised Gingrich to repeal the ban, and now here he was, promising to uphold it. Gingrich telephoned the campaign and demanded that Dole remove the offending sentence...
Privately, many of Dole's advisers were appalled. Dole's wobbly substitute language, "We've moved beyond the debate over banning assault weapons," left in doubt whether he wanted to keep the guns off the street and permitted the National Rifle Association to claim, reasonably, that Dole had not moved at all. Of course by then, like Hurricane Bertha, Dole wasn't done shattering windows and scattering debris. Within 48 hours, he started all over again, telling CBS News that he would, if elected, "probably" veto the ban. A day later, Dole issued long-awaited platform language on abortion that...
...with a behind-the-scenes story from the presidential campaign. He describes how Bob Dole, pressured by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, missed a crucial opportunity to blunt one of the Democrats' favorite wedge issues, gun control, first dropping his plan to promise a repeal of the unpopular assault-weapons ban, then changing his mind again, but too late to reap the political reward. "I wanted to autopsy one moment in a very difficult time for Dole," says Duffy, TIME's national political correspondent. "You get the feeling he believes this campaign doesn't begin until Labor Day. Many Republicans hope...
...move farther toward the center," says TIME's Jeffrey Birnbaum. "He is purposefully trying to upset the conservative base to appeal to the moderate middle and he thinks he can afford to do so." Dole has enraged the NRA by reneging on a pledge to repeal the assault weapons ban. The organization, which claims 3 million members, says it will now concentrate its efforts on Senate and congressional races. Dole has also upset Ralph Reed, the influential executive director of the Christian Coalition, by supporting the GOP's decision not to allow conservative Pat Buchanan to address the convention...