Dole decries logging industry tragedy
7/30/96
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c Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 30 1996; Page A05
The Washington Post
Dole Decries Logging Industry `Tragedy'
GOP Candidate Lays Blame on Clinton at Start of Two-Day California
Swing
ANDERSON, Calif., July 29 -- Robert J. Dole
attacked President Clinton today for causing a "modern American
tragedy" in the West's forest industry.
The Republican presidential candidate, trying to improve his
prospects in a state where his poll numbers have been sliding, kicked
off a two-day campaign swing through California by preaching to the
converted. Federal restrictions on logging have helped pushed
unemployment well into the double digits in some communities in
the far northern edge of the state.
"You have been abandoned. You have suffered enough," Dole told a
boisterous, all-GOP crowd gathered beneath a blazing 104-degree sun
in a lumberyard near the Sacramento River. Dole blamed "court-managed
gridlock" and the Clinton administration for the closure of 140
logging mills and the loss of nearly 20,000 timber jobs in
California, Oregon and Washington.
He also accused Clinton of "weakness and vacillation" in his policies
toward the harvest of "salvage" timber in western forests. Salvage
timber is a term applied to dead or downed trees. Dole said Clinton
has both advocated and opposed the harvest of this wood. "Our
gymnasts down in Atlanta didn't even do that many flip-flops," Dole
said.
The Clinton camp, as part of the daily exchange of accusations that
has come to characterize this campaign, responded that Dole had both
his numbers and his understanding of White House policy wrong.
Joe Lockhart, Clinton's campaign spokesman, said Bureau of Labor
Statistics numbers show that 41,100 forest product industry jobs were
lost during the Bush administration but 3,100 jobs had been created
since Clinton came into office in 1993. Regarding Dole's charge that
Clinton has vacillated in his support for the harvest of salvage
timber, Lockhart said the president has consistently maintained that
environmental regulations cannot be waived to harvest the downed
logs.
The strategy behind bringing Dole to the logging and farming country
in this state's northern Central Valley is to solidify a part of the
electorate already leaning toward Dole and use it as base to build on
in preparation for what Ken Khachigian, the campaign's senior
strategist in California, said will become a close statewide race.
"We have to work on the presumption that California will be a close
election. So we have to work on the margins," he said.
Khachigian conceded, though, that Dole has a great deal of ground to
make up in this state, whose 54 electoral votes are the election's
largest single prize. "The entire base throughout California has to
be strengthened," he said.
When Dole resigned in June as Senate majority leader to concentrate
full-time on the campaign, conventional wisdom among pollsters here
was that he would be able to slice into Clinton's 20-point lead.
"That hasn't happened," said Mark DiCamillo, director of California's
Field Poll. He said his polling shows Dole slipping from 15 to 23
points behind Clinton in the past two months. Polls by the Los
Angeles Times chart a similar trend, with Dole skidding from 20 to 27
points behind Clinton over the same time frame -- even while paying
four visits to the state.
"What seems to be happening is not that Clinton is getting more
popular, but Bob Dole's support is weakening. The thing that is
striking about Dole's support is that he is only getting about
two-thirds of the support of California Republicans," said DiCamillo,
adding that a GOP candidate should garner the support of more than
80 percent of his party.
Dole's strategy of trying to gain ground in California by attacking
environmental extremism is, at best, a "perilous" gamble, DiCamillo
said. "You cannot run against the environment in California and
expect to win," he said.
"Protection of the environment is such a motherhood issue in this
state." The pollster added, though, that it might be possible for
Dole to use the issue to pick up support from "certain
constituencies."
That, apparently, is what Dole was doing here, in speaking to voters
such as Rick Bosetti. "You get rid of L.A. and San Francisco and this
state is just about as conservative as you can get," said Bosetti,
who owns a computer business. "It is very frustrating for people in
northern California to be controlled by these liberals."
This afternoon Dole flew to Los Angeles, where he watched the hit
movie "Independence Day" with his wife, Elizabeth. Dole was asked by
reporters what he thought of the movie.
"I liked it. We won, the end, leadership, America, good over evil,"
he replied, speaking of a film in which millions of people are killed
before a dashing young American president jumps into a fighter jet to
help save the world from invading aliens. The audience, however, sees
relatively few dead bodies.
Asked if the movie made his point that Hollywood should be making
wholesome films, Dole said: "It's a good movie. Bring your family, to
be proud of when you leave. It's about diversity in America and
leadership."
Dole is planning to deliver a major speech Tuesday in Los Angeles on
family values and the entertainment industry. Last year he sharply
criticized Hollywood for producing too many movies full of sex and
gore.
"Tomorrow we will talk about good movies in Hollywood," Dole said.
"So it's a sequel to last year's speech."