When the Republican presidential nominee landed Tuesday morning at the airport in Orlando, Fla., his first stop of the day, he was hit with questions not about Medicare, but about the advertising practices of his campaign. For two weeks, the Republican National Committee has been running a television ad in key states that attacks Gore's plan to expand the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly to include coverage of prescription drugs. The Fox television network first reported this in a lighthearted manner during a political panel discussion last month. Within hours, Gore and the Democrats were howling, the Republicans were denying any intent to spread subliminal messages through the electorate, and Bush was forced to deal with the uproar at the expense of his planned health care message. I've never seen anything quite like it, and I think it speaks for itself.
Campaigns are full of surprises.
According to Bush and his aides, the commercial was already scheduled to stop running Tuesday and was replaced by another advertisement. But then Bush invited questions from reporters and all but one dealt with the television spot. The other question concerned a Vanity Fair magazine report that Bush may have dyslexia. The governor denied that he suffers from the learning disability. I don't think we need to be subliminal about our differences on prescription drugs.