In R.I., Mass., campaigns sound familiar themes

John McCain keeps the heat on George W. Bush, while Al Gore looks to the fall election. BOSTON -- Seeking a New England sweep to help keep his presidential campaign alive,

Monday, March 6th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

John McCain keeps the heat on George W. Bush, while Al Gore looks to the fall election.

BOSTON -- Seeking a New England sweep to help keep his presidential campaign alive, John McCain blasted George W. Bush yesterday as Republicans provided the drama in a final frenzied dash to Tuesday's showdown round of presidential primaries in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and 14 other states.

Al Gore, the likely Democratic nominee, was already testing themes for the autumn campaign yesterday, while his opponent, Bill Bradley, appeared to be working on a graceful exit. Gore planned a visit to a Cranston senior center today, where he will speak to invited guests. No public appearance is scheduled.

Gore and Bradley may be looking beyond Tuesday, but Republicans Bush and McCain are ensnared in a bare-knuckle street brawl.

In Boston, McCain struck out at Bush in a speech before about 1,000 boisterous supporters in the morning chill on sun-splashed Copley Plaza.

Standing in the shadows of two of the city's architectural treasures -- McKim, Mead & White's Boston Public Library and H.H. Richardson's Trinity Church -- McCain skewered Bush over a published report that a wealthy Texas businessman named Sam Wyly, a key Bush supporter, and members of his family paid for $2.5 million worth of television ads attacking McCain.

Ther ads were placed in the key states of New York, California and Ohio just days before the primaries that could influence the party's choice of its nominee. The ads skirt campaign finance contribution limits and gave McCain a chance to point to one of his key issues -- that the nation's weak campaign finance laws allow the rich and their lobbyists too much influence in elections and Congress.

Describing the Wyly family as ``cronies'' of Bush, McCain echoed Bob Dole's late 1996 campaign lament against the fundraising excesses of President Clinton and Gore, asking ``Where's the outrage, where's the outrage?''

``It's a disgrace,'' said McCain, to a crescendo of applause. ``Tell them to keep their dirty money in the state of Texas, my friends . . . don't spread it all over New England and America.''

McCain's audience was overwhelmingly middle-aged, white and studded with military veterans. Many of them carried copies of his biography, Faith of My Fathers , which he dutifully signed after the speech.

The Arizonan tailored his message for New England's moderate Republicans and ethnic independent voters. He called for an ``inclusive'' GOP, saying he hoped to attract ``Democrats and independents and libertarians and vegetarians.''

And McCain said he was proud last year to get a Profile in Courage award at the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester and spoke of his admiration for Kennedy, a theme he didn't mention in South Carolina.

Striking a familiar note, McCain hammered away at Gore's fundraising at a California Buddhist temple during the 1996 campaign. And he accused Mr. Clinton of using the White House as a ``Motel 6'' by allowing big contributors to stay overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom.

McCain also slammed the so-called Christian Right, urging voters to reject ``the ideas of Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson and Bob Jones.''

THE JOUST between Bush and McCain included renewed charges over religion, with McCain's campaign using recorded telephone calls reminding voters of Bush's visit to Bob Jones University in South Carolina, an institution identified with anti-Catholic bias.

A call made to some Rhode Island voters by McCain's campaign said McCain ``had the political courage to stand up to Bob Jones University and its bigoted anti-Catholic rhetoric. Join Rhode Island Catholics in voting for John McCain.''

The call also mentioned that McCain is against abortion.Rep. Robert Watson, R-East Greenwich, McCain's Rhode Island state chairman, said yesterday he asked the national campaign to stop using that pitch to Rhode Island voters.

``I think we should get back to the real issues and off this religious stuff,'' said Watson.

But a McCain spokesman defended such calls yesterday, saying they are intended to persuade voters to support the Arizona senator, not cast aspersions on Bush. ``We will use them in any state where we think it will be effective,'' said Todd Harris, a McCain spokesman.

Rhode Island has long had the nation's largest proportion of Catholic voters, about 63 percent of the state's electorate.

The Bush campaign's retort was that the calls are ``divisive'' and unfair. ``I'm outraged and Rhode Islanders should be outraged,'' said James Bennett, Bush's state campaign chief. ``But I believe it is not going to work. Bringing religion into politics didn't work 40 years ago [during John Kennedy's election] and it's not going to work now.''

AFTER BOSTON, McCain went to Portland, Maine, and his wife, Cindy, traveled to Providence, where she received an enthusiastic reception from about 175 people during a brief stop at the Arcade. Mrs. McCain said she would work to streamline rules for adopting children if she became first lady. (She and her husband adopted an 8-year-old girl from an orphanage in Bangladesh.)

Cindy McCain repeated her husband's campaign themes, told a few stories from the campaign circuit and vowed that John McCain would not accept the vice-presidency on a Bush ticket. ``He would not take it -- he doesn't want to be vice-president.''

Bush was focused yesterday on New York and has reduced his effort in New England, which polls and pundits agree is strong for McCain. Bush made a stop at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut, a state with a GOP primary that favors Bush because it is closed to all but Republicans.

In Rhode Island and Massachusetts, Governors Almond and Cellucci teamed up for a two-state bus trip on behalf of their Texas counterpart. The first stop was a rally at a Warwick shopping plaza with U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee and newly elected Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian. Then they motored up Route 95 to Boston, where Almond and Cellucci stood beneath a bronze statue of Paul Revere in the city's North End. The audience consisted of a number of young campaign volunteers and middle-aged supporters.

``Let's nominate George Bush on Tuesday,'' said Almond. ``Let's put an end to this primary. Let's do battle where we want to do battle -- with Al Gore.''

After their rally, which attracted about 150 people, including a few rollerbladers drawn by the blue and white Bush signs, Cellucci acknowledged that his candidate faces an ``uphill battle'' in Massachusetts on Tuesday. He blamed spillover from McCain's powerful 19-point victory in neighborhing New Hampshire. Speaking with The Journal, Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Jane Swift said Bush can unite the conservative and moderate wings of the party.

``Pat Robertson would be surprised to learn that I agree with him on an issue -- supporting George Bush,'' said Swift.

``That may be the only issue,'' she quickly added.

WHILE THE REPUBLICANS continued to trade attacks, Vice President Al Gore's strong position over former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley freed him to turn his sights on the Republican candidates yesterday, especially front-running Bush.

Gore worked on shoring up his base on hallowed Democratic turf, joining Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and delighting a rally of about 2,000 union members, party activists and supporters at Boston's Faneuil Hall yesterday morning.

Wearing casual brown slacks and a charcoal, long-sleeved polo shirt, the vice president strode about an outdoor stage with a hand-held microphone. He drew repeated cheers that resonated in Boston's historic cobblestone streets and brick buildings.

There was virtually no doubt the crowd was looking at the future Democratic nominee, and the mood was celebratory. Gore mentioned the Tuesday vote only twice and Bradley not at all. Instead, he repeatedly hammered the Republicans. He picked up on McCain's attacks on Bush, trying to paint the Texan as an ``extreme'' Republican by linking him to conservative Christian leaders.

``The Republican candidates go into private meetings, one of them with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and they come out and Robertson pats them on the back and they say, `We heard everything we wanted to hear.'

``Let me break the code for you,'' said Gore. ``What they are saying they heard was a solemn promise to give the right-wing, extremist wing of the Republican party control of our Supreme Court and the interpretation of our constitution.''

To break Gore's code: he's suggesting that Bush promised the right wing that he would nominate antiabortion Supreme Court justices, although Bush has said he would not impose any abortion litmus test.

The vice president also touted America's strong economy, while contrasting it with the recession of the early 1990s, which began on the watch of former President George Bush, George W.'s father.

``The issue now is whether or not we're going to keep that prosperity going or whether or not we're going to take the advice of both the Republican candidates and make a right-wing U-turn back to old policies of the past,'' he said.

And he got more personal when he brought up the environment: ``One of them in the Senate two years ago had a zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters, and the other one is a governor of a state which he has just led to the position of number one in air pollution, number one in water pollution, number one in land pollution.''

The crowd reveled in references by Gore, Kennedy, Sen. John Kerry and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino to working families, women's issues, gun control and anti-discrimination measures.

Kennedy offered an impassioned call to arms for education and health care and delivered a pointed, partisan barb: ``I'm surprised that the only thing these Republican candidates can talk about is religion when neither one of them has a prayer against Al Gore!''

Not the most high-minded rhetoric, perhaps, but it stirred up the sign-waving faithful. Kerry, mocking Bush's ``compassionate conservatism,'' appeared to be auditioning for vice president, a point not lost on a woman in the crowd, who yelled, ``Kerry for VP!''

Gore flew to Buffalo after his Boston appearance. He planned to return to New England today and visit the Cranston Senior Center in Rhode Island, where he will speak to an invited audience about ways to help the elderly afford prescription drugs, said a spokeswoman, Alexandra Zaroulis.

- With staff reports from Michael Smith