Bush Gets Cold Shoulder From 3 GOP Candidates

BURLINGTON, Vt. —  A President who shows up at a fund-raiser for a freshman congressman usually hears his praises sung. But when Rep. Peter Smith (R-Vt.) introduced President Bush as the guest of honor Tuesday, the lawmaker took pains to emphasize his “specific disagreements” on civil rights and deficit reduction.

It may have been the most halfhearted introduction Bush has heard in 21 months as President, and it dramatized the discomfort many Republicans feel with the tax-raising, deficit-lowering deal Bush hopes to nail down with congressional leaders.

Something unusual also happened at Bush’s next campaign stop in Manchester, N.H., for another GOP congressman--Robert C. Smith--who is running for the Senate. Smith skipped his own fund-raising event, sending his wife, Mary Jo, to introduce the President. She said her husband stayed in Washington because of key votes pending in the House.

Peter Smith is a former college president trying to hang onto his seat against a tough challenge from independent Bernard Sanders, the iconoclastic, socialist former mayor of Burlington.

“He is a man of independent mind. I wish he’d stop reminding me that we do have a few differences out there,” Bush remarked. “But, hey, listen: Nobody is going to do it exactly my way . . . . There are 435 of these people in the United States Congress.”

At the third campaign stop of the day, in Connecticut, the candidate did show up but conferred with the President in private, away from the press.

The press also was barred from the fund-raiser for Gary Franks, a black Republican seeking a House seat in Connecticut. Franks is said to favor Bush’s veto of the Civil Rights Act, bolstering the President’s contention that it is a quota bill and that Bush’s position is not anti-minority.

Franks’ position might have been helpful to the President when he is getting beaten up on the civil rights issue, but it was not announced.

Bush has seen his own personal popularity rating plummet amid his turnaround on taxes and the budget stalemate of the past month. With two weeks until Election Day, Republicans are worried that Bush’s problems could jeopardize their chances.

The GOP candidates who are running from Bush are doing so on the advice of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which sent its vulnerable incumbents and challengers a memo a week ago urging them to respond immediately to the “national political environment.”

“Do not hesitate to oppose either the President or proposals being advanced in Congress” calling for tax increases, said the memo from Edward J. Rollins, committee co-chairman.