Dole's Ads Against Alexander Not Quite Truthful

By Brooks Jackson/CNN

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Feb. 18) -- Bob Dole says he's running a clean campaign in New Hampshire -- that his television ads are honest and positive. Oh yeah? What he's saying about Lamar Alexander sure sounds negative.

A television spot from the Dole campaign paints Alexander as a tax-and-spend liberal "who's not what he pretends to be."

Liberal? Tax and spend? Let's rewind and see if Dole sticks to the facts.

The ad claims that as Tennessee's governor, Alexander increased the sales tax 85 percent. The claim is wrong.

Tennessee residents were paying 4.5 cents on the dollar when Alexander became governor in 1979. Six years later, to help pay for schools, the sales tax went up to 5.5 cents, an increase of only 22 percent, not 85 percent.

Dole is counting a temporary increase that took effect before Alexander took office, which he made permanent.

The Dole spot also says Alexander raised taxes and fees more than fifty times.

Well, that's correct, but only if you count such things as a $2 increase in a real estate broker's license and a $15 fee for an out-of-state fishing license.

An announcer in the ad proclaims, "Alexander proposed what would have been the first income tax in Tennessee history."

In fact, Alexander did call for a flat rate income tax, but only to replace other taxes, which would amount to no overall increase in total state taxes. He never proposed such legislation.

The bottom line: Tennessee taxes were the fifth lowest in the United States when Alexander left office.

And Dole's claim that Alexander doubled state spending is misleading.

Tennessee spending rose less than the national average during Alexander's eight years as governor -- up 99 percent compared to 103 percent for all states.

In another ad, the Dole campaign portrays Alexander as a soft-on-crime liberal.

"Lamar Alexander even signed a bill allowing violent criminals to be eligible for parole after serving less than half their prison sentence," the announcer says.

But that's a misleading distortion.

That 1979 bill required violent criminals to serve at least 40 percent of their sentence, an effective increase in time actually served. And far from coddling criminals, Alexander let Tennessee prisons get so overcrowded a federal judge ruled them cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution.

The Dole campaign denies its ads are negative, although they're aimed at causing maximum damage to Alexander on the issues of crime and taxes. But on the facts, they miss the mark.

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