Clinton Assails Dole Over Tobacco Comments

WASHINGTON (AP, June 15) -- President Clinton said Saturday that GOP rival Bob Dole is ignoring scientific fact and placing children at hazard by contending that tobacco is not necessarily addictive.

In a national radio address on the eve of Father's Day, the president also called on the nation's distillers to adhere to a 50-year voluntary ban and keep liquor ads off television.

"Alcohol and tobacco are two of the biggest dangers to our children," Clinton said.

Clinton and his re-election campaign slammed hard at Dole's comments delivered in the heart of tobacco country this week, in which he said that while some people are addicted to tobacco others can "take it or leave it" at will.

The president accused his Republican rival of parroting "the tobacco company line."

"On the eve of this Father's Day I say to the tobacco industry, support our efforts to keep tobacco away from our kids," Clinton said. "And I say to others in public life, stop fighting those efforts; you should be supporting them, too."

Dole campaign spokeswoman Christina Martin said both Dole and Clinton "and most of America agree that our kids should not use tobacco. Bill Clinton is simply trying to hide behind a tobacco smoke screen the fact that he wants to raise taxes and overregulate anything that walks, talks or exists on American soil."

"Bob Dole has always opposed the idea of teen smoking and voted to enact a number of measures being used to discourage smoking activities. He's so serious that Bob Dole has even said he would consider addressing this issue on his first day in office," Martin said.

"Saying that smoking is habit-forming only for some sends a destructive message to the 3,000 American children who start smoking every day," said Joe Lockhart, national press secretary of the Clinton-Gore campaign. Clinton said 1,000 of those children "will have their lives shortened as a result."

Lockhart also said Dole has accepted $385,000 in campaign contributions from tobacco industry interests and flew 38 times aboard tobacco industry corporate jets.

When the issue of tobacco industry donations and campaign flights arose earlier in the week, Dole said: "As far as I know, they're in a legal business. Am I supposed to tell someone in a legal business they can't contribute to my campaign?"

Campaigning in Kentucky on Thursday, Dole said: "To some people, smoking is addictive, to others they can take it or leave it. Most people don't smoke at all. I hope children never start."

Dole, who resigned from the Senate on Tuesday to campaign full-time, said he supported efforts to keep children from smoking and wants to ban cigarette vending machines. But otherwise, he said, the federal government should stay out of the tobacco issue.

"We know it's not good for kids," Dole said. "But a lot of other things aren't good. ... Some would say milk's not good."

Clinton has spent months campaigning for rules to prevent the advertising and sale of tobacco to children.

"Now some political leaders who oppose our efforts to restrict advertising and sales to children are saying the cigarettes are not necessarily addictive, even going so far as to compare the dangers to kids smoking to the dangers of some children drinking milk," he said.

Clinton and Dole traded jabs one day after a new CNN/Time poll found that the president's lead over his Republican opponent had narrowed from 22 points in mid-May to just six points.

Clinton Assails Dole Over Tobacco Comments

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