Dole Counter-Attacks -- And Hits Gore

WASHINGTON (July 3) -- In the bruising battle over the tobacco issue, it was Vice President Al Gore who became the target of a counter-strike by the Dole campaign, questioning the integrity of his public crusading on the smoking issue.

The Dole camp pointed reporters to a 1988 Newsday story in which Gore was quoted as saying he'd raised and sold tobacco throughout most of his life.

"I want you to know that with my own hands all of my life, I've put it in the plant beds and transferred it, I've hoed it, I've suckered it, I've sprayed it," Gore said in 1988. (128K WAV sound)

The vice president has made no secret that he and his family raised tobacco, but says his views on the issue and on smoking were thoroughly changed by the loss of his sister to lung cancer in 1984.

"My family is one of many that has been touched personally by the tragedy of lung cancer associated with smoking," Gore said recently. "I held my sister's hand when she breathed her last breath. Any family that has gone through that looks at this issue completely differently." (224K WAV sound)

But the Gore statement the Dole camp seized on was made four years after his sister's death. The vice president's aides say he was talking to a southern audience about the benefits of hard work. And they point out that also in 1988, he spoke out publicly at a debate in favor of smoking restrictions for young people.

The Dole campaign has also accused Gore of accepting contributions from tobacco companies. Gore's office says those ended in 1990. They amount to $16,000 from 1982 to 1990. Gore has been out front in bashing Dole over his statement that nicotine is not necessarily addictive.

"It's sad really, that a man of such integrity is so beholden to the special interests that he is running a campaign based on the reckless disregard for the truth," Gore said.

The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee have launched a costumed assault at Dole campaign stops, with volunteers dressed as cigarette butts.

The DNC has even provided instructions for party operatives on how to dress up as "Mister Butt Man," as the characters are called. They may become the political theater of this campaign, much as the Democrats' "Chicken George" was in 1992. They and the tobacco issue certainly seem destined to stick around for awhile.

This story originally appeared on CNN's "Inside Politics."

Dole Counter-Attacks -- And Hits Gore

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