President Bush swept into the center of this Southern primary battleground Saturday, delivering a lectern-pounding speech that denounced challenger Patrick Buchanan for waving "the white flag of surrender" on trade.
Bush, greeted by chants of "four more years" from almost 1,300 Republicans at a state party banquet, never mentioned his rival by name but leveled criticism at Buchanan's trade policies and opposition to Operation Desert Storm."There are those who didn't support us then and there are those who second guess us now. But not the good people of Georgia," Bush said as he logged the first of a marathon of visits to the South in the next 10 days. "Georgia kept the faith."
Georgia's primary Tuesday represents a major showdown between Bush and Buchanan, and Southern states predominate among the Super Tuesday primaries that come a week later.
As Bush was arriving here from Texas, Buchanan began airing 60-second television ads critical of the president for signing last year a civil rights bill aimed at easing the way for employees to win court battles against job discrimination. Critics say it will lead to minority hiring quotas.
Bush signed the measure after opposing earlier versions on grounds they would usher in quotas. He said the new version would not.
"Bush has made and broken many promises," the narrator says. "But the one that hurts the most is the one that steals hope and fairness from our children. No matter how much we sacrifice, how hard they work, George Bush isclosing doors to their future."
A graphic that appears on the screen says: "Fall 1991, Bush broke his promise and signed a quota bill."
Bush campaign spokeswoman Torie Clarke told reporters that Buchanan "should stop stretching the truth so much. George Bush worked for three years to get civil rights without quotas."
Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater for a second day was critical of Buchanan, calling an earlier television ad blaming Bush for federal funding of sexually oriented arts projects "disgusting."
"Buchanan appeals to the instincts of hate and divisiveness," Fitzwater said.
While Buchanan campaigned elsewhere in the Georgia capital and its suburbs, Bush warned that the state has much to lose from those seeking to erect barriers against imports.
"So get past all the tough talk out there, all the patriotic posturing about fighting back by shutting out foreign goods," Bush said.
"If this country starts closing its markets, other countries will close theirs and when that happens, who gets hurt? Easy, we do," he said.
He said the protectionists want to retreat into a "pre-World War II isolationism."
Buchanan came within a mile of Bush during stop at a restaurant near the Atlanta business district where the president was speaking to Republican donors whom the former columnist has dismissed as "country club Republicans."