Friday, October 10, 2003
GOP chief: Demos using 'hate speech'
By Howard Fischer
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES
PHOENIX - Arizona voters will not be swayed by the "political hate speech" of the Demo-cratic presidential hopefuls, the head of the national Republican Party said Thursday.
Ed Gillespie, who came to Arizona to monitor the Demo-crats' debate Thursday night, said the people who are watching are looking for positive solutions to problems. What has happened instead, he said at a news conference here, is that the candidates are instead appealing to what they believe is voter anger.
He said that won't work and people will reject that approach.
"I think that when you listen to the attacks that these Demo-crats constantly level against the president and against others in our party, it has gone beyond usual political discourse and really has amounted to political hate speech," he said.
Gillespie insisted voters are not angry, either at the nation's economy and loss of jobs or at the president's handling of the war in Iraq and his request for another $87 billion to continue that effort.
"No, I think voters are concerned about the economy, and they should be," he said. But he said Republicans share that concern.
"And that's why the president and the Republicans in the House and the Senate have done so much to provide for a jobs-and-growth agenda," he said.
By contrast, Gillespie said, Democrats are more interested in repealing the last round of tax cuts, a move he said amounts to a tax hike that will only slow the recovery.
Nor did he believe the president's chances of re-election will be harmed if U.S. troops are still in Iraq next year.
He said that while Americans remain concerned about casualties, they are not hearing the "good news" about what is being accomplished in Iraq, ranging from a new civilian police force to a new currency.
