Divisive Democrats

"Inside Politics," Washington Times, Wednesday, February 3, 1999

Missouri Democrats, who last year ran radio commercials portraying Republicans as the party of racial hatred and church burnings, are now calling Sen. John Ashcroft a "white supremacist's presidential choice."

Democratic Senate Campaign Committee staffer Kerin Polla issued a press release referring to a comment in a television interview with Gordon Lee Baum, leader of the Missouri-based Council of Conservative Citizens.

Mr. Baum - whose organization has been the subject of much media scrutiny lately - told CNN that Mr. Ashcroft would have been a good choice for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000.

Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson called the accusation "offensive, racially divisive and totally false," and said Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan - the Democrat who is Mr. Ashcroft's likely Senate opponent in 2000 - "should repudiate this profane and offensive material."