Presidential candidate Al Gore is not being accurate as he campaigns across Iowa, according to Republican National Committee chairman Jim Nicholson, who insists that the vice president continues to misrepresent his farm-boy past.
Gore often speaks of his youthful summers working on the family farm in Carthage, Tenn., telling crowds of his days in the 4-H Club and raising cattle.
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The vice president has repeatedly told audiences all across Iowa that he is a farmer, and that he has a great love for farming and for the people of Iowa. He also claims that he and his family learned to respect the environment on their tobacco farm.
"I learned from my dad the respect for the environment that all farmers who farm their own land have," said Gore in a recent speech in Boone, Iowa. "I may have been raised most of my life in Washington, but I know one end of the pitchfork from the other," he claimed.
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Garbage dump at Gore farm |
Nicholson disagreed and said Gore uses another farm implement better than a pitchfork. "He's far more proficient with a shovel," said Nicholson, who complained that Gore paints a much different picture of his farm experience than reality.
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The Gore farm has been identified as the location of a potentially dangerous waste dump, according to The Washington Times and a local Nashville television station -- both of whom documented the dump with pictures and interviews with neighbors in October 1992. Neighbors claim the waste dump has been there for many years.
Photographs of the site in 1992 clearly show the existence of chemical containers. One container is labeled, "Royal NH-30," a chemical used by tobacco farmers.
Gore claims that his father stopped growing tobacco on the farm in 1980, and he firmly denied -- despite the photographs and interviews -- the existence of the dump at the time of the stories. "It's an unfounded story from the last campaign," a Gore campaign spokesman said.
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Royal NH-30, a chemical used by tobacco farmers, found on Gore farm. |
A spokesman for Uniroyal, the company that manufactures Royal MH-30, said that the dangerous chemical should not be disposed of in an open dump or pit. State fines for such disposal are as high as $500, and the federal fine can be as high as $25,000.
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"Learning to respect the environment at the Gore farm in Carthage would be like learning to respect cattle at a slaughterhouse," said Nicholson.
"For years they used the farm to maintain a garbage dump that they filled with pesticide and oil containers, aerosol cans, and unrecycled cans and bottles," said Nicholson. "It wasn't a pristine environmental haven. It was an ugly, dangerous dump -- and it could have leached into the Caney Fork River."
Gore was caught exaggerating his farming experience in December. He stopped at the office of The Des Moines Register and spoke of his love for Iowa, for farmers, and for his days on the family farm.
"I've owned and operated my own farm for 26 years," Gore told the reporters. "I went back there and bought my own farm when I came back from Vietnam, and we are going to be on our farm for Christmas and New Year's, and we're going to be spending New Year's with a lot of friends I grew up with working on the farm," Gore said to reporter John Carlson.
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Carlson decided to dig for details and asked Gore what he grew on his farm, catching the vice president off guard.
"Well," he said with a smile, according to Carlson, "we have a big garden."
"Gore seemed sort of embarrassed and said something about the real Gore family farm, where his grandfather grew tobacco first and then corn, and how it's across the river from his land and that the two places operate in tandem. So he is a farmer. Really," explained Carlson of the incident in his own column.
Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., recently tried to warn Iowa voters about Gore on CNN's Crossfire.
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"Vice President Al Gore is trying to scare the farmers. The fact is he's not for the family farmer. Well, the fact is we've had these policies for 10 years under the Clinton-Gore administration, or eight years, and the family farmer is worse off today. People in Iowa are starting to realize that," said Miller.
Gore attacked his opponent, Bill Bradley in one of many debates on Friday night. He tried to show that he approves of the Iowa caucus process, and that Bradley is against it.
"Gore's very good at these attacks. That's what Gore does best," explained Miller on Crossfire.
"In Iowa, he sees Bill Bradley coming after him, so he makes this attack that tries to put Bill Bradley in a position that is not accurate and not truthful," said Miller.
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Nicholson agreed, asserting that Gore was being less than truthful. He pointed out that Gore has been a staunch critic of the Iowa caucuses, which he has repeatedly disparaged when not in the state. He even used the issue to help raise money.
"It's no giant killer or giant producer," Gore was quoted in The Tennessean, Feb. 9, 1988, which noted that Gore's "rhetorical Iowa-bashing drew both cheers and cash from a crowd of well-dressed Georgians."
Gore told his listeners that Iowa only has 52 electoral delegates and is relatively unimportant, saying that the Iowa caucus has "been blown all out of proportion."
Over the years, there have been many news accounts in which Gore has been quoted bashing the Iowa caucuses.
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Gore's Iowa buffeting continued until just a few days ago. The Associated Press recently reported him as saying that the Iowa caucus is "an arcane procedure that produces crazy results."