Pro-lifers split by proposal, defeated at Republican National Committee winter meeting in Indian Wells, Calif., to deny GOP funds to pols who would keep partial-birth abortion legal. In favor of proposal: Paul Weyrich, Gary Bauer, Steve Forbes, George Will, Gov. Frank Keating (Okla.), Sen. John Ashcroft (Mo.). Against it: RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson, Gov. George W. Bush (Tex.), Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), Rep. John Kasich (Ohio), Rep. Henry Hyde (Ill.), Rep. Charles Canady (Fla.), Vin Weber, Wall St. Journal. . . . Gov. Bush recently discussed Social Security privatization at Cato Institute with Pres. Ed Crane and Social Security expert José Piñera. “[Bush] thought it was a terrific idea, the most important domestic economic issue,” says Crane. “But then he lamented the fact that it’s the third rail of politics and he can’t talk about it. . . . He reminds me a lot of his dad.” … In N.H., Forbes and Lamar Alexander call for constitutional amendment after property-tax-based school-funding system was struck down by State Supreme Court as inequitable. . . . Chicago mayor Richard Daley endorses Al Gore for President 26 months before Illinois’s 2000 primary, although he has not endorsed gubernatorial candidate for primary two months hence.
Updates from last issue (Jan. 26): After Lawrence Kudlow and Stephen Moore proposed to expand 15 per cent income-tax bracket upward (“Raise the Roof”), Sen. Paul Coverdell (R., Ga.) introduced bill to do it. Is Clinton child-care initiative a sop to unions, as Stephen Silbiger argued (“State of the Unions”)? Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin appointed AFL-CIO head John Sweeney to working group on child care. . . . Staffer for Rep. Steve Buyer (R., Ind.), last seen helping preserve racial preferences, says Buyer wants people with “warrior experience” and “open-minded people who are not coming here representing a set agenda” for commission on women in military—a thinly veiled attempt to exclude conservative Anita Blair of Independent Women’s Forum. . . . Association of state environmental agencies holds conference on implementing Kyoto global-warming accords—although U.S. Senate has not ratified them. . . . Nike buys full-page ad in gayactivist Human Rights Campaign Quarterly: “It’s not the shoes you wear, it’s the stand you take.”
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