Saturday, May 01, 1999
Bauer looks for cause of school shootings
Colo. inspires candidate's stump speeches
BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer is looking for somebody or something to blame for the Littleton school shootings.
In the days since the shooting that left 15 people dead, Mr. Bauer — a Newport native considered a long shot for the GOP nomination — has made speeches and comments on what may have caused two teen-agers to attack their fellow students and teachers with guns and homemade bombs.
He is not alone.
Other politicians, including President Clinton, are also trying to solidify and appeal to their political base by “trying to capitalize on the tragedy,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political science professor.
“I would certainly admit that among the core Republican candidates (Mr. Bauer) is very dedicated to his beliefs, and he sees more in this than just a political advantage,” Mr. Sabato said.
“He and the other politicians all make good points. It's guns, it's the culture, it's a lot of things causing these problems in schools. But stop trying to score points for yourself and do something about it,” he said.
Mr. Bauer wasted little time in making the Littleton incident part of his political stump speech.
Recognized as one of the nation's leading spokesmen for socially conservative causes, Mr. Bauer, 52, announced his presidential candidacy last week at his alma mater, Newport High School, just one day after the shootings.
Dropping most of the speech he had prepared to deliver that day, Mr. Bauer gave a rousing, emotional, mostly off-the-cuff speech about the glorification of violence in popular culture and media.
“We have created a culture of death,” Mr. Bauer told the crowd of about 1,000. “It's in our movies, it's in our music. Our kids are exposed to ... a culture that glorifies death in a thousand different ways.”
Since then, Mr. Bauer has continued to make statements on the shooting.
Last Saturday, during a speech to the California Republican Assembly, Mr. Bauer called on first lady Hillary Clinton to use her “very considerable political heft” in Hollywood — where the Clintons have enjoyed political and fund-raising success — to push for less violence in movies.
“What we have witnessed over the course of the last six years of the Clinton-Gore administration is a decline in pressure on Hollywood to stop the sex and violence and an increase in Hollywood fund-raising,” Mr. Bauer said.
Thursday in New York, where she is considering a run for the U.S. Senate, Mrs. Clinton advocated better mental health services for young people and tighter control of their exposure to violent images on TV, the movies and video games.
Mr. Bauer continued pressuring Hollywood as the week wore on.
On Thursday he issued a statement that was critical of Gerald Levin, the chairman of media conglomerate Time Warner.
“Time Warner, and so many other major Hollywood studios, are major moral polluters,” Mr. Bauer said.
Friday he was back on Mr. Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, saying they should bring members of the entertainment establishment to the White House for a discussion on school violence.
Though not responding to Mr. Bauer directly, Mr. Clinton did say Friday he was inviting a broad cross-section of leaders — from government, the clergy, the entertainment and Internet industries, in addition to those who “produce explosives and weapons, and those who use them lawfully.”
Democratic strategist Bob Doyle of Washington said Mr. Bauer is doing little more than spewing right wing rhetoric with his attacks on the Clinton administration and Hollywood.
“He is trying to incite the social right,” said Mr. Doyle, whose clients include U.S. Rep. Ken Lucas of Boone County. “He is trying to be competitive in the early Republican primaries and appeal to the social conservatives by trying to pin blame on the culture.”
But he's also playing to his strength and not broadening his message, said Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of The Rothenberg Report political newsletter.
“Gary Bauer is all about values and that fundamentally we are going amiss as a country,” Mr. Rothenberg said. “But there is also a narrowness of his message, and it's coming out in this campaign.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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