ANDERSON, S.C., Feb. 14 Arizona Sen. John McCain, responding to criticism from Texas Gov. George W. Bush, defended his voting record on campaign finance issues Monday. McCain, who says he is opposed to taxpayers paying for political campaigns, said Monday he voted for some bills that contained provisions for taxpayer campaign financing, but only because he supported other parts of those bills.

IM NOT going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, McCain said. I will make compromises; thats the essence of legislating. Is there any doubt that Im the leader for campaign finance reform in America? Is there any doubt? he asked reporters on his campaign bus. SHOULD TAXPAYERS FUND CAMPAIGNS? McCain spokeswoman Nancy Ives said McCain is opposed to taxpayers bearing the cost of political campaigns an idea supported by Democratic contenders Al Gore and Bill Bradley because he does not think taxpayers should be required to pay for the candidacies of those with whom they do not agree. McCain said he has voted 11 times against taxpayer financing of federal elections. Ives said there were votes in the early 1990s when McCain did vote for bills that included taxpayer financing of campaigns, but he voted for them in order to move the debate forward.

Examine McCain's voting record

Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said the issue was the truth of McCains statement last week that he has consistently opposed public financing of congressional races.

Its bad enough that Senator McCain votes for taxpayer-financed elections. Whats worse is he denied it, and then admitted it only when he was confronted with his record, Fleischer said. This is the man who said I will always tell you the truth. What happened to straight talk? McCain said Monday that I would rather have something that may have some public financing in it than the present system. Look, Id be satisfied with banning soft money. That would be the greatest sea change in history.

The core of McCains current campaign finance proposal is a ban on soft money, the funds that corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals can contribute to political parties, ostensibly for party-building and get-out-the-vote efforts. Some soft money was used in the 1996 presidential campaign to boost the candidacies of Republican Bob Dole and Democrat Bill Clinton. HYDE RADIO AD Meanwhile, the Bush campaign aired new radio spots by House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill.

Although the ads do not mention McCain by name, they allude to his statement that he supports adding the exceptions of rape, incest and danger to the life of the mother to the anti-abortion plank in the Republican platform. It has been suggested that changes be made to the party platform on the life issue, Hyde says in the ad. I am totally opposed to these changes because at the last convention we fought for every word and I believe it reflects the thinking of a majority of Republicans. George W. Bush agrees. The Republican platform says, The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendments protections apply to unborn children. The GOP platform also says, We oppose abortion, but our pro-life agenda does not include punitive action against women who have an abortion. In the Hyde ad, the Judiciary chairman says, I am enthusiastically supporting Governor Bush for president. He has a strong pro-life record in Texas, passing a parental notification bill that is a model for the nation. As president, he will be a defender of the unborn. NEW POLL DATA Poll data indicate that McCains appeal among independents and Democrats has him in a dead heat with Bush in South Carolina and slightly ahead in Michigan, where a GOP primary will be held three days after South Carolinas. Bush has an advantage among Republicans in both states. Bush had 42 percent and McCain had 40 percent, a statistical dead heat, in a Los Angeles Time poll of likely voters in the South Carolina released today. That mirrors a Newsweek poll over the weekend that also had Bush and McCain in a dead heat in the state.

McCain has a lead over Bush  43 percent to 34 percent  in Michigan, which has a primary on Feb. 22. Both South Carolina and Michigan have open GOP primaries, meaning independents and Democrats can vote in the event. Turnout will be a key in both states, because Republicans traditionally are more likely to vote in their own partys primary. In New Hampshire, a strong turnout of independent voters gave McCain an 18-point victory. The Detroit News poll of potential Michigan voters, conducted Tuesday through Friday by Mitchell Research and Communications, involved 607 voters likely to participate in the primary. It has an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The Times Poll surveyed 1,047 voters intending to vote in the South Carolina Republican primary; it has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The survey was conducted from Thursday through Saturday. LAWSUIT SETTLED In another development, the South Carolina Republican Party settled a lawsuit Monday that will open all possible polling places for Saturdays primary. Democratic State Rep. Todd Rutherford and James Fitts, a Williamsburg County resident, sued the state GOP, alleging it was violating the federal Voting Rights Act by keeping polling places closed in black, rural areas, while opening those in white neighborhoods. Unlike most states, South Carolina political parties, rather than a state agency, run their presidential primaries. In a court hearing, the Republican Party agreed in a settlement with Rutherford and Fitts that it will open all available polling places. The party said it would either find volunteers to work those polling places or pay workers from the South Carolina Election Commission to monitor voting from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 15, 2000

Answers

Saw him promise 'I will never lie to you.'

He did not say that he would tell us the whole truth.

I can, with difficulty, understand his breaking under torture. It is said that no human can resist today's methods, and I have to take that statement as fact.

I can, with more difficulty, accept his push to lead normalization of relations with Vietnam. With much more difficulty.

In his positions I find no reflection of what I hear so many (middle and lower-middle class here in the U.S., some working several of Clinton's new jobs) say about taxes. That is scary to me. And very disappointing. In his positions I find no significant support for the 2nd Amendment. Nor for citizen privacy, for that matter. Again, scary.

My sense is that he's been 'inside' the beltway so darn long that he really has forgotten how voters can hunger for a 'mr outside'. Hey, where's Jimmy Stewart when we need him?

-- Redeye in Ohio (cannot@work.com), February 15, 2000.

This article is for you Vern. I'm no McCain supporter but thought you would like this to add to your collection.

John McCain survived brutal imprisonment with honor intact Charley Reese Columnist

In a recent column about the New Hampshire primary election, I inadvertently misled readers when I referred to Sen. John McCain's collaboration with the enemy. I knew what I meant because I was an adult in 1973, when the prisoner-of-war situation was common knowledge. Others not born or very young then, of course, do not. Besides, collaboration was a poor choice of words because it implies an act of disloyalty. John McCain's time as a POW was served honorably.

So let me publicly take my foot out of my mouth and give you the context missing in the original column. After the Korean War, the U.S. government devised a code of conduct for all military personnel. In effect, it demanded that no prisoner give any information other than his name, rank and serial number. The problem was that the code was based on the assumption that Americans would always be lucky enough to be captured by a civilized government that would observe the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

In Vietnam, Americans found themselves prisoners of a criminal government that did not observe even common decency, much less the Geneva Convention. It summarily executed some prisoners. It employed inhuman physical torture to the point of death or insanity.

Senior commanders among the POWs decided -- and rightly so -- that honor and duty did not require committing suicide. Therefore, it was understood that when the torture became too much, any prisoner could cooperate or, more properly, feign cooperation in order to survive. They trusted the American people to understand that any statements by them used for propaganda purposes were given under duress. Any so-called military information that they provided would be militarily useless information. And that, ex-POWs I greatly admire and respect say, is all that McCain ever did.

There is a Web site owned by a man who purports to be an ex-Green Beret. He is a MIA (missing-in-action) activist and has several anti-McCain stories posted on his Web site. They are very cleverly done, always citing sources, including McCain's own writings, but they are statements out of context. The Web site implies that McCain received special treatment in a Vietnamese hospital and was the only POW to receive it. Col. Bud Day, a Medal of Honor winner, puts the lie to that. It was to his cell that McCain was delivered after his hospitalization. The North Vietnamese had set his broken bones but certainly not in any humane way. Day said McCain weighed no more than 95 pounds and had been put into a full body cast without a liner, which had caused large, open sores on his body. Day was convinced that McCain would die. And other POWs were also treated in hospitals after the Vietnamese decided they would be more useful alive than dead. Day says John McCain at all times served with honor.

My original argument goes to the word hero. Being a World War II brat, I have always defined a hero as one who does more than his duty and performs some extraordinary feat. If, however, you wish to define as a hero any man who survives a brutal imprisonment with his honor intact, then McCain deserves that title the same as all the other POWs.

I still disagree with McCain on several political issues. Published in The Orlando Sentinel on February 15, 2000. Charley Reese Commentar

-- Lucy (lifeisgoodhere@webtv.net), February 15, 2000.