Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 13, 1993 TAG: 9311130170
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
President Clinton engaged in long-distance lobbying, "making calls like crazy" to reach members in their districts, said William Daley, who is coordinating the White House campaign. As the president applied direct pressure to the members, organized labor - which is opposed to the trade pact - and groups supporting it held competing rallies.
Clinton, suggesting his end-game approach, pressed his argument that the trade pact is as much a foreign policy matter as an economic one.
"It's an important part of our foreign policy for the future," he said. "It will develop America by reaching out to the world."
But amid reports that the White House was willing to offer any and all inducements for votes, the president emphatically denied that he would consider lowering the proposed 75-cents-a-pack cigarette tax in return for a half-dozen votes from North and South Carolina.
"I cannot foresee circumstances under which I would be willing to change that position, because it would imperil the whole health care program," Clinton said.
The focus of the trade campaign is a shrinking number of House members, perhaps no more than two dozen, who have yet to declare their intentions.
The House is scheduled to vote on the trade deal Wednesday. If approved by a simple majority, NAFTA would eliminate tariffs among the United States, Mexico and Canada over the next 15 years, beginning Jan. 1.
Clinton said he was "very upbeat about this. But I think there'll be, you know, clouds around this issue right until the last." Vote-counters on both sides say the White House remains short of a majority.
The White House dispatched Cabinet members around the country for 21 separate events between Thursday and today, with focus on the disputed states of California, the Carolinas, Illinois, Ohio, Florida and Maine.
Rep. Nathan Deal, a freshman Democrat from Georgia, may have wanted to duck the attention.
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, after four previous meetings at which he was unable to get a commitment from Deal, showed up in Gainesville, Ga., on Friday for a pro-NAFTA rally. Representatives of the Citizens Trade Campaign rallied in opposition. Truck drivers, electrical workers and carpet workers picketed Deal's office, and a member of the legislator's staff said telephone calls to his field office in Dalton, Ga., were running 2-1 against the trade plan.
The tension between the White House and the AFL-CIO continued in Washington, too.
Clinton on Sunday criticized the "roughshod, muscle-bound tactics" of organized labor in opposing the pact. Friday, the AFL-CIO president, Lane Kirkland, said the future relationship would depend on whether Clinton "as he has been in NAFTA becomes the darling of Wall Street and of big business and of the country club elite, or whether he returns to this original position of representing the people first for a change."
by CNB