Cheney Says Some of His Votes Now Might Be Different

PHILADELPHIA —  With Democrats pounding him for his conservative record in Congress, Dick Cheney said Sunday that he might vote differently now on guns, education, the Equal Rights Amendment and a host of other issues.

Cheney, the all-but-official Republican nominee for vice president, accused Democrats of distorting his record by singling out a handful of the thousands of votes he cast as a GOP congressman representing Wyoming from 1979 to 1989.

“They obviously have an ax to grind,” he said on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “They’d like to portray me in a negative light. I don’t think it’s going to fly.”

Cheney’s effort to retreat from some of his most conservative votes came just hours before his arrival here at the Republican National Convention, where presidential nominee-to-be George W. Bush is taking pains to appeal to moderates.

At a rally in the atrium of his hotel, Cheney invoked the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal as a key rationale for returning the White House to Republican control.

“Most of all, we want to make Americans proud again by giving them a president they can respect,” he told a cheering crowd of Republicans before he and his wife, Lynne, were sprayed with red, white and blue confetti.

Earlier in the day, Cheney was grilled on his conservative voting record as he made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows in Washington.

On “Meet the Press,” host Tim Russert asked Cheney whether he would change a vote he cast opposing a ban on plastic guns that foil metal detectors or “cop-killer” bullets that can pierce police armor.

“Well, obviously, I’d be happy to entertain that notion,” he said. “I don’t want to say that I’m absolutely for ‘cop-killer’ bullets. I’m clearly not.”

Cheney said Democrats who then controlled the House had limited debate on the weapon measures and barred Republicans from adding amendments. Now, he said, he might support outlawing the bullets and plastic guns.

Cheney also said he would no longer vote against funding the Head Start preschool program or tuberculosis vaccinations for children. He also said he no longer opposes funding the Department of Education.

On the Equal Rights Amendment, Cheney said on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation” that he’d support it if it were made clear that the Pentagon was not required to draft women.

One former stance Cheney said he would not change was his 1986 vote against a nonbinding House resolution on Nelson Mandela. It called on South Africa’s apartheid regime to release him from prison, recognize the African National Congress--the party that Mandela led--and negotiate with the country’s black majority.

On ABC-TV’s “This Week,” Cheney said he supported Mandela’s release at the time but opposed the measure because the ANC “was then viewed as a terrorist organization.”

“I don’t have any problems at all with the vote I cast . . . ,” he said.

Cheney’s Mandela vote drew attacks last week from the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other Democrats, striking a raw nerve in the Bush campaign at a time when the Texas governor is trying to appeal to minority groups.

Douglas Hattaway, spokesman for the presidential campaign of Vice President Al Gore, said Cheney’s remarks on Sunday showed that he is “desperate to obscure” his record in Congress.

“He’s trying to reinvent himself now to get elected,” said Hattaway, borrowing a favorite Bush campaign attack on Gore.