MR STEVE Forbes, the wealthy publisher who has surged into second place in the Republican presidential race through mostly negative campaign advertisements, has now himself become the target of political and media criticism.
Popular with many Republicans for his flat tax proposal, the 48 year old owner of Forbes magazine is only seven points behind President Clinton in a one to one contest, according to a CNN poll, and yesterday he featured on the cover of Time and Newsweek.
The price of being such a hot political property, as always in American politics, is a harsh scrutiny of potentially embarrassing in his life.
Newsweek reported, for example, that his long serving secretary sued him for age discrimination in 1993 on the grounds that she was fired shortly before reaching 65. The "cold blooded" publisher gave a deposition "trashing the woman as a trouble making incompetent", Newsweek said.
It also revealed that the millionaire publisher was threatened with blackmail by a man who claimed to be a homosexual lover of Mr Forbes's late father, Malcolm Forbes Snr, and who later pleaded guilty to extortion.
Time noted that Mr Forbes had refused to make public his tax returns, which "is bound to fuel charges that he has something to hide." Fortune magazine, the rival of Forbes, claimed that Mr Forbes bad edited or killed stories critical of major advertisers which he denied.
Fortune also revealed that Mr Forbes pays only $2,215 (£1,375) property tax for 449 acres of New Jersey farmland.
A major weakness in the platform of the free spending champion of unfettered capitalism is that the rich would do better than the middle class, and Mr Forbes himself would benefit enormously, from his proposal for a flat tax on earned income of 17 per cent.
Mr Forbes, who never before sought elective office, has recently been subjected to aggressive questioning on television designed to expose the weaknesses of his populist idea.
Asked on NBC television if it was fair not to tax investment income, a move which would cut his own tax bill, he admitted that it might be necessary to change the plan, and that he had done no study of his own.
His flat tax idea has, however, helped make taxation one of the central issues in a presidential campaign which has yet to catch the public imagination.
It was attacked by Vice President Al Gore, who said on Sunday that replacing the current federal tax system with a flat tax would lower taxes for the rich and raise them on working people.
Referring to Mr Forbes's argument that it would cut spending, Mr Gore said it was like saying they would make all the streets run downhill so that petrol consumption would decrease and everyone would have more money to spend.
Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, who still has a strong lead in the contest for the Republican nomination, has criticised the flat tax proposal as too simplistic.
In New Hampshire at the weekend, Mr Dole, who is campaigning on his long service record which runs from heroic action in the second World War to Senate Majority Leader, reacted angrily to Mr Forbes's attacks on him as a "tax and spend Washington insider".
This was "deceptive advertising," he said. "He's latched on to a flat tax. Unless you define it, people say, `Oh, that's a great idea'. Beyond that I don't know where he is on the issues."
Mr Forbes said of his proposal, which has the qualified support of Mr Jack Kemp, chairman of the Republican Party committee on tax reform "The only way you are ultimately going to get a balanced budget and get Washington's finances in order is if you have a flat tax."
The publisher projects an image of a shy and mischievous dogooder, but his campaign for the presidency is managed by several battle hardened conservative aides, including his campaign manager, Mr Bill Dal Col, and his chief strategist, Mr Carter Wren.
Mr Wren was responsible for a much criticised negative advertisement when working for right wing Senator Jesse Helms.
It showed a pair of white hands crumpling a letter that said the recipient was rejected for a job because of racial quotas.
The campaign pollster, Mr John McLaughlin, portrays Mr Forbes, a married man with five daughters, as a champion of the family and a conservative, with an anti Washington message, including a flat tax and term limits.
"People are still looking for the change they thought they were going to get in 1992 and then again in 1994" he said.
Mr Forbes cannot match the organisations of his chief rivals Mr Dale and Senator Phil Gramm (Texas) in Iowa and New Hampshire where the first two contests of the campaign will be held on February lath and 20th.
But he is using his vast fortune almost half a billion dollars to pay tele marketing firms to do the job for him. Currently they are making 4,000 unsolicited telephone calls a night to Iowa.