Bush Hits His Stride and Nets $500,000 for 1988 Campaign

A visit to Los Angeles by Vice President George Bush has pulled in more than $500,000 for his 1988 presidential campaign. But perhaps even more important to Bush, the visit finally gave him a chance to hit his stride as a campaigner.

Many of the 600 people who heard Bush speak Wednesday night at a dinner in Century City are supporting him, so they were not expected to be critical of his performance. But even they were surprised at the power of Bush’s speech and with how he took on criticism of his candidacy.

“He was dynamic,” said Rod Rood, former head of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency and a longtime player in Republican politics. “It was one of the best political speeches I have ever heard.”

Los Angeles attorney Charles G. Bakaly III said the speech had reassured some of the powerful people in the room who have been watching Bush attempt to remain loyal to President Reagan while establishing his own identity.

“He sounded very confident,” said Bakaly. He was the most energetic I have heard him in a long time. That was a tough crowd in the sense that they have been called upon (to give money) many times. But I think the vice president reassured the people there that he knows what he has to do.”

Among those in the crowd were such prominent California businessmen as Donald Bren, president of the Irvine Co., and entertainment magnate Jerry Weintraub. Also attending the $1,000-a-plate dinner were such longtime backers of President Reagan as Margaret Brock, Holmes Tuttle and Armand Deutsch. Gov. George Deukmejian gave the introduction.

“It was the real George Bush that I know. I think he has made up his mind that he has to come out fighting,” said Tuttle, one of the wealthy Southern California Republicans who helped build Reagan’s political career.

Bush noted in his remarks that some have said his resume was in fact a liability, not an asset, because it looked like he was merely running on his resume.

“I don’t think it is ‘resume’ to have had a broad amount of experience and to try to bring experience to the presidency,” Bush told his audience. “I happen to think it is a plus, not a minus.”

Past Recounted

Noting that he has “never been much about talking about” himself, Bush then recounted his past, from being shot down as a Navy pilot in World War II to serving in the House, starting a business, being ambassador to China and running the CIA.

In a speech interrupted numerous times by applause, he got an especially strong response when he defended the CIA, which he ran in 1976-77, toward the end of the Ford Administration.

“I ran the Central Intelligence Agency and people say that is a liability. They say ‘You ought to tiptoe on that one.’ But I led something at a very difficult time, went in there when it had been demoralized by the attacks of a bunch of little untutored squirts from Capitol Hill (who were) going out there looking at these confidential documents without one single iota of concern about the legitimate security of this country.

“I stood up for the CIA then and I will stand up for it now,” shouted Bush.

Loyalty to Reagan

Bush also defended his reluctance to speak out against Reagan over the last six years, which some critics say has created an identity problem that must be overcome if Bush is to win the GOP nomination.

“When I became vice president I said I would sublimate my own passions to a certain degree and support this President and I’ve taken some flak for it. But that doesn’t bother me. As I (have said), ‘In the Bush family we don’t consider loyalty a character flaw, we consider it a strength.’

“And I am going to stand with this President until the end of our term, without turning my back on him when the going gets tough,” Bush said, in an apparent allusion to the Iran- contra scandal, the worst crisis of the Reagan presidency.

“I will stand shoulder to shoulder with this President and say, ‘Here is what we have accomplished.’ And there is going to be plenty of good things--and you give me half the credit for the good things and I’ll take all the credit for the flak and the static and I’ll come out a great big winner.”

Promising to make education, energy, low taxes and arms control his top goals as President, Bush ridiculed pundits who note that the last sitting vice president to be elected President was Martin Van Buren in 1836.

“You take what we have done and build on it. So I am not worried about the Martin Van Buren syndrome. Nor am I worried that I can create my own ideas and my own path to the future of this country.”