POLITICS 88 : CAMPAIGN ’88 : Youngsters Steal Show

Vice President George Bush is accustomed to being upstaged by President Reagan. Even on the campaign trail, he jokes self-deprecatingly, he is often upstaged by his better-known supporters, such as former Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams.

But on Thursday, Bush came in second in the charisma sweepstakes to a group of Washington preschoolers.

The vice president traveled to the U.S. Labor Department’s day-care center as part of the “Week of the Young Child.” As he bantered with 3- and 4-year-olds, they peppered him with questions.

“Are you President Bush?” one asked, prompting a hasty correction from Bush: “ Vice president, yes I am.”

“Do you see President Reagan?” a boy questioned. “Yes, in fact I saw him this morning,” Bush said.

“Do you see the Easter bunny?” piped in another boy.

“Did I see the Easter bunny? Yes, because I was there when they had the Easter egg roll,” replied Bush, referring to the traditional White House lawn ceremony he recently emceed.

With that, Bush hastily told reporters that the country has “got some major problems on day care” but he declined to be pinned down about a solution.

“What I am doing is working with experts to see if we can add to what’s been done . . . always keeping it decentralized,” Bush said. “I would not favor a highly centralized federal program that would be . . . terribly expensive and would remove the very vitality you get with the diverse (child-care) systems we have.”

The children ignored Bush’s answer but snapped to attention when a reporter mentioned Democratic candidate Jesse Jackson’s name in a question directed to the vice president.

“Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson,” they chanted.