Calls New Poll Results Encouraging : Bush Says Dukakis Flees ‘Liberal Fringe’ Record

Vice President George Bush lashed out on Tuesday at Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis as “running away” from his record this political year, but Bush at the same time expressed frustration that efforts to distinguish his own candidacy with specific proposals have not swayed voters his way.

With an optimistic poll in hand, however, Bush also predicted a turnaround in his fortunes as next week’s Republican National Convention approaches.

“Things are moving,” said Bush, who will become his party’s nominee in eight days. “All I say is watch, and you’ll see these surveys turn around.”

New Gallup Poll

The reason for Bush’s optimism was a new Gallup Poll which showed him only seven points behind Dukakis, 49 to 42. Word of the survey, which ended last Sunday and polled 1,000 voters, reached Bush before his remarks at an airport press conference here.

Later, in Philadelphia, Bush called the Gallup results “dramatic movement . . . very encouraging.”

“I like it! I like it!” he said, then reminded reporters that he had over the course of the campaign brushed off more damaging polls. “Can’t have it both ways,” he said.

Other polls taken since the Democratic convention have shown Bush trailing by as much as 18 points, and have triggered Republican second-guessing about the tactics of the Bush campaign.

While heartened, Bush appeared Tuesday to take umbrage at the notion that Dukakis continues to hold a lead on the strength of a broad, thematic campaign, while Bush spends time detailing new proposals. Of course, Dukakis’ strategy appears to mimic the style of none other than Bush’s political guardian, President Reagan.

“I have made five specific speeches on five specific proposals relating from energy to the environment to ethics and talking specifics and they’re still in the mold on the other side of saying ‘ideology doesn’t matter, just competence,’ and avoiding the issues,” Bush told reporters. The emphasis on competence over ideology was a theme included in Dukakis’ Democratic convention acceptance speech.

Dukakis suggested in Boston Monday that Bush’s unfavorable ratings in many polls stemmed from respondents’ displeasure with Bush’s criticism of Democrats--but Bush Tuesday defended his strategy of hitting Dukakis hard on law-and-order and foreign policy issues.

“It’s not negative to ask that he be specific on the issues,” Bush said. “He’s trying to run away from a record in Massachusetts on the very, very, far liberal fringe of the political spectrum and I have to pin him down.

“And I have to say what he’s really for. He’s unwilling to do that because he thinks he can preempt the middle (moderate voters).”

Police Officers

Bush traveled to Pennsylvania to speak to police officers in Erie, dedicate a Polish Community Center in Philadelphia, raise money for the Republican Party in Pittsburgh--and give his campaign a visual boost on his last day of travel planned before the New Orleans convention. From now until he arrives in New Orleans next Tuesday, Bush plans to concentrate on the selection of a vice president and on his nomination acceptance speech.

In Erie, before the Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police, Bush reasserted his intention to declare an all-out war on drugs and hinted that Dukakis would be soft on criminals.

“We need more money for prosecutors and more money for prisons, at both the state and federal levels,” Bush said.

Asked later where he would get the federal funding, Bush replied: “Through the Senate.” He would not elaborate.

In a press conference here, Bush also defended his support for U.S. involvement in a multinational anti-drug task force that would aggressively seek out and destroy drug laboratories in other nations.

The vice president, who has tried to make his involvement in anti-drug efforts a campaign plus, said he would look favorably on international efforts using military personnel to eradicate drug factories.

“But only when we are invited so to do by the countries and if they say: ‘Here is a cocaine factory and we’d like your help in taking it out of there’--I would be all for that,” he said. Bush added that unilateral U.S. anti-drug action in other countries “is something we don’t need to advocate.”

Bush said he was “still working” on the selection of a vice presidential running mate, whose name he will announce Aug. 18.

“I’m not close in the sense of, like, tomorrow making a final decision,” the vice president said.

He also said he plans to appoint a negotiator to reach an agreement with the Dukakis campaign about the number, timing and location of presidential debates. Dukakis has challenged Bush to several debates, the first of which would center on foreign policy, but Bush has declined to commit himself prior to the convention.