Bush Stepping Up His Unrelenting Attacks on Dukakis

Vice President George Bush, a candidate who has long lamented the pre-Labor Day start of presidential campaigns, has scrapped those reservations in favor of a full-throttle, unrelenting assault on Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis.

Trying to turn the focus from his own running mate, Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle, and recover a sense of forward motion after the Republican National Convention, Bush in recent days has hammered Dukakis on crime, defense, taxes and patriotism in every speech. He has also launched aggressive attacks on Dukakis’ public pronouncements to stem any budding momentum on Dukakis’ part.

On Friday, for example, Bush accused the Massachusetts governor of insulting the memory of slain narcotics officers when he criticized the Reagan Administration’s anti-drug efforts.

Cites Camarena Case

“If he would only look at the record of Enrique Camarena, tortured to death,” said Bush, referring to a Drug Enforcement Agency agent killed in Mexico in 1984, “then maybe he’d be a little more sensitive to what is going on around here.”

Earlier, he called Dukakis’ criticisms “an insult to the thousands of men and women in the Coast Guard, the Customs (Department), DEA, FBI, local law enforcement agencies who are putting their lives on the line every single day.”

Bush’s retorts came a day after Dukakis, in a campaign appearance in Cleveland, declared it “absurd” that the Administration has spent more to fight the Nicaraguan Sandinistas than to fight drug traffic in Latin America.

Dukakis also said it was “criminal” for the Reagan Administration to maintain relations with Panamanian Gen. Manuel A. Noriega as the Justice Department prepared to indict the military leader on charges of drug smuggling.

Raises the Heat

Bush stoked the fire with recitations of actions his campaign believes will help define Dukakis as too liberal for the American electorate.

“He is the governor who vetoed the mandatory sentencing for drug dealers. He opposed capital punishment for drug kingpins,” Bush said.

“And he fought tooth and nail to keep that outrageous furlough program that lets murderers, rapists and drug dealers out of jail,” Bush said.

The furlough program--canceled after a convicted murderer released on parole escaped to terrorize a Maryland family--has been a staple in Bush’s rhetoric.

Bush also took pains Friday to defend his strategy before loudly partisan supporters who booed even the mention of Dukakis’ name. The campaign rhetoric “isn’t negative,” he said. “I am putting out the facts. We’re not going to let this man be something that he is not. I’m going to pin him down.”

Bush has put out “the facts” in a harsh, staccato style. “I believe in voluntary prayer in schools and he opposes it,” he said Thursday in San Antonio. “I believe in right-to-life and encouraging adoption instead of abortion and he’s on the other side of that.”

Geography Makes a Difference

Bush’s remarks Friday, delivered before several hundred enthusiastic supporters in a community center here, illustrated the vagaries of political geography.

In California, for example, in a much ballyhooed departure from the Reagan Administration’s policies, Bush called for a moratorium on oil drilling off the Northern California shoreline until extensive environmental tests could be undertaken. He said then that he believed the environment should be considered before drilling was allowed to proceed.

But here in East Texas, an area heavily dependent on the oil business, the environmentally sensitive approach vanished as Bush simply pronounced his support of offshore oil drilling.

“There is no security for the United States of America in this ever-increasing dependence on foreign oil and I will turn it around,” said the vice president, standing on a stage bedecked with an oil drilling pump and a huge Texas flag. “My opponent opposes offshore oil drilling and I support it.”

The Reagan Administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative, known as “Star Wars,” has also come under increased focus by Bush in Texas, where the troubled economy leans heavily on the defense industry.

“He (Dukakis) says SDI is a fantasy. I see it as essential,” Bush said. “I will support research vigorously and fully and when it is ready, I will deploy it because we need defense in this country as well as offense.”

Shows Firm Commitment

In speeches such as Friday’s, Bush’s support for the space-based anti-missile system has been unequivocal, and he has made no mention of his historical reluctance to commit to a firm deployment schedule for the system.

As recently as Wednesday, in an interview with the New York Times, Bush equivocated on the matter of how and when to deploy the anti-missile system. The campaign’s press spokeswoman, Sheila Tate, said Friday that Bush feels that deployment “would depend on a lot of factors--what the research showed.”

“I’m glad the vice president now agrees with me” on SDI, Dukakis said Friday. “While good research on “Star Wars” makes sense, spending billions and billions of dollars at a time of massive federal budget deficits and unmet defense needs” does not. Dukakis has advocated scaling back the SDI program, concentrating on research while putting aside plans for any quick deployment of the program. Even as a research program, Dukakis aides admit, the “Star Wars” budget would be roughly $1 billion a year.

Jabs at Carter

Bush has strived to portray a Republican vote in November as one for peace and prosperity, while a Democratic ballot means a return to what Bush calls “the malaise days” under the last Democratic President, Jimmy Carter.

“We took a chance once on a moderate-talking liberal governor making big promises, and, my friends, I don’t want to see us take that chance again,” Bush said Friday in a clear reference to Carter.

And, walking into the Longview rally, in a town where temperatures reached into the high 90s, Bush ad-libbed: “It’s sure hot out here. The temperature is almost as high as the misery index under Carter and Mondale.”

The crowd whooped, and the candidate looked immensely pleased.