Quayle Warmly Received on Swing Through County

Orange County put out the welcome mat Saturday for Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle as he made his first campaign swing through the county since Vice President George Bush selected him as his running mate at the Republican convention.

“I’m learning very quickly in Mission Viejo that they’re saying, ‘Go for it!’ ” Quayle told about 2,000 people who gathered in the hot early afternoon sun at the edge of Lake Mission Viejo for a rally for the candidate. “When you say ‘Go for it,’ I mean go for the future.”

The rally was the third and final stop in the county for Quayle, who began the day at a private breakfast with about 80 local GOP leaders at the Irvine Hilton.

“He gave an excellent speech,” state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) said after the breakfast. “He shows a lot of polish.”

In between the 8 a.m. breakfast and the 1:15 p.m. rally, Quayle received a warm welcome from about 1,000 seniors who packed Leisure World’s Clubhouse 3 in Laguna Hills.

With less than two days’ notice and no advertising, the Republican Club of Leisure World was unsure they could fill the 933-seat auditorium, said President Marion Miller D’Onofrio. But word of mouth “spread like wildfire” and all 850 tickets printed Thursday were gone by Friday, she said. Lines formed outside the clubhouse Saturday morning, and some ticket holders were even turned away.

But some of the enthusiasm was dampened when Quayle was an hour and a half late, in part because of a press conference he called after the breakfast at the Hilton. Seniors waiting at Leisure World were entertained by the El Toro High School jazz band, but a few of them grew testy. Some complained they could not see over press cameras or that the band’s volume would ruin their ears. Others dozed.

Once Quayle arrived, however, the seniors were attentive, applauding Quayle’s speech, delivered in front of a huge American flag, at all the appropriate places.

“George Bush has said and I’ll say it again. George Bush will not raise your taxes, period,” Quayle promised them in a booming voice.

Quayle also promoted a strong national defense and economy and blasted Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis for opposing U.S. policy on Nicaragua.

Touching on family issues, Quayle, 41, the father of three children, also pledged to push for tax credits for child care rather than a “massive government program” that he said would give parents fewer options.

Issue of Child Care

Some listeners saw nothing incongruous in Quayle’s pushing the issue of child care at Leisure World, since many of them have grandchildren. Alma Gibson, who wore an elephant print dress for the occasion, said: “I thought he was great. I just agree with everything.”

But her friend Marjorie Gross, one of the rare Democrats in the audience, said: “I didn’t hear any questions being asked. He’s very charming--a pretty face with naught behind it. I didn’t hear anything new.”

At the speech’s conclusion, Paul Denny, 81, presented Quayle with an American Legion cap, making him an honorary member of the Laguna Hills American Legion Post 257, though Quayle is not, like other members, a war veteran. All 158 members of the group support Quayle, Denny said.

Nearly all seniors who were asked defended Quayle from criticism that has focused on his entering the National Guard in Indiana during the Vietnam War rather than face the draft.

“He didn’t go over to Canada,” Denny said. Wanda Cunningham said: “You have to look at it in context of the times. Those were mixed-up times.”

“There’s certainly nothing wrong with the National Guard,” said Louise Milhous, whose husband’s mother was a first cousin of Richard Nixon’s mother.

On stage at the Leisure World clubhouse, Quayle was flanked by his wife, Marilyn, and an entourage of top county Republicans, including retiring Rep. Robert E. Badham, GOP congressional candidates C. Christopher Cox and Dana Rohrabacher and Orange County supervisors Thomas F. Riley and Gaddi H. Vasquez.

Patriotic Rally

The same group traveled with Quayle to the Mission Viejo rally, a patriotic affair that began with a rendition of “America the Beautiful” and ended with “God Bless America.”

The casually dressed crowd stood on the grass overlooking the man-made lake, waving small American flags and hoisting posters and banners. Many of the banners were handmade, some extolling the virtues of the Bush-Quayle ticket and others with less flattering messages.

“Draft Dodgers for Quayle,” one read. “V.P.s should be better than C students,” said another, a reference to Quayle’s admittedly lackluster undergraduate years at DePauw University in Indiana. Reid Steinbauer of Mission Viejo, who made and carried the latter poster, said he was a “Reagan Democrat” who would have voted for Bush had he selected Kansas Sen. Bob Dole instead of Quayle.

But Quayle gave no sign that he noticed anything but positive support. The candidate launched a stinging attack on Dukakis for appearing at an anti-nuclear press conference with Helen Caldicott, a leading nuclear-freeze activist. Caldicott, Quayle charged, had uttered numerous statements that revealed her “hatred of America’s leadership,” including attacks on Congress, Administration leaders and the Defense Department.

“She referred to Communist General Secretary (Mikhail S.) Gorbachev as a ‘miracle man,’ and compared him to Jesus Christ,” Quayle said. “And in what I would regard as a sick observation, Dr. Caldicott said ‘Chernobyl should have happened here’ in America.”

Quayle went on to attack Dukakis for “joining forces with a person who holds such outrageous and radical views.”

The Dukakis appearance with Caldicott occurred in 1982. The statements that Quayle complained about were all made subsequent to that.

After his speech, Quayle shook hands and chatted as he worked himself through the crowd to a waiting car, where he was taken to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station for a flight to Sacramento for other campaign events.