Reagan Points to Democrats’ Record as ‘Nightmare on Elm’

President Reagan, pushing for George Bush in the Midwest, today attacked Democratic leadership as a “Nightmare on Elm Street,” boasted of Republican advances since 1981 and warned that future generations would “dishonor us if now in a moment of sudden folly we throw it all away.”

The President, pitching in to help his second-in-command in his campaign for the White House against Democrat Michael S. Dukakis, never mentioned the Massachusetts governor by name in prepared remarks, but turned his rhetorical fire on “liberals” and the last Democratic administration of Jimmy Carter.

“America has traveled such a remarkable distance in the last eight years that the memory has faded of the economic and foreign policy crises that we faced when Vice President Bush and I took office,” Reagan said at Southeast Missouri State University.

“The truth is that when you take a walk down our opposition’s memory lane, it starts to look like a ‘Nightmare on Elm Street,’ ” Reagan added, referring to a popular horror movie.

Recounting economic and other problems of the late 1970s, the President--using a new favorite line--said when the American people needed a change in 1980 they called “George and me--the malaise busters.”