Dukakis Tactic Divides U.S., Bush Charges

George Bush, in a calm but deliberate protest, complained Monday that Michael S. Dukakis is pursuing “a strategy of dividing Americans” by emphasizing the nation’s regional and economic differences.

Bush’s remarks represented a new twist in his attack on Dukakis’ economic record in Massachusetts, as the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns seek to solidify their positions before Sunday’s debate between the two candidates in Winston-Salem, N.C. At the same time, the vice president couched his remarks in an upbeat tenor, reflecting the effort to strike an optimistic tone to which, according to polls, voters respond favorably.

“We won’t make this country stronger by emphasizing our differences, by convincing ourselves that America is in bad shape, or by turning back to policies that simply did not work,” the vice president said in a mid-morning speech to the Lower Bucks County Chamber of Commerce in this suburb northeast of Philadelphia.

Sheila Tate, the Bush campaign’s spokeswoman, said Bush’s criticism of Dukakis came in response to the Democrat’s charge that during the eight years of the Reagan Administration, the rich have become richer and the poor have grown poorer--a central theme in the Dukakis campaign in recent weeks as he has sought to portray the economic recovery, and the Administration’s overall economic program, as benefiting primarily the wealthiest Americans.

But aides to Bush were unable to cite any instances of Dukakis seeking to exploit regional differences.

Echoes 1980 Issue

Bush’s complaint that Dukakis was seeking to divide the voters echoed an issue raised in 1980 by Jimmy Carter, who accused then-candidate Ronald Reagan of trying to divide the nation along racial lines.

The vice president maintained that the economic growth during the last five years “has made Americans at every income level better off.”

“That’s tough news for my opponent to swallow. He doesn’t like it much,” Bush said. “So lately, as the campaign heats up, he’s pursued a strategy of dividing Americans. He’s begun a calculated strategy of emphasizing differences between rich and poor, between one region of the country and another.”

‘Economic Manacle’

Bush and his running mate, Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle, went after Dukakis on largely economic matters Monday, with Quayle charging in a Tennessee speech that what Democrats call the Democratic nominee’s “economic miracle in Massachusetts” was really an “economic manacle.” Bush, meanwhile, was telling his Chamber of Commerce audience that Dukakis’ motivation was that “he won’t win unless he convinces the electorate that everything is bad in America--but I am dismayed by this ‘divide and conquer’ strategy.”

Speaking without the animation he has displayed at campaign rallies, the vice president continued:

“You can’t strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You can’t help the small man by tearing down the big man. You can’t help the poor by destroying the rich. You can’t lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.”

Bush Comment Challenged

His argument that all income levels have benefited under the Reagan Administration was challenged by Joseph J. Minarik, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan Washington research organization funded by government contracts and private grants. Minarik said in an interview that “all the evidence I have seen is that there has been a widening of the U.S. income distribution.”

And, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures, in 1980, the year Reagan was first elected, those in the lowest one-fifth of the economy in the United States received 5.1% of the income, and by 1986, that figure had dropped to 4.6%. Those in the top one-fifth received 41.6% of the income in 1980 and that figure grew to 43.7% by 1986.

During his speech Monday, Bush also accused Dukakis of being “all too ready to saddle small business with new requirements, new paper work and new taxes,” and said: “Since he’s never been in business, I don’t think he understands the full effect of his own anti-business scheme.”

High Massachusetts Rating

In Boston, Susan Estrich, Dukakis’ campaign manager, said the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation rated the state as having an excellent business climate.

But in Knoxville, Tenn., Quayle joined in the GOP drumbeat, picturing Dukakis’ Massachusetts as a disaster of taxes and spending and debt and lost jobs and citizens on the run, fleeing elsewhere.

“My friends, Michael Dukakis did not create an economic miracle in Massachusetts. He created an economic manacle,” Quayle said to a rally of 1,000 at an outdoor shopping mall.

Well-organized pro-Dukakis demonstrators heckled the candidate and raised a wall of placards in front of TV cameras, reducing the candidate’s hopes of spreading his message over the airwaves.

Quayle’s target was the forward-looking Massachusetts depicted by Democrats--a state described as having a flourishing, futuristic economy, booming technology industries and an unemployment rate that barely registers at 3%. Yes, there have been some ebbs and flows in the state budget, the Democrats concede, but they argue that the books have balanced over the years under the Dukakis Administration, and employers are fighting for workers, not the other way around.

GOP Sees It Differently

As Republicans see it, the unhappy residents of Massachusetts must shoulder the fourth-highest per-capita tax burden in America and the highest per-capita spending. Never mind the high-tech boom, old-fashioned manufacturing jobs are dwindling there.

“Now, we will concede that Massachusetts had a low unemployment rate,” Quayle said. “But one of the central reasons for that is the fact that people are leaving Massachusetts.

“If people weren’t leaving Massachusetts, the unemployment rate there would be higher.”

The Indiana senator also contended that Massachusetts’ funding of some capital expenditures and programs with long-term bonds is the same as debt, and he concluded that Dukakis “has created more debt than all previous governors of Massachusetts combined.”

Quayle traveled from Tennessee to Wyoming and Idaho on Monday, beginning three days of campaigning in the West. He will carry much of the campaign load this week as Bush spends some time preparing for Sunday’s debate.

Bush’s schedule in Pennsylvania was abbreviated Monday when fog forced his airplane, Air Force Two, to circle Philadelphia International Airport for two hours before being directed to Willow Grove Naval Air Station. As a result, Bush had to cancel a planned visit with Archbishop Anthony Bevilaqua of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Philadelphia, and with Cardinal John Krol.

James Gerstenzang reported from Bensalem, Pa., and John Balzar reported from Knoxville, Tenn.