Bush, Dukakis in Flashes of Anger : Vice President Solidly Backs Running Mate, Assails News Reports

Vice President George Bush invited reporters to his official residence here Saturday to trumpet yet another endorsement by police officers, but he upstaged his own message with a heated defense of his running mate, Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana.

After accepting praise from the president of the Fraternal Order of Police in a gathering on the vice presidential driveway, Bush quickly answered a question on gun control and turned away from reporters toward his front door. A reporter hollered: “How’s Quayle doing?”

The Republican presidential nominee turned back to the microphone.

Shows Irritation

“He’s doing just fine, just fine,” Bush said, his voice rising in irritation. “And I support him strongly.

“And let me say something about that. This concept that I see in some of these reports that I am not supportive of Dan Quayle are absolutely ludicrous. They are ridiculous.

“I made a good decision and the American people saw it in that debate,” Bush added, declaring that he was “a little tired of erroneous reporting out there.”

With that, Bush hurried into his house.

The Quayle retort and the police endorsement capped a week in which Bush tried to focus on Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, portraying him as soft on crime and trying to reinforce Dukakis’ iceman image, while simultaneously announcing a new round of domestic proposals meant to establish positive, forward momentum.

But as on Saturday, Quayle continued to dominate interest much of the time, particularly after his Wednesday night debate against Democratic vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen. Most public opinion polls taken since the debate indicate voters believe Bentsen did a better job than Quayle, who was criticized for sticking to what appeared to be rehearsed lines.

Bush on Saturday bridled over reports detailing the vice president’s avoidance of the Quayle matter in most of his post-debate public appearances. On Thursday, the day after the debate, Bush had referred to Quayle sparingly in two of his four appearances, while on Friday he did not mention him at all in public forums.

In questioning Saturday, Bush reiterated that he felt Quayle “did well” in the debate. “He has my full support,” he said.

The vice president’s preferred topic Saturday, as it was throughout the week, was his opponent, Dukakis. While Dukakis, campaigning in Maine, rebuffed Bush’s suggestion a day earlier that the governor lacked “compassion” toward crime victims, the vice president launched another assault on the issue of crime.

Contrasts Positions

Standing next to Dewey Stokes, the police organization president and Columbus, Ohio, patrolman, Bush declared that his and Dukakis’ positions on law-and-order issues are “starkly different.”

“America’s police officers work to put criminals behind bars and they do not want to have their work undermined by weak judges and governors whose revolving door prison policies give dangerous felons a weekend pass to our citizens’ back yards,” Bush said.

Bush’s reference to the now-rescinded Massachusetts policy that allowed furloughs to murderers serving life-without-parole sentences followed a full-scale barrage on the issue Friday in appearances in Ohio and Missouri.

The Republican nominee also scored Dukakis’ opposition to the death penalty, assailing the governor for opposing it “in every possible case for every possible criminal, for cop killers, rapists and the mindless thugs who terrorize our students with deadly drugs.”

The vice president’s aggressive remarks, in addition to keeping the focus off Quayle, were meant to hit Dukakis on a critical issue and foster an impression of inevitable victory in the election, now 30 days away.

New Slogan

Indeed, a new Republican slogan was unveiled last week, on campaign posters, a T-shirt worn by campaign manager Lee Atwater and a two-story-tall banner unfurled at the Medina, Ohio, courthouse: “Say Goodnight, Mike.”

Bush has rarely mentioned Dukakis by name, issuing almost all of his jabs to the governor by occupation. “The liberal governor of Massachusetts--I love calling him that,” the vice president enthused in Albuquerque last week.

In trips to Northern California and Texas, Bush also issued his opposition to gun control with a flat statement that, “I’m against gun control.” That statement forced a bit of footwork Saturday when Bush accepted the endorsement of Stokes and other Fraternal Order of Police members. Most police organizations--including the FOP--favor a waiting period for gun ownership so criminals and the mentally unstable can be weeded out as purchasers.

The vice president acknowledged Saturday that he opposes federally mandated waiting periods, but he said he does favor restrictions on the sale of plastic guns.

As he enters the last month of the campaign, Bush is taking pains to be seen as forging a positive message. Several times recently he has worked into his speeches a reference to so-called “negative campaigning,” with which Bush has been charged.

“I do not believe it is negative to try to clarify the distinctions with one’s opponent,” Bush told an audience in Xenia, Ohio, on Friday. “That is the business of a political campaign.”

Times Its Messages

The Bush campaign also last week issued new--and sometimes renewed--proposals early each day, when they might be more likely to be picked up by television and print reporters. The proposals have not always gone over well. Comprehensive plans for education, children’s programs and criminal justice were caught in a credibility gap when campaign officials could not directly say how the programs would be funded.

But as the days ticked down, Bush found himself awash in support at stops across the country. In the Northern California town of Redding, thousands showed up Monday night to greet Bush in a fragrant park.

A similar throng met him at the county courthouse in Redding, and Friday night in Lee’s Summit, Mo., hundreds of residents--including the football team in uniform, a brass band and a dozen cheerleaders--waved American flags as Bush spoke in the high school gymnasium.