Bush Denies Racism in Ad; Dukakis Rips Capital Gains Credit

George Bush declared today “there isn’t any racism” in his ads, and he denied Democratic charges of Republican lying. Michael S. Dukakis renewed the allegation of lying and accused his rival of turning his back on average Americans with a plan to give a huge tax break to himself and other wealthy people.

With two weeks to go in the presidential election, Republican Bush was campaigning in Connecticut and other Northeastern states while Dukakis was seeking support in vote-rich California.

Reacting to weekend talk of racism, Bush told reporters today, “It’s absolutely ridiculous and everybody sees this as some desperation kind of move, basing it on one ad.”

Bush was referring to Democratic complaints that the Republicans have been appealing to racial fears in Bush’s speeches and ads stressing the case of Willie Horton Jr., a black convicted murderer who raped a white woman after escaping from a Massachusetts prison furlough.

‘A Campaign Tactic’

“I mean, people see this for what it is--a campaign tactic. I stand 100% behind those ads. I think the American people are smart,” Bush said.

He added that the Democrats are running an ad about a man from a Bush-supported Houston halfway house who murdered a minister’s wife. Bush asked, “What about their ad about the halfway house? Is that racism against Hispanics?”

“He is upset, not because it’s false but because he is weak on crime and defense. And that’s the inescapable truth,” Bush said at a campaign breakfast in Waterbury, Conn.

Later, at a rain-swept rally outside Portland City Hall in Maine, Bush was heckled by several hundred Dukakis supporters who chanted, “No More Lies.”

‘I’d Try to Yell Too’

“I don’t blame these people,” Bush said. “If I had a candidate like that, who went around the United States telling everybody how bad everything was, I’d try to yell a little bit, too.”

Dukakis said at a rally in Los Angeles that he--like the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers--was headed toward an upset victory in the Nov. 8 election.

“You know, Mark Twain once said that a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. Mr. Bush must have read Mark Twain, because he’s running a campaign based on distortions and distractions--and outright lies.

“Why? Because he can’t win an election where the real issues are discussed, the real challenges are faced, and the real differences are made known.”

Tax Credit Blasted

Dukakis renewed his criticism of Bush’s proposal for a capital gains tax credit, which Dukakis said would give Bush himself an annual tax break of $22,000.

“George Bush wants to give people like George Bush a tax break that’s more than the average California worker makes in a year,” Dukakis said.

Bush, on the other hand, said in a speech to a business group in Waterbury, “My opponent now wants to turn back, to clog up the circulatory system of America’s economy with exactly the kind of big government schemes the Europeans are discarding.”

Dukakis was spending the entire day in California, including stops in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Republican vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle was going to be accompanied by his mother, Corrine Quayle, during his first stop in Missouri. He was going on to Kentucky.