Reagan Urges GOP Vote in ‘High Stakes’ Election

President Reagan, beginning his final week of campaigning for local and national GOP candidates, barnstormed his way East Tuesday, urging crowds in California and Nevada to get out and vote in next week’s “high stakes” election.

Reagan made stops in Fullerton and San Bernardino before arriving here en route to Milwaukee, attacking “liberals” and chiding the Democratic presidential nominee for announcing that he is one.

“You know, up until Sunday, the opposition objected to being called liberal,” Reagan told an airport rally here. “Not because it was false, but because it was true. Now they’ve come clean; they admit it. They’re liberals.”

Reagan launched into Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis and other Democrats with renewed vigor, criticizing their opposition to school prayer, capital punishment and “tough-minded judges.”

Instead, Reagan charged, “the liberal leadership” favors “a weak-kneed defense policy.” With obvious glee, and to the delight of the flag-waving crowd, he continued: “Their views can only be described by the dreaded L-word: liberal, liberal, liberal.”

The President, campaigning here for Sen. Chic Hecht, a staunch Reagan supporter running for reelection in a tight race against the state’s Democratic Gov. Richard H. Bryan, portrayed the GOP senator as a metaphor for his party: conservative and tough on crime.

‘Referendum on Liberalism’

Next week’s election will be a “referendum on liberalism,” Reagan declared, urging support of GOP candidates “from top to bottom.”

At a raucous gymnasium rally at Cal State Fullerton, Reagan said it was “disturbing” that so few young people bother to vote. He told the crowd of several thousand, mostly students, that “with so many years ahead, you have a big stake in the election” and asked them to “show up at the polls and vote” for Sen. Pete Wilson and other congressional candidates.

Demonstrators at the back of the gym heckled Reagan with chants of “We want Mike” and “Where was George?” Reagan responded that Dukakis’ supporters “can’t even find the right meeting. You know, if they’d shut up and listen, they’d learn where George Bush is. George Bush is on our side. That’s where George is.”

Appearing with Reagan at the university and later at a rally in San Bernardino’s National Orange Show Stadium, Gov. George Deukmejian urged the crowds to spend at least 10 hours in the next week persuading voters to vote.

Reagan, who seems enormously popular with the young people who turned out to hear him Tuesday, wove several automobile racing references into his speech at the stadium, where auto races are held.

Boosting Bush, he said: “I can’t think of a man alive today who’s more prepared to take a hold of America’s gearshift, rev up America’s engine and then downshift into America’s future than my good friend and valued colleague. . . .

“As we head into the final lap,” he said, “it’s time to push the pedal to the metal and shift into overdrive.”