Dukakis Doubles Effort-Bush Stays Confident : GOP Nominee Tries to Avoid Big Gaffes

Vice President George Bush, exuding confidence amid the distractions of turbulent national polls and a fluctuating campaign schedule, plunged ahead Saturday toward the finish line, drumming home a message of peace and prosperity as he stumped in the Northeast and in middle America.

Knocking on doors in Republican-leaning New Jersey, staging a rally in up-for-grabs Pennsylvania and walking the streets here, Bush focused on simply denying Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis the presidential prize by avoiding any large-scale gaffes that could provide the Democrats with an opening.

The Bush campaign, holding onto a lead in the polls, kept a close watch on Dukakis across half the nation, intent on muffling the governor’s message and undercutting any perceived Democratic momentum in key states.

“Small-town American values are a lot of what this election is about,” the Republican candidate shouted to the hundreds gathered here, under stormy dark skies in front of the fire station.

“Forty-eight hours from this minute our campaign will be in the midst of its last campaign event and I can hardly believe it.”

The vice president, although he continued to publicly contend that he was “running as though I was 10 points back,” throttled back the number of scheduled events he attended in an attempt to avoid mistakes borne of exhaustion.

And, in slightly hoarse but increasingly upbeat tones, he simplified his approach by hammering away on three messages: the Reagan Administration’s record, his own proposals and the “risk” he said would result from a Dukakis presidency.

Won’t Let Up

While he remained chipper about his chances, Bush exhorted Republicans to “take nothing for granted.”

“Going right down to the wire with the issue strongly in question,” he told campaign volunteers gathered at his headquarters in Clark, N.J.

Later, at Immaculata College in Malvern, Pa., Bush cited newly released federal statistics showing the unemployment rate at 5.2%, equaling a 14-year low, and an increase of 100,000 manufacturing jobs in October.

“Let’s keep this expansion going,” he said.

Bush cited some of his priorities--the environment, child care, arms control--and reinforced his conservative credentials by calling for prayer in schools and reiterating his opposition to abortion and gun control.

“I am on the side--in terms of values, economic policy, foreign policy--of the mainstream of Americans,” he said. “And I believe that my opponent is way out on the left.”

While national polls have offered the Bush campaign cause for worry, showing a tightening of the race as the election nears, campaign officials have continued to exhibit unruffled confidence.

A senior aide said that while polls showed the race to be closer in popular vote than a week ago, the vice president still holds an advantage in the Midwestern industrial states and in California, areas Dukakis must sweep to take the election.

Little Time for Big Things

Dukakis “has very little time to make a lot of things happen,” the aide said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the aide said that Bush officials had no clear notion why the margin between the two candidates had closed in recent days. Some national polls placed Dukakis within 7 points of Bush late last week, about half the margin seen days earlier.

But overnight tracking polls taken by the campaign showed a 9-point margin between the candidates, a senior aide said, matching a spread seen in tracking polls by CBS and CNN. A nationwide poll by Louis Harris & Associates conducted Wednesday through Friday, however, showed a margin of just 6 points.

In any case, the dynamics of this election still favor Bush. To reach the 270 electoral votes he would need for election, Dukakis will have to buck stiff odds to capture such states as Ohio, California, Michigan and Connecticut, which recent polls have placed in Bush’s tenuous hold.

Other states, such as Illinois and Pennsylvania, where polls show the race to be a tossup, would also have to go Dukakis’ way.

To forestall this, Bush campaign officials have been mixing up their candidate’s schedule with more frenzy than usual this weekend, following Dukakis on short notice into many of the emphasized states.

‘Tactical Flexibility’

A senior aide said the last-minute scheduling changes were part of a strategy of “tactical flexibility.”

Added another: “You bracket him (Dukakis), you checkmate him, you fuzz up his message by using his own language against him.”

“We’re going to see him down in Pennsylvania, we’re going to see him out in Colorado today, we’re going to see him in Peoria,” Bush told reporters when asked if he was shadowing the Democrat.

But the Bush campaign, although the vice president denied it, has also scaled back his appearances to get his message out with the least possible risk. A Saturday night rally in Colorado Springs was postponed until today--to shorten the campaign day--and that move forced cancellation of a Fresno rally that had been planned for this morning.

“I didn’t want to see the damned dancing raisins again,” Press Secretary Sheila Tate quoted Bush as joking about the cancellation. The dancing “California Raisins” showed up at a Sept. 14 Bush rally in Kingsburg in the Central Valley.

Bush is still scheduled to attend two California rallies today, one in Woodland Hills and the other in Covina, before flying back to the Midwest.

Bush, who possesses a well-known proclivity for mangling his syntax, appears even more prone to gaffes when tired.

Saturday or Sunday?

On Friday, Bush referred to the election as occurring on Nov. 4, four days early. On Saturday, asked in New Jersey to mark off the days remaining before the election on a map in his headquarters, he remarked: “Is this Saturday or Sunday? Wait, I’ve got to figure this out.”

At his Clark, N.J., headquarters, Bush received the endorsement of several Democratic council members and law enforcement officers and made a point of accenting the effect of crime on the poor.

“The most impoverished neighborhoods need support even more because they are unduly jumped upon by the criminal element,” Bush said.

Then, to illustrate his get-out-the-vote drive, Bush led his campaign entourage onto a tree-lined upper-middle-class block of two-story homes--which neighbors said cost about $250,000--in Westfield.

Bush and state dignitaries knocked on three doors, scurrying from one home to another in a drizzling rain as more than 100 reporters, Secret Service agents and staff members watched.