Impassioned Goodby : ‘Stand by Me,’ Reagan Urges State’s Voters

Making his last election eve appearance as an officeholder, President Reagan bid voters an impassioned farewell Monday, dedicating his long autumn campaign to his parents’ memory and urging crowds to “stand by me” in the voting booths.

He told listeners here that, although his name was not on today’s ballot, “something else is. A principle. A legacy.” He went on to declare that this was not the end of an era but rather a “time to refresh and strengthen the new beginning we started eight years ago.”

To be sure, Reagan bashed Democrats a bit, skewering Michael S. Dukakis for his record as Massachusetts governor and calling the presidential contest “a liberal campaign of unusual deception.” And both here and in Long Beach earlier, he stumped hard for local Republican candidates, declaring them to be as suitably conservative as Vice President George Bush.

But Reagan’s real appeal to voters was based on a nostalgic tour of his life, including memories of his deceased parents, Jack and Nelle, a ride on the Queen Mary and his movie career.

At the Queen Mary in Long Beach, the former actor recalled riding the ship to America from England 40 years ago, after filming a movie there, “The Hasty Heart.” He said he saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time, and “she was such a beautiful sight, how could I not say, ‘God Bless America?’ ”

The two appearances, filled with vintage Reagan stories, musings and corn that seem only to work for him, were the end of a long series of goodbys, made poignant by the fervor of the crowds and their unwillingness to accept this farewell as the end of Reagan’s era.

Chant Support

“Eight more years!” chanted 4,000 supporters at the Long Beach rally, held in a parking lot next to the Queen Mary.

Straining to get a view of the President as a band played “Hail to the Chief,” Violet Mgrdichian, a real estate broker from Whittier, waved, cheered and said: “I’ve never seen him, and it’s the last time I can see him as President. He’s a legend.”

The former California governor who became the nation’s chief executive got a good send-off at Long Beach. Just as he ended his speech, 11 World War II-era T-6 planes flew by in tight formation, fireboats spewed water in salute, fireworks exploded and a huge bunch of blue and white balloons sailed away.

Here, as the crowd chanted, “Ronnie! Ronnie!,” Joseph Sally, a retired city employee from El Cajon, reflected on Reagan’s two terms, saying, “you hate to see the change (in administrations) but he has served us very well.”

Although he has worked tirelessly to elect Bush, it has been clear that part of Reagan’s motivation has been to help a potential successor who would keep alive his own dreams, hopes and conservative ideals.

‘Our Legacy Endures’

“I have dedicated myself this autumn to making sure that all we’ve begun these past eight years continues,” Reagan told an outdoor crowd at the Concourse of the San Diego Convention and Performing Arts Center. He implored voters’ support “so that our principles survive, our legacy endures and our truth goes marching on.”

He said he was not campaigning just for the country, but for “two other people” as well. His eyes glistening in the misty afternoon, Reagan recalled how, during the Great Depression, his parents “could barely scrape by” but still fed hungry people at their door, how his father refused to stay in a hotel because it discriminated against “people of a certain faith.”

“A son of Jack and Nelle Reagan never walked away from a battle on principle,” Reagan said defiantly. “This year’s election is that kind of fight and, by darn, we’re going to win it.”

Reagan’s trip back to California, with its gold mine of 47 electoral votes, reflected Bush’s effort to win in a hotly contested and potentially crucial state.

Important Votes

Acknowledging this in his Long Beach speech, Reagan said the state’s votes “may be the most important ones cast in America.”

At the same time, Reagan portrayed his one-day round trip from Washington to California and back as part of a kind of symmetry, noting that he closed both his own presidential campaigns in San Diego.

” . . . Whenever I finish in San Diego,” he said, “I feel I’m with family, and I know I’m with friends.”

Ending his speech here with a passage that left some in the audience fighting back tears, Reagan, said: “So now we come to the end of this last campaign, and I just hope that Nelle and Jack are looking down on us right now and nodding their heads and saying their kid did them proud.”

Margaret Boyer was deeply moved. “You can’t help being touched by the sentimentality,” said Boyer, a bank employee. “It was touching. He reminds me of my grandfather,” said the 25-year-old. “More people should show these kinds of feelings.”

‘Stand by Me’

The 77-year-old President summed up his tenure in Washington and his new quest for a favorable rating in the history books. “The same thing I’m asking you, I’ve asked our country this year. Eight years ago, America said it’s time for a change. We are the change. Won’t you stand by the change, stand by the entire Republican ticket . . . and stand by me?”

Reagan said he could not remember another time when he flew to California and back in a single day, according to White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. He said Reagan will spend today in his White House residence watching election returns with “a few friends,” whom he declined to name.

Reagan, who cast an absentee ballot while in Santa Barbara recently, was asked by reporters in Long Beach whether he had a “hunch” about today’s outcome.

“I’m afraid to say what it is,” Reagan said. “I’m superstitious that way.”