Democrats Wage ‘Class Warfare,’ Bush Charges : Politics: President emphasizes his ‘don’t blame me’ theme as he enters the final week of campaigning.

President Bush stepped up his “don’t blame me” campaign theme Monday, accusing Democrats of using “tax-the-rich, class warfare . . . garbage” in their congressional campaigns and insisting that voters “know I’m against taxes.”

At a brief press conference before leaving San Francisco and in a speech at a campaign rally at the Cowboy Hall of Fame here for this state’s GOP candidate for governor, Bush insisted that the tax increases that his top aides helped negotiate were “a ransom” that the Administration had to pay to obtain a budget agreement.

And he denounced “the Democrat Congress” that “turns its back on the American dream.”

Congress, he said in his speech here, has become “a House of Lords” unable to handle its work. “The American people deserve a new Congress,” he said, “this time a Republican Congress.” And the election next Tuesday, he said, should be “a referendum on the Democrats’ taxing and spending and class warfare. I mean, it’s absurd.”

The new, tougher attacks on the Democrats, which will be repeated again today in a speech Bush plans to make at a GOP campaign rally in Washington, are a preview of the lines Bush intends to emphasize over the next week of fast-paced electioneering as he tries to reverse a serious GOP slump in national polls.

Democrats, he charged, are using an “ugly” campaign of “class warfare” to advance their goals. Democratic rhetoric of “soaking the rich,” he said, is merely a cloak to mask plans to increase taxes on everyone.

And higher taxes, he said, are a “price for divided government” that would not have been necessary if Congress contained more Republicans.

In fact, however, during months of budget negotiations aimed at meeting Bush’s goal of reducing the deficit by $500 billion over the next five years, neither Bush nor Republicans in Congress ever offered a budget-reduction plan that would meet the goal without raising taxes.

As Sen. James A. McClure (R-Ida.) pointed out during Senate debate on the budget, Democrats have never been willing to call publicly for the taxes that would be needed to fund all the programs they prefer and Republicans have never been willing to propose politically unpopular spending cuts to avoid the tax increases they denounce.

When conservative Republicans in the House revolted against the deficit-cutting plan agreed to by Bush and the congressional leadership and tried to draft a package of their own without tax increases, they came up hundreds of billions of dollars short of the $500 billion target.

As Bush continues to refine the approach he will take on the road later this week, Republican strategists continue to comb polls to see which races are now close enough to require a presidential visit. The current list, released by the White House, confirms that several races Republicans were once confident of winning now appear to be close.

Bush, for example, plans to travel to Cincinnati to campaign for George Voinovich, the Republican running for governor there. Until recently, Voinovich was far ahead in polls, but his Democratic opponent has been rapidly making up ground with advertisements accusing Republicans of favoring the rich.

Similarly, Bush will travel to Minnesota to help Republican Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, whose reelection prospects are now in danger.

The President’s plans call also for a return over the weekend to California for more campaigning on behalf of Sen. Pete Wilson’s campaign for governor, as well as campaigning in Massachusetts, Florida, Iowa and Texas.

Meanwhile, Bush tried to quell reports of dissension within his White House, where Chief of Staff John H. Sununu and Richard G. Darman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, have been widely blamed for the political damage that Bush has suffered because of the chaos over the budget.

Bush insisted that he is not worried about sharp declines in his popularity, as reported in recent polls.

And, without being asked, he volunteered an endorsement of his staff. “I have never had more confidence in John Sununu, in Dick Darman, in (Treasury) Secretary (Nicholas F.) Brady,” Bush said, clearly stung by what he termed “mischievous, gossipy reporting” about tensions on the White House staff.

Talk of a staff shake-up “is just crazy,” Bush said.

Of the three, who were the Administration’s chief negotiators during the budget talks, only Brady, who is a longtime friend of Bush, has escaped widespread criticism within the Administration and on Capitol Hill.

Bush insisted that he is not interested in such “inside-the-Beltway bickering.” Nonetheless, he offered an unsolicited public defense of his aides.

His host here, gubernatorial candidate Bill Price, seemed to think that his guest from Washington needed some bucking up.

Oklahomans “are standing by you through thick and thin,” Price said. “George Bush on his worst day is a whole lot better than Michael Dukakis on his best day.”