Bush Makes Sharp Turns Along the Campaign Trail : Politics: The President launches fiery attacks on the Democrats, then softens his tone. He insists that he has had no ‘change of heart.’

Much as he is sending out dual messages on the Persian Gulf--determined not to yield an inch to Saddam Hussein but expressing the hope that not a shot is fired--President Bush is sending out multiple messages on the domestic political front as he winds up yet one more campaign.

At one moment he appears to step back from his angry attacks on Democrats; at another he charges into the fray by denouncing their “demagogic . . . soaking-the-rich” approach.

At stop after stop as the President made his way along the East Coast on Thursday and across the Midwest on Friday in the closing days of the congressional and gubernatorial election campaigns, it was much the same: All takers, be they Saddam Hussein or Democrats and Republicans, were offered the rose or the fist, take your pick.

Earlier this week, Bush railed against Democrats who would build campaigns around “tax-the-rich, class warfare . . . garbage.”

Since he used the line about “garbage” in Oklahoma City on Monday, he has--for the most part--not been nearly as tough on his party’s Democratic opponents. A change of heart?

“It’s not a change of heart,” he said. Rather, “I’d like to finish on a positive note in these campaigns.”

Besides, he said Thursday evening, “it’s a little early to say that there will be no more flamboyant rhetoric about the Democrats, because I’m absolutely convinced if we had more Republicans, things would be a lot better.”

So the message is mixed. No longer, Bush said at one stop, with dramatic anger creeping into his voice, will government programs be funded with red ink. Not after the budget compromise that was hammered out in a summer-and autumn-long game of chicken between Capitol Hill and the White House.

“I have the veto pen, and I will use it over and over and over again,” Bush declared, his volume rising and his left hand pounding the lectern--this time in Cincinnati--the first stop on a day that also took him to Rochester, Minn., and Sioux City, Iowa. He arrived in Thousand Oaks, Calif., on Friday night.

Willie Horton, the furloughed convicted murderer who Bush made a symbol in the 1988 presidential campaign, may be gone from the speech texts, but there are still daily reminders of the threat of street crime that the image of Horton had provided, with the President invariably making a link to “liberal Democrats” who opposed the anti-crime bill he supported.

“Handcuffs belong not on the cops and the courts; handcuffs belong on the criminals,” Bush said.

The problems that plagued the President’s campaign efforts two weeks ago at the height of the outcry over the final work on the 1991 budget have disappeared.

Unlike his tour of New England on Oct. 23, when one candidate for whom Bush was campaigning openly voiced his opposition to the President’s acceptance of a tax increase, and another found it more convenient not to appear on the same platform as Bush, the President has found no shortage of candidates willing to stand with him in public. Today, he is making his second appearance in a week with Sen. Pete Wilson, the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate, at a rally at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

In some recent public opinion surveys, those saying they approve of the way Bush is doing his job has fallen from an extraordinarily high rating in the mid-70% range to slightly below 50%. But Bush, an astute politician known to consult closely with his political advisers, professes to be taking the long view.

“I told you when things were soaring like eagles: ‘Don’t believe the polls.’ And I think now I’m entitled to say: ‘Hey, we’re going to come on back, don’t worry about it. They’ll be all right,’ ” he told a news conference on the first day of his six-day political journey, which is intended to lend the prestige of the presidency to candidates for offices ranging from state auditor to governor.