Quayle Stresses Local Issues in California Tour

Knocking on freshly cut wood planks in a timber mill, handing out chocolate chip cookies in a crowded supermarket and announcing a $9.5-million grant to eradicate fruit flies while standing in an orange grove, Vice President Dan Quayle immersed himself in campaigning in California for a second term this week.

Quayle’s four-day visit, which began Wednesday, was his 19th to the state as vice president. At each stop in a series of small- and medium-sized cities, he highlighted key local issues that could reap dividends at the ballot box--timber industry jobs in Redding, fruit flies in Fresno.

“California produces more than one-half of the nation’s fruit and one-third of its vegetables,” Quayle said Thursday. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture (is) committed to ensuring California remains free of exotic fruit flies that could damage its productive agricultural base.”

The fruit fly grant, which was also announced in Washington, is merely procedural, allowing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to share costs about equally with the California Department of Food and Agriculture in conducting continuing fruit fly eradication projects, officials said.

“It’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds,” said Gera Curry, a spokesman for the state agency. “It’s routine.”

Beyond the carefully staged photo opportunities, Quayle delivered a message about the persistent recession and its potential impact on President Bush. “People are frustrated, they are concerned about their economic security,” he said. “But I am convinced the President will turn it around.”

In each city, Quayle insisted that the economy will improve--and, with it, the President’s plummeting popularity ratings.

“I wish I could say with exact certainty . . . that the economy is going to turn around starting right now,” he said. “I don’t know.”

But he said that Bush’s State of the Union speech Jan. 28 will help when the President unveils his economic recovery package. Bush will renew his call for a capital gains tax cut and will outline health care reforms, Quayle said.

“The economy is not in a free fall,” he said. However, in New Hampshire on Wednesday, the President said it was. “I’ve known the economy is in free fall,” Bush said. “I hope I’ve known it. Maybe I haven’t conveyed it as well as I should.”

Quayle visited the Redding timber mill Wednesday and questioned the human cost of protecting the threatened northern spotted owl. Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated 6.88 million acres of old-growth forest in Washington, Oregon and Northern California as habitat critical to the creature’s survival. The action, which will restrict logging on the land, is subject to review by the Interior Department. Fish and Wildlife estimates that 33,000 jobs will be lost.

The vice president met with California logging executives, then vowed to help. “We’re talking about families, we’re talking about jobs, we’re talking about communities, we’re talking about survival,” Quayle said.

He offered no specifics, however, saying that the Administration will employ a “solid approach” to save jobs while refusing to do an “end run” around the Endangered Species Act.

“How?” several Northern California reporters asked in unison.

“Both,” the vice president replied, adding that with proper “management, good sense, cooperation, coordination and balance, you can do it.”

Quayle also alluded to his future, which could include a bid for the White House in 1996. He said his image has been boosted by a recent Washington Post series about him--which depicted him as an underestimated, if less than brilliant, public official.

“No serious journalist can ever again write the Jay Leno caricature (of me),” he said in an interview aboard Air Force II.

Judging from the questions asked by some reporters he encountered, that seemed to be true. After Quayle lunched with Gov. Pete Wilson in Sacramento, Capitol correspondents asked him if he expected a face-off with Wilson for the 1996 presidential nomination. Later, in Fresno, TV interviewers asked him a variation on the same theme--whether he expects to run against Secretary of State James A. Baker III for the 1996 nomination.

“You all are way, way ahead of the curve here,” the vice president protested. “We’ve got to get through 1992.”

But Quayle’s protests were accompanied by a broad smile.

Despite Quayle’s reluctance to predict his political future, he did have a forecast about his chances on the fairway Saturday. The vice president, an avid golfer, is scheduled to play with Bob Hope, Gerald R. Ford and PGA champion John Daly at the Hope Classic in Bermuda Dunes, near Palm Springs.

“I will out-drive two of the three,” he declared.