Quayle Bashes Democrats, Buchanan on New Hampshire Trip : Politics: During quick campaign swing, he resurrects criticism of Jimmy Carter and compares President’s GOP rival to George McGovern.

For a moment here Saturday, as he appeared before the most exuberant crowd of the day, Vice President Dan Quayle could reach back into the past and snarl at the ghost of the last Democratic President.

“Remember a guy named Jimmy Carter?” he asked supporters gathered at a senior citizens center. “You see what Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Congress did to us in the late 1970s? Weak. Impotent. Lost respect not only here at home, but around the world.”

President Bush, he added, “will keep America strong--economically, militarily--and we will maintain our position as the preeminent country in the world.”

But that blast from the past was the exception to the rule. For most of Saturday, as Quayle bounded through seven New Hampshire towns in as many hours, he was living in the present and finding it not nearly as comfortable.

What began as a whirlwind trip to rally supporters in the home of the nation’s first primary turned into equal parts bashing the Democrat-controlled Congress and reassuring nervous voters about the economy.

Several hundred residents gathered in the Milford High School auditorium for a session billed as “Ask Dan Quayle” peppered the vice president with questions that underscored the concerns of the state’s voters.

One man complained that he saw no benefit for him in Bush’s State of the Union address last week. Another bemoaned the condition of the public school system. A teacher compared Bush to a high school senior who turns on the afterburners his final year so that he can get into a good college--or, in the President’s case, a second term.

Quayle, making his second trip to New Hampshire in less than a month, argued in Milford and across the state that the Democrats in Congress are to blame for stalling the nation’s economy.

If the Democrats had passed the capital gains tax and other measures advocated by the President since his inauguration three years ago, Quayle contended, the economy would be in far better shape.

“Make sure that the message sent and the vote recorded on Feb. 18 is one to support the President in his battle against the Congress,” he said, echoing the theme the Administration has advanced all week.

“We know what the Congress is going to want to do,” Quayle told reporters a short time earlier. “They’re going to want to spend more, and they’re going to want to raise taxes. This President is not going to allow them to get away with it again.”

In his comments, Quayle appeared to be indirectly referring to the 1990 budget agreement under which Bush reversed his 1988 campaign pledge and agreed to raise taxes. That reversal angered conservatives and is one of the main reasons cited by conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan for his decision to challenge Bush in New Hampshire’s Republican primary.

Buchanan himself came in for a few digs from Quayle, who repeated his earlier contention that Bush will win the primary, the GOP nomination and the November election “hands down.”

At one point, Quayle compared Buchanan to the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George S. McGovern. While poles apart in political ideology, Buchanan and McGovern both campaigned on the notion that America should concentrate on domestic concerns and curtail its obligations abroad, Quayle said.

“Even some in our party say: ‘Oh, come home America,’ ” Quayle said. “George McGovern advanced that campaign theme in 1972. . . . Well, it wasn’t right to say it in 1972, and it’s not right to say in 1992.”

Much of the day was characterized by the hand-shaking, baby-hugging, person-to-person campaigning on which this state prides itself. Accompanied by an entourage that included John H. Sununu, former Bush White House chief of staff and onetime New Hampshire governor, Quayle dropped by a shopping mall, a town hall and a churchyard to greet supporters who had waited in the bitter cold for him.

In Amherst, Quayle came across the kind of remark that often was directed at him during the 1988 campaign and which his aides have hoped would become less frequent as he seeks to adopt a more statesman-like presence.

“Oh, he is good looking, isn’t he?” said Kathy Emmett, a Bush supporter who showed up at the picturesque red brick town hall to shake hands with Quayle.

Emmett said that while she is frustrated with the state’s economic condition, she still intends to vote for the Bush/Quayle ticket. But her children, she said, plan to vote for Buchanan.

“They like to support the newcomer who’s going to fix it all,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s their way of making a statement, showing concern.”