Democrats Would Cripple Defense, Economy at Same Time, Bush Says : Campaign: The President seeks to appeal to California voters on a political trip expected to raise $2 million for his reelection effort.

President Bush aimed a new appeal at California voters Tuesday as he warned a state heavily dependent on the defense industry against a “Democratic double play” that he said would “cripple our defenses and the economy all at the same time.”

He also issued a plan for U.S.-Mexico border cleanup and argued that a free-trade agreement between the countries would improve, not harm, the environment.

The backing for defense and testimonials to growth and the environment marked clear attempts to push key issues in a state where the depth of economic trouble is matched by environmental concern.

What Bush unveiled in presenting the joint U.S.-Mexico blueprint was for the most part a recitation of previously announced environmental initiatives that will cost the two nations about $1 billion over the next three years.

But with his campaign in California facing signs of deep trouble, Bush used his visit to give new prominence to the plan and its conclusion that an Administration-backed North American Free Trade Agreement would benefit the economy and the environment.

Bush arrived in Los Angeles on the second stop of a one-day California swing. His immediate purpose was fund raising, with two events--a $1,000-a-plate luncheon in San Francisco and a dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles--expected to raise $2 million.

But, as he began a six-day cross-country tour, his more important mission appeared to be fence-mending. He seeks, in the words of one senior White House official, “to restore credibility.”

In a stop emblematic of these woes, Bush and his wife, Barbara, paused Tuesday afternoon at the Bel-Air home of former President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, for a 20-minute visit. The Reagans attended neither Bush fund-raiser.

Reporters and White House staff were kept outside, and White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater would say nothing about the private meeting.

Although Reagan has endorsed Bush, the Washington Post reported Tuesday that he told friends that his former vice president faces difficulties because “he doesn’t seem to stand for anything.”

A spokeswoman for the Reagans said later that anyone who has been close to the former President “knows he has not and would not make that statement.” She also said the Reagans could not attend the Bush dinner because of a previous engagement.

Earlier, aboard Air Force One on the way to the state, Bush insisted that his campaign would ultimately do “all right” in California, despite polls showing new declines in his standing and the report that even Reagan regarded his successor’s message as hollow.

But he acknowledged that “the economy” has hurt his standing and echoed an “I care” message he used in last week’s New Hampshire primary: “I think people are hurting” in California.

Bush won a less-than-wholehearted response Tuesday night from campaign contributors at the Century Plaza Hotel, however, with much of the audience bolting for ballroom doors the moment the President finished his speech, while Bush was still on the podium.

On a day when his campaign released a bluntly negative television commercial in the South using a retired Marine Corps general to lash out at his conservative challenger, Patrick J. Buchanan, Bush himself shied away from direct criticism of his rival.

As part of what campaign officials described as a two-pronged approach aimed toward the March 10 Super Tuesday primaries, Bush was to leave such “dirty work” to campaign surrogates as he seeks to rebuild his own base of support.

Aides described the strategy as a careful balancing act in which Bush must present an answer to Buchanan’s attack without alienating conservative Republicans on whom he must count in November.

On Tuesday, for example, Chief of Staff Samuel K. Skinner was quoted in the Washington Times as suggesting that Buchanan is anti-Semitic. In the past, Vice President Dan Quayle and other officials have defended Buchanan.

“I think the Jewish community believes he is,” Skinner told the newspaper. “From everything I know, they’re the best ones to measure his record on that issue.”

Bush maintained a deliberately restrained demeanor. But he remained more than willing to turn the heat on congressional Democrats as he delivered campaign-style speeches at the two fund-raisers and found himself having to address a once-loyal constituency made anxious by his willingness to embrace deep defense cuts.

Warning that Democrats intend to open “a bidding war to see who can cut defense the fastest,” Bush conjured nightmarish visions of the havoc he said such an approach would wreak in California.

“Think of the shock waves that would touch off in the construction and electronics and aerospace industries, and the aftershock for real estate markets,” he said. “Think of the workers--from welders to engineers--thrown out of work and onto welfare.

“For the sake of national security, for the sake of just plain economic common sense, for the sake of California and the country, “I ask you to draw the line.”

In the television commercial featuring retired Gen. P. X. Kelley, which began airing Tuesday in Georgia, the retired Marine Corps commandant barks out his verdict on Buchanan:

“When Pat Buchanan opposed Desert Storm, it was a disappointment to all military people, a disappointment to all Americans who supported the Gulf War. And I took it personally.” Then a brief message crosses the screen: “Pat Buchanan. Wrong on Desert Storm. Wrong for America.”

Buchanan, meanwhile, struck back in his own way. He visited the graves of his Confederate ancestors in Okolona, Miss., telling people that it is time to “settle accounts with those Yankees up in Washington.”

Since mounting his challenge to Bush 11 weeks ago, Buchanan has drawn inspiration from the American Revolution by comparing Bush to King George III. On Tuesday, however, he changed wars.

In a visit to the grave site of a great-grandfather who fought for the Confederacy, Buchanan noted that he came from a long line of “secessionists and trouble-makers,” and suggested that his candidacy was a second Southern rebellion against the North.

Times staff writer Michael Ross in Mississippi contributed to this story.