Bush on a Break: Anything but Politics

For a man willing to talk substance in the most bizarre of settings, what was striking about President Bush’s four-day visit here was his determination to hew to the mundane.

Would the likely candidacy of H. Ross Perot cause him political trouble? Or did he think Bill Clinton would have more to fear from the Texas maverick?

A reporter wanted to know, but the President was on vacation and he was not going to answer. “No politics; strictly fitness,” Bush said as he huffed and puffed his way along the beach on an hourlong aerobic walk.

Not that Bush was silent. A man of many words, he maintained a steady patter on two such “power walks” over the weekend--about baseball, golf and Ranger, a rambunctious family dog.

In other seasons, Bush has held forth from the putting green about the state of the economy and the Soviet coup. Even last week, on a pre-dawn ramble through the cherry blossoms in the nation’s capital, he was all too willing to talk about Perot, Peru and Thomas Jefferson’s philosophy.

But, in what is already a tense and worrying election year, the 67-year-old President seemed unusually grateful for an Easter respite here.

He stayed indoors one chilly afternoon to organize his fishing rods, an aide said, and he finished reading “The Pelican Brief,” a new novel by John Grisham. Later, when he ventured outside as the weather warmed, politics was strictly off limits.

“No comment on them,” he answered once when asked about an AIDS activists’ demonstration taking place nearby. “Power walk. Nice try, though.”

On one of his walks, he was ready to indulge an autograph-seeker until a companion joked that the man might be carrying a petition to place Perot’s name on the ballot.

“Delicate matter!” Bush joked, but he was careful to dispatch an aide to inspect the document before he affixed his signature to it.

Bush has always referred to Kennebunkport as his “anchor,” and it is here--where he surrounds himself with golf clubs, tennis racquets, speedboats and other favorite toys--that his verb of choice is “recreate.”

But his vacation last summer turned tense in the wake of the coup in Moscow, and an ocean storm two months later knocked his home here off its foundations. Returning this weekend for his first overnight stay since then, he sounded almost wistful as he seized upon the simplest of pleasures.

He offered Easter greetings on what he said had been “a very special day” of services at a local church. Later, he headed for a golf course still closed to the public to practice his swing.

And, as he rushed up and down Parsons Beach between those outings, he paused now and then to throw sticks into the icy ocean for Ranger--son of the more famous Millie--to retrieve.

“You don’t know how much joy I get out of that dog,” Bush said of the young springer spaniel. “Comes over to the office to see me. . . . Always glad to see me. Just wonderful.”