Quayle Demands Clinton Apologize for Waters’ Attack on Bush

Vice President Dan Quayle demanded Thursday that Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton publicly apologize because his California campaign co-chairwoman, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), called President Bush a “racist.”

Quayle issued his demand when, during a campaign stop in this small Ohio town, he was asked about a recent personal attack on Clinton by one of Bush’s top campaign aides. Quayle sought to turn the tables on the question.

“If you want to talk about negative campaigning, look at what one of the co-chairmen of Bill Clinton’s California campaign said about George Bush,” Quayle told reporters at a rally. “She called George Bush a racist . . . calling him a racist is totally unacceptable, and Bill Clinton ought to apologize.”

Quayle’s demand was quickly rejected by the Clinton campaign.

“Why should he?” Clinton spokeswoman Avis LaVelle said. “Bill Clinton is not the parent or guardian of Maxine Waters. She spoke her mind. That is her right in a democratic society. If Mr. Quayle wants an apology, he should go to the source of the remark.”

Waters made the comment at the National Press Club in Washington in early July, charging that Bush “is a mean-spirited man who has no care or concern about what happens to the African-American community in this country.”

Quayle’s apology demand marked the second time this week the Republicans have sought to bring Waters’ words into the campaign. Her blast at Bush was mentioned in a blistering anti-Clinton press release issued Sunday by GOP campaign aide Mary Matalin.

As Quayle stumped through several small Ohio towns Thursday, he echoed a Republican attack line of the day that focused on a phrase Clinton used in his acceptance speech at last month’s Democratic Convention.

Quayle ridiculed Clinton’s call for a “new covenant” between Americans and their government as a “new cover-up for the failed liberalism of the past.”

Bush used similar language during campaign appearances in the West.

Although the vice president vowed to “leave personalities aside,” he again and again used “slick” to describe the Democrats--employing a term likely to remind many in his audiences of Clinton’s derisive nickname, “Slick Willie.”

“I think it was a very slick convention (the Democrats) had in New York City,” he said. “I think it was a very slick bus tour (Clinton and his running mate, Tennessee Sen. Al Gore) had in this state and others. I, for one, think the American people need to be wary of slick politicians promising everything but not being specific.”

Quayle said the Democrats have been trying to clothe themselves in the Republican rhetoric about family values. But, he said, “don’t buy that idea that the Democrats are just like us.

“We have different ideas,” he said. “They’re talking about raising taxes, we’re talking about cutting taxes.”

Quayle also took off after Congress, calling for term limitations for federal legislators.

“If it’s good for the nation to limit Ronald Reagan to two terms, if it’s good for the nation to limit George Bush to two terms, then it’s certainly great for the nation to begin to limit the terms of Congress,” he said.

Quayle was met by large, enthusiastic crowds throughout the day. His rally in Hanoverton drew a crowd of several thousand to a village of 500 residents that has not seen a President or vice president since the turn of the century, when President William McKinley owned a home about six miles away.

Times staff writer Paul Houston contributed to this story.