Clinton Talks Tough on Bush Home Turf : Democrats: He campaigns in Texas on economy and trust. He also needles the President over the latter’s residency in the Lone Star State.

He talked tough, almost like a Texan. And most of his rhetoric was aimed squarely at the President who calls this vast state his adopted home--George Bush. As Bill Clinton sidled by bus across the eastern flank of Texas on Thursday, he did more than promise a “can do” presidency--he sought to exorcise the ghosts of fallen Democrats in a state that has not sided with his party in a presidential election since 1976.

On the first day of his bus caravan across the state, the Arkansas governor wielded two weapons with authority: the economy and trust--the character trait that the President contends should give him another four years in the White House. And he did it in a state buffeted by high unemployment, failed savings and loans, a downturn in the oil industry, defense cutbacks and lost manufacturing jobs.

During a boisterous send-off rally in San Antonio, Clinton worked in two barbs about Bush’s Texas residency. “I know, folks, I don’t have a hotel room in Houston,” he said. “I know I don’t have a plot of land no bigger than this stage to build my retirement home on. But I care more about people in Texas, the ordinary people and the problems they’ve got and the challenges before us.”

Campaign aides distributed a statement that pointedly stressed Bush is more interested in “fighting for the richest 1%” of Americans and has offered “no help for the middle class.”

“This Administration’s sole obsession is keeping taxes low on the wealthiest Americans,” Clinton told several thousand people assembled along the riverfront, adding that such an approach has not improved the nation’s economy. “We’re losing. We’re falling behind . . . because we’re in the grip of a failed economic theory that we’ve got to have the courage to change.” Later, before about 15,000 screaming fans on the lawn of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library at the University of Texas, Clinton oozed disdain for his Republican counterpart.

“He wanted it to be about trust,” Clinton said. “Here’s a guy who said, ‘Read my lips,’ who promised 15 million new jobs--he’s over 14 million short and 90% of those that were created were created in government, the thing he always rails against.

“He promised to be the environmental President, the education President, and he promised us a kinder and gentler country. He wants this race to be about trust?

“Let me tell you something, folks--unlike them, I trust you.”

Clinton was fighting for himself, of course, but in Texas, more so than the other big states where the two candidates are vying fiercely, he was also fighting against the past image of Democratic presidential nominees.

He made the point, in ways subtle and direct, that he was not like the others, not like Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, for example, who the Bush campaign ridiculed across Texas in 1988.

“I ask you from this front row to way back underneath that tree and that tree and in that tree, that this is a time of new beginnings,” he said.

“We have to go beyond the old politics of left versus right, of liberal versus conservative, to create a new America for a new world.”

Earlier, as he accepted the endorsement of a 12,000-member association of Texas law enforcement officers, Clinton exhorted them to fight back against expected attacks on him by Bush, Vice President Dan Quayle and assorted Republican operatives.

In Texas, he expects those assaults to center on his support for a waiting period before gun purchases--a gesture that is seen by many here as handcuffing the rights of gun-toting Texans.

“Like (Texas Sen.) Lloyd Bentsen and Ronald Reagan and unlike George Bush, I support the Brady Bill, the Clinton-Gore ticket does, and I want you to help us when they come after us in Texas,” he told law enforcement officers.

“I’ve been a hunter and a fisherman all my life. And I don’t appreciate all that hollow rhetoric when I stand up for the police officers of this country.

“I don’t like being accused of trying to take people’s guns away. That’s a bunch of bull. You stand up for me and I’ll fight for you.”

The endorsement immediately preceded the Austin rally, where Clinton was greeted by thousands who had stood in the hot sun for hours waiting for him to arrive.

Earlier, in San Antonio, Clinton juxtaposed his campaign proposals with Bush’s frequent vetoes to try to convince his listeners that he should be the next President.

“When I say we’ve got to invest money to put the American people to work, Bush and Quayle say that’s not a good idea,” Clinton said. “Well, they’ve got guaranteed jobs and they make pretty good money. When I say we ought to have health care, they say we can’t do it, and they’ve got government-financed health care. When I say we ought to have a program to deal with the homeless, they say we can’t do it, and they live in public housing.”

“We can do it,” Clinton said.

Times staff writer Edwin Chen contributed to this story.