CAMPAIGN JOURNAL : Marilyn Quayle’s ‘Bruce!’ Is for Herschensohn

Marilyn Quayle came to California on Thursday and stumped the state on behalf of U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Herschensohn, whose sudden surge in the polls has made him a rare bright spot for the National Republican Party.

Standing under towering eucalyptus trees on the front steps of the 200-year-old San Luis Obispo de Tolosa mission, Quayle led supporters in chants of “Bruce! Bruce! Bruce!” and “Four more years!”

“And who says we counted California out?” Quayle proclaimed as the crowd waved red, white and blue Bush-Quayle signs and pictures of Herschensohn, the Republican candidate for the six-year Senate seat being vacated by Alan Cranston.

Quayle’s visit to California--one of very few being made these days by top Republican figures--came amid wishful speculation on the part of some GOP loyalists that the Herschensohn candidacy could help the national ticket in a sort of reverse-coattail effect. Most polls show President Bush trailing Democrat Bill Clinton in California by a large margin.

Herschensohn, a conservative former television commentator from Los Angeles, is running against Rep. Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from Marin County. Boxer was getting her own campaign lift Thursday from Clinton, who headlined a fund-raiser in Orange County.

Herschensohn strategists apparently thought the wife of Vice President Dan Quayle would appeal to the GOP right wing, which is Herschensohn’s base, and help bring in the money needed to sustain the candidate’s television advertising campaign. Herschensohn’s ads are seen as being key in his ability in the last month to whittle away at what was once a double-digit lead for Boxer.

“You saw the amount of people,” Herschensohn said when asked whether Marilyn Quayle’s presence would be a plus. “I just hate to admit this, but they’re not coming to see me. They’re coming to see Mrs. Quayle. Secondly, some of them pay some pretty good prices for those tickets.”

Quayle added: “If Bruce Herschensohn were not a very fine candidate, no matter how good I was, nobody would come and pay money to have lunch with me. . . . It’s kind of a mutual thing.”

In addition to the San Luis Obispo appearance, Quayle and Herschensohn campaigned in San Rafael, Lafayette and San Diego.

Quayle’s speech at the San Luis Obispo mission was standard Republican fare--lots of Democrat-bashing and steady attacks on Bill Clinton, whom Quayle called “a Jimmy Carter with blow-dried hair.” And she warned against the big-spending big government that Republicans believe Clinton represents.

“You have a President you can trust,” she told the crowd. “With so few role models for our children, don’t you want a President who respects all people in his public life and his personal life?”

Earlier, Quayle and Herschensohn spoke to about 200 area Republicans at a standing-room-only luncheon in a San Luis Obispo hotel. Six posters of Herschensohn lined the wall of the Central Ballroom, where Quayle called on the gathering of business executives to help elect Herschensohn “restore some sanity” to Washington and the U.S. Senate.

Some of the women wore buttons saying, “Politically Incorrect--and Proud of It.” Bumper stickers in the parking lot said things like, “I Love Babies--the Born AND Unborn.”

Asked about her husband’s race, Quayle said: “I believe the Weekly Reader poll”--the survey of youngsters that gave President Bush a 59% vote of confidence. “They’ve never been wrong.”