Bush Says New Economic Data Rebuts Clinton ‘Gloom, Doom’ : Campaign: President says 2.7% annual growth rate brings the promise of an American revival.

Taking heart from signs of an economic rebound, President Bush campaigned Tuesday with an air of vindication as he contended that the news carried a repudiation of Democratic nominee Bill Clinton’s message of “gloom and doom.”

“It pulls the rug right out from under Mr. Clinton, who’s been telling everyone how horrible everything is,” Bush said.

The President contended that the 2.7% annual growth rate in the third quarter brought the promise of an American revival that he has vowed to lead in a second term. The growth in the gross domestic product was almost twice as fast as most private analysts had forecast.

The unexpected good news, the first in months for a White House trapped in economic misery, spawned symptoms of hopefulness across the spectrum of the Bush camp. The President described himself as “bubbling,” and aides scrutinized polls to argue that Clinton’s lead in some cases appears less formidable among Americans regarded as most likely to vote.

Bush again promised new vigor if reelected in tackling the nation’s remaining economic woes. But he also hinted at how much he looks forward to putting his last reelection bid behind him. Touting the advantages of a leader who does not have politics on the horizon, he said: “No more campaigns; no more debates; thank God!”

With just six days to go before the election, the new glimmer of recovery could help Bush to reinforce his argument that the nation’s condition is not as dire as his critics believe and that it has no need for the kinds of cures that his rivals have offered.

But another indicator made public Tuesday by the Conference Board underscored the lack of consumer confidence that still typifies most Americans’ outlook. Bush aides said the bleak national mood might make it difficult for the President to benefit from signs of progress. The survey showed Americans’ outlook dropping in September to its lowest level since February.

Plotting a strategy designed to overcome Clinton’s lead in the final days of the campaign, Bush advisers laid plans for a television advertising blitz emphasizing the President’s second-term plans to accelerate economic gains.

At the same time, to shore up support from voters who might conclude that his chances of reelection had turned grim, Bush sounded a new protest against the “talking heads” he said had too quickly dismissed his reelection prospects.

Appearing on three live televised forums over the course of a lengthy campaign day, he cast himself as a candidate whose last-minute victory would “annoy the media” and confound Democrats who “keep telling us that everything is going to hell.”

Beginning with a half-hour interview on NBC’s “Today,” Bush acknowledged repeatedly that the nation’s overall economic health remained less than perfect. But he reminded viewers that the figures confirmed that the economy had grown for six straight quarters and drew a link between the pundits’ gloom and their prognostications about the election.

“These guys coming on (television) telling me I have no chance--the heck with that!” Bush told a statewide Kentucky audience from a studio in Paducah, Ky. “I don’t live by the polls.”

He was even more blunt in the morning interview on “Today.” “I can’t stand those people,” he said.

In that interview, Bush responded at length for the first time to independent candidate Ross Perot’s claims that Republican dirty tricks had forced him to suspend his campaign last July. Bush termed the incident “crazy” and called the Texas billionaire’s television advertising campaign “most unusual” and “a little bizarre.”

But aides despaired that the last days’ bitter exchanges between the two camps had been an unwelcome distraction to the President’s comeback bid, and Bush said he hoped to put the matter behind him.

He stressed that he still regards Clinton as his principal rival and called for renewed attention to news reports that officials working on the Arkansas governor’s behalf had sought to scuttle the U.S.-European trade talks that collapsed earlier this month.

The published accounts about the alleged interference have been based on anonymous sources, and Clinton has said they have no merit. Although carefully acknowledging his rival’s denials, Bush told an outdoor rally that brought perhaps 10,000 cheering supporters to a community college in Paducah that the “persistent reports” raised questions about the Democrat’s conduct.

The White House had sought for months to persuade Americans that the economy was better off than most people believe. From the moment he learned of the economic figures while being interviewed on “Today” from Des Moines, Bush wasted little time in calling attention to the news.

“If you think I’m happy, you’re right,” he told Bryant Gumbel. At a televised forum a few moments later, he noted that the United States was growing faster than Japan, Germany, England, France and Canada, and said: “It is the United States that is going to lead the world to a new prosperity. Mark it down.”

And as he wrapped up the day at an evening rally here in Kettering, Ohio, he urged a cheering crowd: “Let’s keep it growing by my plan, not by the Democrats’ plan.”

After what has sometimes seemed a nonstop streak of misfortune for Bush, the economic news was accompanied by further good luck. CNN chose to televise live an “Ask George Bush” session from Des Moines that was more a rally than a forum. Even Bush, a former college first baseman, cheerfully likened the friendly questions from supporters to pitches tossed in batting practice. “We clearly have a nice objective cross section of America,” he said.

And as news spread later that USA Today had narrowed its analysis of a Gallup Poll to study only “likely voters,” in the process narrowing Clinton’s polling lead to 6 percentage points, the President invited the newspaper’s correspondent aboard Air Force One for a rare interview.

In Kettering, Bush also maintained his insistence that Clinton’s lead in the polls would prove “no hill for a climber,” and he insisted during the NBC interview that he had given no thought to what he might do if he were to lose the election.

But his words suggested that he could willingly foresee a day when his life would no longer be governed by the demands of office and political advisers, and he might return at will to his vacation home in Kennebunkport, Me.

“Someday I won’t be President, and that day doesn’t worry me one single bit,” he said. “I’m going to get big in the grandchild business; I’m going to get big in the golf business. I’m going to tell my handlers, who will be gone, they’ll be vanished: ‘Don’t worry about it. If I want to be out on a boat whether there’s a war on or something else, I know what I’m doing and forget about it all.’

“But,” he stressed, “that’s going to be five years from now, not one.”