In Final Day, Quayle Praises Bush’s Record : Campaign: He lauds the President’s role in Desert Storm and says the Administration has brought the economy to the beginning of recovery.

Vice President Dan Quayle, long the battering-ram of the Republican ticket, set harsh rhetoric aside on his final day on the stump to praise President Bush’s record and promise a better next term.

In a six-city Midwestern swing, Quayle dropped his standard charges about Gov. Bill Clinton’s draft record and hints about Clinton’s infidelity. He didn’t mention the Democrat’s name once.

Instead, he warmly praised Bush’s record in foreign and domestic policy, and attributes as a leader. Revisiting again Bush’s role in Operation Desert Storm, Quayle told a crowd of several hundred at a Columbus Airport hangar that Bush “knew how to unite the world. He is a leader. He is a great President. And he’s going to be our President for four more years.”

Quayle urged voters to stick with an Administration that had brought the end of the Cold War, and had brought the economy to the beginning of a recovery.

“We don’t want to change the direction that this country is going because we are out of the recession and into the recovery,” Quayle said. “We don’t want to change the fact that we have won the Cold War and now with the new Congress we can win the domestic war.”

Quayle’s press secretary said the shift in tone was intentional.

“We’re going positive today,” said David Beckwith. “He wants to leave people with a positive impression of what we’ll be doing in the second term.

“The doubts are out there about Clinton,” he added.

For most of the campaign year, Quayle has played the role of roundhouse-punching presidential surrogate, attacking the Democrats on their values and spending habits and trying to raise doubts about the opposition’s character.

Only Sunday, Quayle came as close as he has to bringing up the accusations of Clinton’s infidelity by suggesting the country needed a president who was “faithful to his family.”

But Quayle has stopped short of the simple name-calling that Bush turned to last Thursday, when he called the Clinton-Gore ticket “bozos” and “crazies.” Quayle aides said they saw no advantage in such an approach.

Quayle, who has been in a consistently buoyant mood since his vice presidential debate with Sen. Al Gore two weeks ago, was cheerful again Monday despite polls showing that Clinton’s lead might be again widening.

Early Monday, Quayle ventured into the rear of Air Force Two to joke with reporters that he had reserved his most effective campaign lines for the swing through Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.

“I saved it all for today,” he said. “My lines in the speech are going to put us over.”

Quayle’s final day on the stump did not turn out overwhelming crowds. In Tennessee, 1,000 showed up to see Quayle, U.S. Education Secretary Lamar Alexander, former Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. and former Sen. William E. Brock III.

Quayle’s appearance in Columbus, Ohio, brought 500 to a damp hangar, where his appearance was hailed with a rendition of Richard Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” As the opening theme ended, the hangar door swung open and the crowd saw Quayle descending from the aircraft.

In Saginaw, Mich., 300 showed up, including a knot of protesters, who identified themselves as Republicans for Clinton.

But Monday evening a home-state crowd of about 2,000 greeted Quayle in Ft. Wayne.

Today, in his home town of Huntington, Ind., the vice president plans to visit his dentist, with dozens of reporters and photographers in tow, before going to the polls. He has routinely made Election Day visits to Dr. John E. Regan because of his suspicion that seeing Regan in 1976, 1978 and 1980 had brought victories, Quayle said.

But if Quayle was upbeat, or at least serene, about his chances, his staff seemed less eager to predict the outcome of Tuesday’s balloting. None would take part in a $5 Election Day pool begun by the press corps.

One aide, asked how the staff intended to work for a Bush-Quayle victory on the campaign’s last day, said, “Pray.”