Bus Tour Has Everything but the Roadies

Hustle up the steps. Take a seat. The engine is running on the Asphalt Express.

In a throwback to campaigns of old--GOP vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp has been doing California by bus. He has rumbled through the countryside. He has waved out the window. He has jumped out of his shiny luxury coach to pump the hands of voters.

But with just a few days left until the election and the Republicans hanging all their hopes on the Golden State, Kemp has also learned anew that it is no easy task to campaign through a far-flung state like California on the road.

Bus tours may sound quaint to the campaign professionals hunkered down in war rooms back in Washington. After all, it’s the technique that helped elect President Clinton, who has since moved on to trains. But busing through a state that is 780 miles from tip to tip requires a candidate to improvise along the way.

Kemp’s California Victory Express “bus” tour has actually been a combination bus, plane and limousine tour--the only practical way to make it as far south as Anaheim and as far north as Redding in just three days.

Kemp and his road warriors have hit places such as Victorville, Fairfield, Ventura and Azusa, far from the sound stages of Hollywood and the halls of Sacramento. And in the process, they have found adventure at every turn. They have experienced dangerously high winds and unexpected rain, encountered a down-and-out prostitute, been cheered by four overeager frat boys and lost a network television crew in traffic. Their stops have included a jellybean factory, three colleges, a handful of town squares and a sprawling truck stop that reeked of diesel fuel.

*

Kemp’s motorcade was barreling across the Inland Empire at full speed the other day, with the California Highway Patrol running interference, when a staffer suddenly realized that the lone network television crew had been left behind.

Speaking frantically into their cuff-microphones, the campaign’s brain trust debated a profound question: Is a campaign event really a campaign event if no television crew is around to record it?

The answer, they agreed, is no.

So the motorcade--at least three buses, three vans, half a dozen Secret Service vehicles and two dozen California Highway Patrol cars and motorcycles--pulled to the side of the road. Eventually, after Kemp climbed down from the bus and threw a football with the security detail for a while, the misplaced crew was found.

Earlier, Mother Nature almost curbed the caravan as well. The Secret Service, concerned about the gusts of wind whipping through the San Bernardino Mountains, was prepared to move Kemp from his bus, the Asphalt Express, to a lower-to-the-ground limousine.

Luckily for all--including the reporters loaded onto separate buses labeled Road Kill 1 and 2--the winds died down in time.

Kemp is not traveling in a worn-out school bus with sticky floors and a musty scent in the air.

As far as buses go, Kemp is doing the state in style. The Asphalt Express, the same luxury coach Bob Dole used on his recent bus tour, has couches, a kitchen, a television and a VCR. Kemp could be a rock star in transit, complete with roadies.

*

Navigating the state’s highways is not the only obstacle. There is the question of just what groups to target in a region as diverse as California. Kemp, the only native Californian in the presidential race, clearly feels at home in the state he moved away from 30 years ago. He calls the state “a microcosm for America” and says it fits in perfectly with his message of economic prosperity for all.

Kemp strategists say there is no science to picking the places where the bus will stop. Once they choose a strategic target, all they want are large enthusiastic crowds and locations that produce compelling TV images.

There was already a large gathering at the truck stop in Ontario that Kemp visited Tuesday afternoon. The parking lot was loaded with big rigs. Kemp showed up with actress Bo Derek, who caused quite a stir in her own right.

At the lunch counter, Kemp fielded questions from the truckers, including an angry young man with a buzz-cut who asked the candidate whether he planned to stop the United Nations from buying up America’s national parks. Kemp, most diplomatically, said he had not heard of that plan; as he spoke, he missed the prostitute ambling amid the truckers and wearing denim shorts so skimpy they revealed her undergarments.

The truck stop visit made the front pages of the local papers, another big plus for bus tours. Giving local reporters exclusive interviews along the way leads to splashy coverage. In Apple Valley, one cable television reporter pulled out a football for Kemp to autograph after his interview. Five other reporters then sought Kemp’s signature as well.

At an evening rally at Azusa Pacific University, four young bare-chested men leaped to the stage when Kemp finished his remarks. On their torsos they had painted the letters K and E and M and P.

Clearly loving it, Kemp gave each of the overeager students a high five. And the strait-laced campaign strategists were just as giddy as the group on the stage. With television cameras capturing the action, the raucous rally was better, and cheaper, than any paid political ad.