Bush Greeted by Applause--and Challenges

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. —  As George Bush grinds his way to the election now four days away, he revels in the wild enthusiasm of the crowds he encounters and in results from some polls indicating that the race is tightening.

The President was pumped up, giddy and even giggling at one point Thursday as he struggled inexplicably to keep a straight face while attacking Democratic nominee Bill Clinton’s draft record. He referred to the Democratic ticket as “two bozos” and scorned the “faithless Republicans and faithless Democrats who wrote me off two months ago.”

But then, every once in a while, he runs smack into reality--that cold shower of a sharp-edged question from a would-be voter, reminding him that in what he calls this “weird” election year, it has become socially acceptable to use the President of the United States as a verbal punching bag.

He spent an hour chatting up viewers of CBS’ “This Morning”--and appreciatively sighed when a woman caller from Blue Bell, Pa., told him: “I want to say how much respect you have here.”

But then came the cold water: A questioner demanded to know why Bush’s own character shouldn’t be called into question, citing the President’s change-of-position on abortion rights, his new support for military weapons programs he once shunned and his boost of agriculture subsidies, despite having criticized European governments for price supports.

Bush said his views on abortion had evolved over the years--he supported abortion rights until 1980, when Ronald Reagan chose him as his running mate. Compromise over military programs was necessary to work with Congress, Bush said, and the agriculture subsidies were necessary to persuade Europe to drop its own farm aid. But the question brought back into focus the scrutiny the voters are giving the candidates--and the skepticism they have brought to the presidential campaign.

In the final days of Bush’s reelection drive it is just such questions that bring reminders of the political reality that has stalked him for months: He has trailed Clinton in the polls throughout a general election campaign shaped by the sour economy and the equally sour mood among voters.

While some polls--those of The Times and the Washington Post among them--have found Clinton hanging on to a roughly 10-point lead among likely voters, others, including CNN’s daily survey, picture the race as much closer, down to a 3-point margin.

Suddenly the Bush effort has come together: Crowds are flocking to arenas, and a hard-charging, determined President is responding, spicing his comments with the sort of Bush-isms that send grammarians and other lovers of the English language into fits. His staff is argumentatively citing the more favorable public opinion surveys and insisting that regardless of earlier polls--which the campaign disparaged--the country is primed for a Bush victory.

The President even made plans to compete for young voters in a setting that seems incongruous for a country and Western fan: MTV, the cable channel geared toward rock music. Bush will tape the segment Saturday while on a train trip through Wisconsin; it will air Sunday. Clinton and his running mate, Tennessee Sen. Al Gore, have appeared on MTV several times; the latest Times Poll showed the Democrats with strong support among those 18 to 29.

Bush’s focus Thursday was on the mostly white suburban neighborhoods that ring Detroit, and on the Republican enclave of Grand Rapids in western Michigan. Former President Gerald R. Ford, who represented the Grand Rapids area for 25 1/2 years in Congress, campaigned at his side. So did actor Bruce Willis.

At a rally on the banks of the Grand River, Bush heaped derision on Clinton’s “yuppie transition” and “the same old liberal crowd that was run out of business in 1980--they’re all measuring the drapes and getting the carpet ready.”

But the visit evoked memories of a race the Republicans don’t like to use as a parallel for the 1992 campaign: Ford’s 1976 race against another Democrat and son of the South, Jimmy Carter. That was the last presidential campaign a Republican lost. The margin was roughly 2%, or 2 million votes. And, like the current effort, it was directed by James A. Baker III, Bush’s chief of staff.

In Warren, Mich., the heart of Macomb County, Bush shouted his way through a rally in a gymnasium of the county community college.

The virtually all-white, and largely blue-collar, suburb northeast of Detroit is crucial to the President’s hopes for carrying Michigan’s 18 electoral votes--out of the 270 needed for election--on Tuesday. It is home to many so-called Reagan Democrats, who deserted their party in presidential elections over the last 12 years.

To a cheering, sign-waving throng arrayed before him on a basketball court, Bush said that between him and Clinton, “the differences are . . . night and day.”

“Listen to Gov. Clinton and Ozone Man,” Bush said, using his new name for Gore, who wrote a book on the environment. “This guy is so far off in the environmental extreme, we’ll be up to our neck in owls and out of work for every American. This guy’s crazy. He is way out, far out. Far out, man.”

The race, he says over and over, is about “experience, philosophy, and, yes, character, character.”

“My dog Millie knows more about foreign affairs than these two bozos,” Bush said. “It’s crazy.”

And, questioning Clinton’s potential judicial appointments, he said Clinton has made “a terrible threat--he says he wants to put Mary Cuomo, Mario Cuomo, on the Supreme Court.”

“You talk about disaster--that would be it,” Bush said of the prospects of the New York governor joining the high court.

Last June, Clinton cited Cuomo as someone who would be a “good Supreme Court justice,” but has said since then that he has made no decision about appointing him.

Michigan is one of the toss-up states that both campaigns consider important--more so for Bush in the face of difficult going in such states as California and New York. “Absolutely essential,” is the way the President put it.

Clinton is aware of that. While the President worked the crowd in Macomb County, the Democrat addressed a lunchtime rally about 15 miles away in downtown Detroit.