Bush Stumps for GOP in Virginia, N.J.

RICHMOND, Va. —  President Bush, stumping today for underdog GOP candidates for governor in Virginia and New Jersey, talked of everything but abortion, the lightning-rod issue in those and other off-year contests.

In a pair of campaign appearances for Republican J. Marshall Coleman, who trails Democrat Douglas Wilder--who would be the nation’s first elected black governor--Bush sounded themes familiar from his own presidential campaign.

He said Coleman would be the state’s best hope in dealing with crime, drugs, taxation, environment, education and a strong military. He even dusted off an issue that mired his 1988 campaign in controversy--prison parole procedures.

But even as the President campaigned on those issues, the divisive abortion question promised to figure in voters’ calculations at the polls on Tuesday.

Bush’s visit came a day after an anti-abortion group accused four TV stations of refusing to air its pro-Coleman ads. Also on Thursday, Wilder was confronted by angry hecklers who called him a “baby killer” for his pro-choice stand on abortion.

The abortion question also figured as an issue in the New Jersey governor’s contest. Bush was heading there later today to try to boost Republican Rep. Jim Courter’s long odds against Democratic Rep. James J. Florio.

In Richmond, Bush called Coleman “the right man to lead Virginia in the battle against drug abuse. The war on drugs isn’t a war of words. Anyone can talk tough--but talking tough doesn’t keep dealers off the street.”

In a speech in Norfolk, Bush said Coleman “understands that the Old Dominion doesn’t need old ideas--like the liberal creed which blames everyone except the criminal.”

“He wants the end of a hit-or-miss parole system that lets hardened drug dealers prey on society,” Bush said.