Bush, on Rebuilding Mission, Boasts of His Business Background

Which presidential candidate--or would-be candidate--bragged Thursday about his years in business and said this: “I wear the business as a badge of honor?”

If you said Ross Perot, you’d be wrong.

Now, which candidate said this:

“I don’t believe any bureau in Washington, or any department in Washington, has a monopoly on how we do things?”

If you said Bill Clinton, you’d be wrong again.

Meet George Bush, the would-be Washington outsider, one-time Texas oilman, running again for President.

In the parking lot of an oil-recycling plant, Evergreen Oil Co., in this East Bay community south of Oakland, Bush began a 46-hour visit to California, his third in six weeks. His mission on this first openly political trip to California is to begin rebuilding a base of support that has been eroded by Perot’s independent, still-undeclared campaign, and to begin countering Clinton’s push here.

It’s not easy for the President this year.

There’s Clinton, chatting up the potential voters 50 years younger than Bush on MTV, and blowing his saxophone on Arsenio Hall’s television talk show.

That’s not for this President.

“In a campaign year, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. And I am not going to be out there, kind of being a teeny-bopper at 68. I just can’t do it,” he said during a question-and-answer session, primarily with oil-plant employees.

There’s Perot, the billionaire Texas businessman, talking about how his years in business have taught him to get things done.

“Let me tell you this--thank God--I have not spent my whole life--I computed it the other day; 50% since I got out of college in business, starting a business, running a small business and doing stuff in business, and 50% in government,” Bush said. “I wear the business as a badge of honor because I think it gives me some feel for what it means to run something.”

Nor, he said, was it time to begin attacking his opponents--at least not directly, not by name.

Yes, he said--speaking with a Texas accent--with all the political winds a-coming, “there’s a hurricane (pronounced hurriken ) blowin’ out there.”

But, he said, “I’ve been here for, what, 30 minutes sitting on this stool, and you haven’t heard one negative comment against either of the two people who want my job.”

He vowed that come August, when he is nominated at the Republican National Convention, that will change. “I know how to fight, and I will not be their spear catcher for the rest of this year; I can tell you that.

“This is fun,” Bush said, baking in the sunshine of a cloudless day and swatting at questions about the homeless, about what the “education President” has done for education, and about how he would meet his campaign goals given the nation’s financial difficulties.

“Very good questions,” he told his audience. “You make Phil Donahue look like a piker out there.”

Bush said homelessness is primarily a state and local responsibility, and blamed a Congress “that is thinking old thoughts” for blocking many of his programs.

The President was greeted outside the plant by several dozen protesters, whose signs challenged his effort to demonstrate, as he said later, that he “identifies with the conservation ethic.”

“Bush: Join the world while it’s still here,” said one banner.

Later, he attended a private fund-raiser in Orinda. He plans to spend today in Irvine and Newport Beach.