Perot’s Shadow Dims Bush Visit to GOP Bastion

President Bush, touching crucial political bases in Southern California, offered help Friday for the defense industry and met privately with strategists who gave him a dose of campaign reality one day after Ross Perot demonstrated a strong personal appeal in Orange County.

Tracking over the same territory worked by Perot, Bush drew mixed reviews at his only semi-public event: a luncheon sponsored by the Industrial League of Orange County, a business organization, at the Hyatt Regency Irvine. Perot attracted 5,000 fervent supporters to a rally at the Lion Country Center on Thursday.

In a region that in the past has turned out enthusiastically to help deliver California to Republican presidential candidates, the business group was warm but not ecstatic toward the President.

“I was expecting a lot of rah-rah and hoopla today, and I didn’t hear that,” said Ed McGraw of Brea, whose company distributes cabinet-making hardware.

The attention Perot has drawn has made a sharp impact on the Bush team in California.

“Clearly, (Perot has) got some momentum going. All the old rules are out the window,” Jack Flanagan, chairman of the Bush reelection drive in the state, told reporters.

In a departure from what had otherwise been a stealthy, low-key visit--a rarity for the President who more often engages in a whirlwind of highly visible stops--Bush drew a swarm of sunbathers and other beach visitors at a late-afternoon visit to Corona del Mar Main Beach.

As the President walked to the water’s edge wearing light blue shorts and a white polo shirt, he attracted a crowd of about 300 gawkers and cheering well-wishers who impeded his trip back to his motorcade.

“I thought we’d get in a little swim, but there is too much commotion out there,” said Bush, whose Secret Service escort became concerned about everyone’s safety.

Before officers hurried him back to his limousine, the President shook hands with beach-goers, held a few babies and was hugged by a little girl. Except for a woman who said, “President Bush, my son needs a job,” the encounter with the public was cordial.

“People loved it, and he loved it,” said Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) who accompanied Bush to Corona del Mar and then on to Lincoln Elementary School for a jog.

However, Cox said, “The President has no illusion about the job that needs to be done. He reminded campaign volunteers that at this time in 1988 he was 18 points behind the tank driver,” a reference to former Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis’ ill-fated ride in an Army tank.

Bush, who flew from Northern California to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station on Thursday night, spent a good portion of the afternoon meeting privately with more than 100 Orange County business and Republican leaders, as well as a group of campaign volunteers from across Southern California.

They warned him, according to one campaign source, that “it’s going to be tough, it’s going to take a lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of energy” to overcome the twin challenges posed by Perot’s as-yet-undeclared presidential campaign as an independent and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

“We are in a very difficult time politically and economically. The public is frustrated and wants some sign of improvement. They want some sense of hope,” said state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) after the meeting, which she described as “upbeat.”

Christine Diemer, a GOP activist and director of the Orange County chapter of the Building Industry Assn., said that a considerable number of local business people empathize with Perot. But it is uncertain whether that will translate into support for him at the polls in November, she said.

Rena Godshall, president of the California Republican Assembly of Corona del Mar, a conservative arm of the state Republican Party, urged the President to unleash his attack on Perot. Bush has said he would hold off until mid-August when he is formally nominated for a second term by the Republican National Convention.

“We want him to attack. . . . We want him to take some of (Perot’s) statements and expose him,” Godshall said.

In Orange County, Perot’s supporters claim to have gathered 156,181 signatures on petitions to put their would-be candidate’s name on the presidential ballot in November--about 15,000 people less than the vote Bush received in the Republican primary on June 2.

A Times poll of Orange County residents conducted by Mark Baldassare & Associates in mid-May, moreover, found Perot leading Bush, 42% to 36%, with Clinton at 16%.

In his speech to the business group, Bush disclosed he would lift government regulations that require defense companies to pay the government a fee on the sale to non-government purchasers of products and technologies developed under government contracts.

The decision is intended to make it more profitable for defense industries to convert operations to non-military production in the post-Cold War era. But, in its presentation during a presidential visit to a community in which defense spending cuts have helped cripple the local economy, it reflects a practice pursued by the White House in which Bush delivers various forms of economic assistance during his travels around the country.

“These fees hurt American workers by making it more difficult for them to compete for business here and abroad,” Bush said. “And given the historic changes we’ve seen during the last year, this burden is no longer justified.”

Bush acknowledged that in California, “it’s been a tough time.”

“As the Defense Department downsizes, you face adapting from a military to a competitive civilian market. It’s tough for companies and employees,” he said.

The President, who sought to create an upbeat mood, denounced unnamed “pessimists in this political year telling us what is wrong with the United States of America.” And, as if to say “the glass is half-full, not half-empty,” told the business group that the shift from defense-oriented production “puts Orange County back in the business of job creation.”

Bush said Orange County had demonstrated “astounding innovation” by turning technologies developed with military funding during the Cold War to peaceful commercial purposes.

He cited Hughes Aircraft for applying a military positioning satellite system to control shipping traffic in coastal waters, McDonnell Douglas for using “Star Wars” technology to reduce the cost of launching commercial spacecraft into orbit and Rockwell International for using high-tech military know-how to “give us smart cars and smart freeways and breaking gridlock on our highways.”

Campaigning in an area in which--like much if not all of the nation--the economy and confidence in the future of the country has far eclipsed foreign policy as a matter of chief concern among voters, Bush over the past two days has made little effort to build a case for his reelection on the fall of Communism and what he called “the new breeze of freedom that has swept the entire globe.” He made only passing reference to the agreement he reached with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin to dramatically scale down the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.

And, even as he spoke of the trend toward converting defense industries to civilian commercial production, he said that although “the Cold War is over . . . we still need a strong deterrent,” citing threats posed “by global instabilities, by terrorists, by renegade regimes looking to get control of sophisticated weapons.”

The President began his campaign day by holding separate meetings with Latino and Asian journalism groups at his hotel.

He assured the Latino journalists that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this week upholding the kidnaping of a Mexican doctor orchestrated by U.S. officials would not result in a snatching spree in other countries.

But the President stopped short of guaranteeing that incidents similar to the 1990 kidnaping of Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain, a Guadalajara gynecologist accused in the murder and torture of an American drug agent in Mexico, would not happen again.

“I’ve got to be careful that I don’t condone in any way what this person was accused of,” Bush said during a question-and-answer session with eight Latino reporters. “To sit there and watch an American be tortured . . . I’m sorry, this President finds that most offensive.”

Bush will speak today in Universal City before returning to Washington by way of Dallas.

Times staff writers Sonni Efron and George Ramos contributed to this story.