Bush Ends Fishing Trip, Begins Casting for Perot Supporters

President Bush left his mountain trout stream Friday and returned to the political fray, beckoning to stranded supporters of Ross Perot and telling them, “I hear you and you’ve come across loud and clear.”

He said the “grass-roots fervor” of Perot supporters had transcended politics as usual.

“A vote was taken this spring and summer in America,” the President said at a barbecue. “No ballots were cast but a vote was taken. No polls opened, but a referendum took place nonetheless. Nobody won this election but politics lost . . . because it’s become increasingly irrelevant to the American people.”

Looking tanned and rested, after a week that took him from the Maine seacoast to the fishing camp of Secretary of State James A. Baker III, Bush stood on a farm wagon and said he wasn’t quite ready to launch his all-out campaign against Democratic nominee Bill Clinton.

“We are not quite into the one-on-one competitive mode yet,” he said. “I’m going to hold back a little bit until after the Republican convention and then we’re going after it.”

Bush saluted “the opposition” for running a good show at its convention in New York, which wound up Thursday at Madison Square Garden.

Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) told Bush he hadn’t missed a thing.

“While you have been out in the crisp air of the high country,” Simpson said, “we have been having our heads muddled by the hot air and vaporous gases emanating from Madison Square Garden.”

Despite Bush’s contention that he would wait until after the Republican convention next month, his accelerated campaign schedule began Friday.

He was to return to Washington on Saturday, and has speaking engagements Tuesday and Friday in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio.

From Wyoming, Bush flew to Salt Lake City to meet privately with leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then with local Republican leaders. The stop at Mormon Church headquarters is traditional in all presidential campaigns, even though the church does not endorse candidates.

Bush returned to the public eye amid widespread speculation about a shake-up in his campaign organization. The President refused in a news conference Thursday to quell whispers that Baker would again take charge, as he had in 1980 and 1988.

The president’s chief of staff, Samuel K. Skinner, and campaign manager Robert M. Teeter flew here Thursday night.

“The President said he wants the very best team that he can on the field and whatever the team is, that’s going to be,” Skinner said. “We’ve got a very tough race here and . . . we’ll do whatever is necessary.”