Bush

Former U.S. President George Bush says his son, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, was “a rambunctious little guy” but that the leading Republican presidential contender never gave his parents cause to believe he used illegal drugs. “All this stuff about George’s totally irresponsible past, we never saw it,” Bush said in a television interview on the Fox News Channel program “The Edge With Paula Zahn.” “Barbara and I never saw this. We knew he had some problems that he faced up to, but no different than most kids,” the former president said. The younger Bush, 53, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, has been dogged by unsubstantiated rumors about his alleged use of cocaine in the past.

PORTLAND, Conn. — Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton on Tuesday pressed his charge that President Bush has mishandled the economy, using a manufacturing plant as his stage to lament the loss of blue-collar jobs and to flesh out a plan to resurrect the nation’s manufacturing base.

At the Standard-Knapp corporation here–and later at a rally outside an East Haven, Conn., restaurant–Clinton sought to place the blame squarely on the incumbent for the ebbing away of America’s once-stalwart manufacturing base.

“The percentage of our workers employed in the manufacturing sector has continued to decline,” despite productivity gains posted by many companies, Clinton told the Standard-Knapp workers, who assemble packaging machines.

He said, “Just in the last four years, we’ve lost 1.3 million manufacturing jobs.”

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed Tuesday that the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs has fallen by 1,388,000 since Bush took office in January, 1989, to 18,150,000. Total non-farm employment grew slightly over the same period, increasing 188,000 to a total of 108,517,000 as of last month, with most of the growth in government employment.

Clinton decried the lack of a coordinated national response to the manufacturing sector’s job decline.

“Unlike our competitors, this country has no national strategy, no comprehensive partnership between business and workers and education and government to create the kinds of high-wage, high-growth jobs in manufacturing that I think are critical to our future,” he said.

Clinton’s Tuesday campaign message was meant to build upon his Labor Day efforts to depict Bush as a man who has allied himself with the rich and powerful and has forgotten needy and working Americans.

As part of offering himself as an alternative, Clinton announced what he touted as a new manufacturing policy, which largely tied together proposals he has advanced throughout his presidential campaign.

One new element in the plan calls for establishment of 170 high-tech centers that would serve as incubators for new manufacturing ideas, which would then be shared with small- and medium-sized companies. The centers would be modeled after the agricultural extensions common in rural areas of the country.

Clinton said the centers would solve the “technological gaps” that plague smaller companies, as well as retrain the scientists and engineers previously employed in the dwindling defense industry.

“There are 200,000 unemployed defense workers, technicians, scientists and engineers in California alone today,” Clinton said. “And these people have all this incredible potential to add to our national wealth, but we don’t have a system for moving them from the defense sector into the non-defense sector. The extension centers will help to do this.”

Later, however, Clinton said only 25 of the centers would be “almost exclusively” dedicated to defense workers, and another 25 to the manufacturing industry. Also, it was unclear where they would be located.

In describing his plan, Clinton demonstrated the difficulty of trying to mount a campaign as a “new style” Democrat, who is focused on the technologies and jobs of the future, and still satisfy the desires of organized labor, which has come aboard his campaign vigorously and has provided a sizable portion of the crowds at many of his recent rallies.

For instance, Clinton suggested repeatedly Tuesday that the U.S. should mimic the approaches of its chief economic competitors.

“Everybody knows we’ve lost a lot of auto jobs in the last 10 years and we’ve lost a lot of steel jobs in the last 10 years,” Clinton said. “But if you look at the Germans and the Japanese . . . when they moved people out of automobiles, they moved into other manufacturing technologies with a future. When our people moved out of automobiles, they moved into the unemployment lines.”

At the same time, though, Clinton sought to show that he remains concerned about the plight of the more traditional businesses that organized labor is trying to salvage.

To that end, he scored Bush for staging a Labor Day campaign event that he suggested missed the point.

“Just yesterday, President Bush had a great photo (opportunity) walking across the bridge that connects Mackinac Island to the mainland of Michigan–a bridge that was built with steel from a mill that is closed in the last four years,” he said.

Ultimately, Clinton settled on mixing a stew of Republican and Democratic ideas for reviving the economy.

“We’ve got to get rid of regulations that don’t make sense,” said Clinton, echoing a line that has been standard in GOP rhetoric. Then he added a distinctly liberal element: “And we’ve got to permit our companies to join together . . . as long as it doesn’t affect their competitive pricing here at home.”

At the rally in East Haven, Clinton reiterated his belief that a combination of approaches is needed to solve the nation’s economic woes.

“A lot of the problems we face today don’t fall very neatly in categories of left and right and liberal and conservative and Republican and Democratic,” he said. “We are living in a post-Cold War world where we are fighting and competing for every dollar we get.”

In general, Clinton has pledged to use the U.S. tax code to benefit domestic businesses and has promised to transfer money saved in defense cutbacks to job-creating programs.

He argued Tuesday, as he has throughout the campaign, that existing tax codes propel many companies to set up operations outside the United States, stripping the nation of jobs as a consequence.

He won his only applause from the Standard-Knapp workers when he pledged to “copy our competitors” and put the heft of the government behind businesses.

“The tax system in America should work to benefit Americans without being protectionist,” Clinton said.

The Arkansas governor also promised to streamline export laws to help companies compete overseas and said he would bolster the export offices in U.S. embassies worldwide.

Overall, Clinton said, his plan would cost about $2 billion a year over five years, financed with money now spent on military research.

Today on the Trail . . .

Bill Clinton campaigns in Atlanta and Jacksonville, Fla.

President Bush campaigns in Norristown and Collegeville, Pa., and Middletown, N.J.

Vice President Dan Quayle attends a rally in San Diego and addresses a San Diego Rotary Club luncheon.

*

TELEVISION

Clinton is interviewed on WJXT’s “Florida talks to Clinton.” C-SPAN will air it live at 5 p.m. PDT.

Tennessee Sen. Al Gore is interviewed on CNN’s “Larry King Live” at 6 p.m. PDT.

Following a $1-billion-grossing, Oscar-winning smash could have left writer and director Jared Bush and director Byron Howard feeling like rabbits in the headlights, but they seem to have outfoxed the challenge. “Zootopia 2” has already stampeded past $1 billion to surpass its predecessor, and the awards nominations have just begun slithering in. But how did the sequel survive such high expectations, stay as socially relevant as the original and navigate the peril of too many cooks in the kitchen?

“Animation’s a team sport,” says Howard, referring to the sheer number of people who worked on the film over five years. “It’s 700 in the crew, but in this building, it’s about 1,000 and another 300 in Vancouver. So it’s everyone’s collective ideas, saying, ‘Here’s where we can do better.’ So everyone has skin in the game and they all want these movies to be great. It’s an emotional investment.”

The creative team screened “Zootopia 2” for all of Disney Animation multiple times in various stages of development. A feedback system enabled every employee to respond.

Bush says Disney regularly seeks internal reactions after screenings, “but we asked way more direct questions for this one, like at an audience preview. Then we shared that feedback, unfiltered, with the entire building. That allowed people to see that their feedback mattered because you could actually see ideas that came in [manifest] from screening to screening.”

Bush and Howard acknowledge that having that many collaborators keeps the inspiration flowing but also allows fragments of the colossal group brain to sneak into the film unnoticed. Even they aren’t sure where all the in-jokes are planted.

A “story jam” — reminiscent of a TV writers room — was just one of many avenues for collaboration in the making of “Zootopia 2.”

(Disney)

Like its predecessor, the sequel is packed with movie references and animal puns — “A Moose Bouche”; “Gnu Jersey” — and the directors are quick to spread the credit (or blame). “ ‘A Moose Bouche’ — we’ve gotten emails about that one,” says Howard. “Cory Loftis, our production designer, came up with it.”

There’s a “Star Wars” cantina bit, a soupçon of James Bond in the score at a fancy gala and dashes of Steven Spielberg in the camerawork. It’s easy to spot “Ratatouille” when an animal chef is revealed to have a rat under its hat, but Bush asserts there’s a second reference in that moment — the animal declaring “I knew it!” isn’t just any raccoon, but “Raccacoonie” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” That character is itself a “Ratatouille” reference (and, Bush points out, “EEAAO’s” Oscar-winning supporting actor Ke Huy Quan voices “Zootopia 2’s” lead snake, Gary). So it’s a reference coupled with another reference to another film’s reference to the first reference. Whew.

Those Easter eggs, including an extended callback to Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” — the realization of which they credit to animator Louaye Moulayess, a “Shining” superfan — speak to a willingness to cater to audiences beyond kids. Presumably, most children attending “Zootopia 2” haven’t watched Kubrick’s film. That’s a shoutout to the grown-ups for bringing the kids and, hopefully, discussing the historical practice of redlining with them after the show.

Byron Howard, left, and Jared Bush.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

The first “Zootopia” was not notable just for funny talking animals but also the fact that the funny animals were talking about bigotry and stereotyping. Perceptive viewers may have noticed a mammalian bias in the original — there were no reptiles to be found in its near-perfect society. It turns out they were discriminated against as a class and denied their rightful place as residents, as we learn in “Zootopia 2.” Bush said that concept fit right in with “continuing this discussion about how we as human beings have a hard time looking past each other’s differences.”

Howard says the diversity-as-strength theme plays out not just in grand terms but also in the dynamic between the two protagonists, Judy (a rabbit, voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick (a fox, voiced by Jason Bateman): “Nick and Judy are such different, contrast[ing] characters that are really stronger [together] because of those differences, and that speaks to something we really value, which is differences between each other as a working pair,” he gestures to Bush and himself. “We continue to thrive in that way.”

Howard agrees with the comparison of him and Bush to conductors of a giant orchestra, listening for notes being played just right. He thinks of composer Michael Giacchino “onstage with those virtuosos at their respective instruments; we work with masters all around us, so we have a lot of trust in them.”

However, he admits with all those voices, “Writers have a tough time here because we scrutinize these movies and redo them over and over and over again. Jared is a great example of someone who thrives in this environment.”

Bush, explaining he came from the culture of TV sitcoms and all their constant revisions in writers rooms, says, “We have this amazing luxury of being able to rewrite and rethink and absorb these better ideas over years. It is an extreme luxury.

“There’s nothing else like this in Hollywood that I’ve seen — that level of deep collaboration and iteration. There’s no place I’m ever going to be that I will love as much as this.”

DETROIT — In the frantic final firefight of the 1992 presidential campaign, this battered industrial city may have been ground zero.

In the last days before today’s vote, President Bush and Bill Clinton crossed paths over and over again through a narrow band of critical Rust Belt and Great Lakes states–from New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Ohio and Wisconsin. But no state occupied more of their attention than Michigan.

Into this battlefield, the two major contenders have fired television and radio ads, mailings, surrogate speakers and repeated visits of their own–to the point where even veteran local observers have been overwhelmed. Their efforts–reinforced by Ross Perot’s national television barrage–have put the campaign on everyone’s lips.

“There’s a lot of strong feelings on it this year,” said LeAnn Kirrmann, a Republican activist from Grand Ledge, as she waited for Bush to arrive at a rally near here Sunday.

That appears to be the case across the nation, as voters render their verdict on this stormy, vituperative and often path-breaking campaign. Polls show the percentage of voters paying close attention to the campaign has soared this fall, and most experts expect a large turnout–a dramatic conclusion to a campaign that has regularly produced moments of high drama.

“It’s a mortal lock that turnout is going up,” said GOP pollster Bill McInturff.

After tightening significantly last week, national polls show Clinton again holding a comfortable lead over Bush, with Perot lagging behind. Few observers are entirely certain that a campaign that has been consistently unpredictable doesn’t hold one or two more surprises. But a Bush comeback at this stage would rank as the most dramatic reversal of fortune in the final hours of a presidential race.

In their final maneuvering, both Bush and Clinton targeted this state for contrasting reasons that underscore the length of the odds facing the President.

The widespread economic uneasiness in Michigan–symbolized by the continuing turmoil of General Motors Corp., which led to a management shake-up Monday–has always made the state an uphill climb for Bush despite its Republican leanings in recent presidential campaigns.

It remains a daunting challenge for the President now: The latest statewide tracking poll for a Detroit TV station, released Monday night, showed Clinton leading with 46%, Bush with 30% and Ross Perot at 16%.

Facing such numbers, Bush might have written off Michigan in a different year to spend his last campaign hours elsewhere. But the President has been forced to pound relentlessly at the state because there appears to be no way he can win the necessary 270 electoral votes without Michigan’s 18.

That reality defines Clinton’s stake in the state. Although Clinton–with his strong base on both coasts–can probably win today without carrying Michigan, he has invested so heavily here precisely because he knows Bush cannot.

“That’s Clinton’s great advantage,” said Democratic strategist Tad Devine. “He can focus on trying to take just one link out of Bush’s chain.”

Clinton’s intense focus on Michigan represents the reversal of a traditional Republican tactic. Because the GOP base in the South and West left Democrats so little room to maneuver in past presidential campaigns, Republicans have typically been able to dictate the battlefield in the election’s final hours.

In past years, the Republicans devoted enormous resources to a single conservative-leaning state–usually Ohio–confident that if they won there, the Democrats could not reach an Electoral College majority.

This year, though, it is Clinton who has the lead and the flexibility to choose where to fight. He has selected Michigan as his version of Ohio.

“That is a pretty fair analogy,” said David Wilhelm, Clinton’s campaign manager. “Michigan is a linchpin to our Electoral College strategy; it is a state that if we win, it destroys almost any chance that Bush will be reelected.”

With the state playing such a central role in the strategies of both candidates, their efforts here have been enormous. “Some of us,” said Don Tucker, the Democratic chairman in populous Oakland County, “have started to think Clinton and Bush are running for President of Michigan.”

When Clinton arrived in Detroit on Monday for a lunchtime airport rally, it marked his third visit to the area in five days and his sixth trip to the state in two weeks.

On Sunday, Bush roused the faithful with a scathing attack on Clinton at a rally in Auburn Hills, just north of here–his third run at the state in eight days.

Last Thursday, voters from around the state were able to ask Bush questions in a televised town meeting from Grand Rapids. The next night Clinton flew to the Detroit suburbs to hold his own televised town meeting.

When Clinton forces made their final buy of television time last week, they estimated they were placing enough commercials on the air so that each Michigan resident would see them 14 times through Election Day.

Bush, both sides figure, is on the air even more heavily–especially with a foreboding spot about Clinton’s record as governor that might be titled “Apocalypse Arkansas.” From both sides, acerbic radio advertisements blare incessantly.

As for Perot, local observers say his ad assault has been less visible than in some other states. But his promises to shake up Washington have won him a strong following.

At one point early last week, Republican polls showed Perot surging over 20% in this state. With most of Perot’s gains coming from Clinton, that tightened the Michigan race considerably.

But, as has happened throughout the country, Perot’s support has slipped here since he accused the White House last week of engineering dirty tricks that forced his withdrawal from the race in July. Initially, the voters deserting Perot disproportionately moved to Bush, but now Clinton is winning his share of those voters and consolidating his lead.

“The President is unlikely to close the gap in Michigan on Election Day,” said GOP pollster Steve Lombardo.

Even with Clinton’s lead in the polls, Democrats here remain edgy. Almost without exception, they are haunted by the memory of 1990, when then-Gov. James J. Blanchard led Republican John Engler by 10 percentage points in the final polls–and then was swept from office by a strong Republican effort to get out their vote, coupled with a poor turnout in Detroit.

Democrats are insistent that won’t happen again. Registration is up in Detroit, and Mayor Coleman A. Young has put his shoulder into the Clinton effort. One local official estimated this weekend that 65% of registered Detroit voters could come to the polls today, compared to just 54% four years ago.

Unions are pushing hard too: The UAW has been distributing to members copies of a Flint newspaper article reporting that Ross Perot owns a Mercedes-Benz and other foreign cars. In Michigan, that’s not much different than burning a flag.

Republican efforts to turn out the vote are just as intense. In Oakland County alone, GOP volunteers made more than 150,000 calls last weekend, said Jim Alexander, the county GOP chairman.

Local observers say religious conservatives and anti-abortion activists are mounting powerful drives; thousands of copies of the Christian Coalition’s voter guide on the presidential candidates were distributed at Bush’s rally in Auburn Hills on Sunday.

Beyond its impact on the Electoral College, voting in Michigan should help answer some of the key questions on which the results will pivot around the nation. Among them:

* Can Clinton reclaim the so-called Reagan Democrats–the blue-collar ethnics who deserted the party during the 1970s and 1980s over taxes, the economy and the perception that Democrats favored minorities?

Stressing such issues as welfare reform and his support for the death penalty, Clinton has aggressively courted voters in Macomb County, a Detroit suburb renowned as the breeding ground of Reagan Democrats.

Republicans have fired back with targeted mailers hitting Clinton on trust and taxes. And Perot could be a formidable competitor in Macomb County and similar neighborhoods for the votes of working-class residents disgusted with Bush and the gridlock in Washington.

* Can Bush hold suburban Republicans and independents who favor abortion rights? Four years ago, he carried the generally affluent Detroit suburb of Oakland County by 109,000 votes. But the hard-right line on social issues at the Republican Convention did not play well there, and Democrats are optimistic that Clinton’s centrist message will allow him to make significant inroads, not only in Oakland County but in similar places in New Jersey, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

* Can Clinton get the high turnout he needs from blacks after a campaign so heavily focused on wooing white swing voters in the suburbs? The answer will affect the result not only here but in other industrial states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, as well as Southern battlegrounds like Georgia and Louisiana.

* Will young voters show up today? One reason Clinton’s margin diminished in some national surveys last week is those polls included very few young people among their likely voters–and Clinton, the first baby boomer to top a national ticket, has been running very well with the young.

In 1988, just 36% of eligible voters age 18 to 24 actually turned out. Mike Dolan, field director for Rock the Vote, a nonpartisan national effort to register and turn out young voters, predicts as many as half of them may vote this year.

Such a spike in turnout would be a huge boost for Clinton; in this state, for example, he has courted students at rallies at both the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

One cloud on the Democratic horizon is the possibility of rain today in Michigan and much of the Midwest. Conventional wisdom holds that rain could dampen turnout in Detroit and other urban centers and pinch Clinton’s vote.

But many on both sides believe that interest in this campaign is so high that even rain won’t cool it off. “With all of the attention to the race this year,” Alexander said, “I don’t know if even rain is going to matter.”

New plaques have been installed in US President Donald Trump’s ‘Presidential Walk of Fame’ at the White House that attack many of his predecessors and make questionable claims about his own achievements.