Michael Dukakis opened a 10-day final push in his underdog bid for the presidency Saturday by promising a crowd of about 10,000 at a rousing rally that he would fight for American farmers and workers. Dukakis stopped on a trip to California to visit Sioux Falls for a ``Salute to Rural America,'' a fairgrounds event with an audience including supporters bused in from Iowa, North Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota. ``They want you to forget their record,'' Dukakis told a boisterous crowd of about 10,000 people. ``Rural Americans have lost a lot, but they haven't lost their memories.'' The Democratic presidential nominee blamed Reagan administration farm policies for a drop in farm exports, falling crop prices and the loss of 250,000 family farms in the past eight years. Dukakis promised an administration sympathetic to small towns and said rival George Bush instead wanted to give a $40 billion tax break to the nation's wealthy. ``They want to help the people who live high off the hog,'' Dukakis said. ``We want to help the people in this country who raise the hogs.'' Dukakis, surrounded by elected officials from the five states, told his audience that the ``Republican philosophy is the fewer farms the better.'' ``Every farm and ranch in this country counts, and every small town is somebody's home,'' Dukakis said to enthusiastic applause. Dukakis ridiculed Bush's promise to wage a ``kinder, gentler'' campaign in the final weeks, a pledge Bush made just before resuming harsh attacks on Dukakis. ``I wish his handlers would make up his mind,'' Dukakis said. Sioux Falls was the first stop for Dukakis on a final-push campaign trip that will bring him to an average of four cities a day. Still well behind Bush in most polls but encouraged by a recent tightening of the race, Dukakis is keeping a high television profile during the waning days of the campaign to help him spread his message. Dukakis tailored his Populist appeal to rural and farm issues, accusing the Reagan administration of turning its back on family farmers and rural communities. He also criticized a Friday decision by the administration to refuse a request by U.S. rice farmers to investigate Japan's trading practices and said the decision was an ominous harbinger of the trade policies Bush would bring to the White House. ``This decision is only the latest instance of the Republicans' refusal to stand up for American jobs and American farmers in world markets,'' Dukakis said in a statement. ``The facts are so unequivocal that this decision raises grave doubts about the Republicans' intention to enforce the new trade act.'' In contrast, Dukakis said, he and running mate Lloyd Bentsen would demand that foreign countries with access to U.S. markets open their doors to U.S. products. And he said a Dukakis administration would bring to rural America reasonable price supports for farmers, financing for economic development in rural communities, an immediate $100 million investment in rural health care, and agressive enforcement of worker safety guidelines _ a hot issue in this state, where the John Morrell & Co., meatpacking plant was fined $4.3 million Friday after being accused of violations of safety standards. Dukakis met with several Morrell workers before addressing the rally, and he questioned the timing of the fine. ``We're not going to wait until 10 days before the election to do something about it,'' he said of safety problems in the meatpacking and other industries. He also said the Farmers Home Administration was waiting until six days after the election to mail out notices to 90,000 family farmers, telling them they will have to refinance loans or face foreclosure. Dukakis said he could sense the race was tightening and joked about his vision of the outcome. ``This one is going to go down to the wire and it's going to be one by a nose,'' Dukakis said. ``If this one is one by a nose, I don't have to tell you who's going to win.'' Dukakis headed from South Dakota to California for an evening rally with supporters in the Watts section of Los Angeles. On Sunday he is taking a train tour through several California communities. Dukakis is on the road through Election Day, scheduled to arrive home on a cross-country flight that gets him to Boston shortly after the polls open.
