Republican George Bush said today Americans should think about the words peace and prosperity as they vote for president Nov. 8 and ask themselves whether ``dark clouds of pessimism'' would be cast if Democrat Michael Dukakis wins the White House. ``Now that we have peace and prosperity, we can't afford to put them at risk,'' Bush told a group of business leaders. Comfortably ahead of Dukakis in the polls nationwide, Bush is locked in a pitched battle in California for the big prize of 47 electoral votes. He told the businessmen that the Reagan-Bush administration has dramatically cut interest rates and inflation and he recited a long list of economic statistics to show that Americans are better off now than they were eight years ago. In his remarks, Bush seemed to shelve his promise of a night earlier that ``we're not going to be talking on the negative side'' in the closing days of the race. The vice president said Dukakis ``wants to torpedo the prosperity we've worked so hard to achieve.'' Bush said that when American go into the voting booth he hoped they remember the words peace and prosperity: ``peace means you can sleep at night knowing the world will still be there in the morning; prosperity means you can sleep at night knowing that opportunity will still be there in the morning. ``You know about our mornings,'' Bush said. ``But I ask you to consider: What kind of morning would electing the liberal governor of Massachusetts bring? Will it be gloomy? ``Will the dark clouds of pessimism and limited possibility obscure our vision?'' Bush asked. ``Will we be able to hope for a brighter day?'' Saying that the nation cannot afford to put peace and prosperity at risk, Bush added, ``The stakes for the cause of freedom around the world are too high.'' Addressing a crowd of celebrities Thursday night at the home of entertainer Bob Hope, Bush said, ``I'm sorry Clint Eastwood isn't here. Remember how he'd say, `Make my day.' Now my opponent says, `Have a nice vacation' as the prisoners come out of the jail.'' The audience laughed and applauded. Some of the best-known stars of an earlier generation were on hand, including Gene Autry, Buddy Ebsen, Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Danny Thomas, Esther Williams and others, along with younger celebrities such as Jaclyn Smith. Bush was campaigning today in Los Angeles and Sacramento and then stopping im Omaha, Neb., for a rally before a flight to Chicago. On Saturday, Bush will take a bus tour around the outskirts of Chicago. Bush is being attacked by Dukakis, as well as by other critics, for running a negative campaign _ a charge that now is being leveled at Dukakis. ``We're coming down to the wire, Tuesday, 12 days from today,'' the vice president said Thursday night. ``Things have come along well. We are not letting up. ``We're not going to be talking on the negative side anymore,'' he added, immediately launching into his criticism of Dukakis and the furlough program for Massachusetts prison inmates. Bush concluded by saying, ``Now it's going to be a kinder and quieter finish to this campaign.'' Earlier in the day, Bush also voiced some reservations about the way the campaign had been waged. In a white, circus-sized tent at Applied Materials Co., in California's Silicon Valley, Bush said that ``some of the modern campaigning with TV and spinning and sound bites might have gotten out of hand.'' Spinning is the term applied to efforts by campaign lieutenants to shape the perception of their candidate's performance. Sound bites are the 15 to 30-second snatches of a speech that wind up in a television or radio broadcast. Bush, in his Santa Clara speech, accused Dukakis of ``trying to scare the American people by putting Japanese flags'' in his television commercials, and said the right way to gain world markets for U.S. exports is by opening them, not shrinking from competition. He said Dukakis should explain ``why his thinly veiled comments about foreign investment only mention Japan,'' which he said ranks only third as a source of foreign investment in the United States. Footage of the Japanese flag appears in a Dukakis ad challenging Bush's record as head of a commission that examined U.S.-Japanese trade relations. The ad is running in Ohio. Bush said he would promote U.S. trade, but not with protectionist measures. ``It doesn't make sense to stick our heads in the sand, as some in the other party have suggested, and try to build walls around America,'' the vice president said. ``It doesn't make sense to launch a trade war and plunge America and the world into a recession. ``And it is beneath the dignity of the presidency, and of the voters, to try to incite fear of foreigners as a cheap means of winning a few votes,'' Bush said. Later, at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, Bush toured a Holocaust museum with his wife, Barbara, and then told a courtyard audience, ``We have no room in our communities for hidden Nazi fugitives or war criminals. Every last one of them must be found and brought to justice.''
