Quayle ‘Outraged’ at Doonesbury Comics : Politics: In fund-raising visit, vice president says drug allegations are unfounded. He endorses a proposed state ballot measure to let parents choose their children’s school.

EL TORO —  Vice President Dan Quayle, in Southern California for fund-raising appearances, expressed his outrage Thursday that Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau is using the comic strip to reprise discredited allegations about the vice president’s use of cocaine.

“I don’t mind a good political fight,” Quayle said at a morning press conference. “But this is just totally absurd. It’s wrong. It’s false. And I’m not surprised, but I am outraged.”

Quayle, who said Trudeau has a vendetta against him, stopped short of asking newspapers not to publish the disputed strips, which are scheduled to begin Monday and run for two weeks.

“I don’t want to go that far,” he said. “He’s entitled to his opinion.”

But in an angry tone, he added that “Trudeau knows that these allegations . . . are totally without foundation. He knows that these allegations come from convicted criminals.”

In the strips, a fictional newspaper reporter is told the White House has covered up a federal probe into cocaine use by Quayle.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said Wednesday that it investigated and found untrue allegations that Quayle used cocaine while he was a U.S. senator in 1982.

The DEA statement said the allegations--made by at least two convicted drug dealers shortly before the 1988 election--were “pursued to their source and were determined to be untrue.”

The Times also investigated the allegations twice in the past three years and found no evidence to substantiate the drug charges. Several newspapers including The Times are considering whether to publish the controversial strips.

The White House described Quayle’s fund-raising in Southern California on Thursday and today as the vice president’s “second unofficial” campaign swing for the 1992 election. That’s because President Bush has not formally announced that he and Quayle will run for reelection.

Thursday, Quayle and his wife, Marilyn, appeared at two events in Orange County, one a luncheon fund-raiser for U.S. Sen. John Seymour in Orange that was the scene of a protest by gay rights activists.

The other was at St. Barbara Catholic Elementary School in Santa Ana, where Quayle endorsed a proposed 1992 California ballot measure that would allow parents to use a voucher system to send their children to the school of their choice.

The Quayles also attended a dinner in Santa Monica on Thursday night and are to make several appearances today in Los Angeles, including a speech to the California Manufacturers Assn.

At the elementary school, Quayle walked through a crowd of more than 400 cheering children who waved American flags and crayon-drawn welcome signs while they sang “God Bless America.”

The vice president and his wife watched while an eighth-grade class studied square roots and the Pythagorean theorem. Quayle later encouraged the children to study math so someday they might be able to join the “President’s space exploration program.”

“You can help put a man or a woman on Mars, because that’s our objective,” Quayle said. “Your generation is going to plant an American flag on Mars.”

Quayle also visited with a group of parents and teachers, as well as sponsors of the proposed school voucher initiative. The initiative would provide vouchers to every school-age resident Californian, which could be redeemed at most public or private schools.

Critics of the proposal say it would divert taxpayer money from public schools and direct it to private schools. They also complain that it would increase inequality among schools.

But Quayle told the gathering Thursday: “I’m a great believer in the concept of educational choice. I’m talking about a choice between good schools and bad schools. If we don’t take our educational matters more seriously, we are going to be the losers.”

In his morning press conference at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, Quayle responded to charges that Tuesday’s elections around the country showed voters to be deeply concerned about the sputtering economy and angry at their government officials.

Quayle said he identifies with the voter frustration reflected in the election results, but he laid the blame on Congress and said the Democrats still do not have a candidate who can compete with President Bush.

“Six months ago, there was no Democratic candidate with any standing or quality that could prove a threat to the President,” Quayle said. “Today, nothing’s changed.”

Asked about the possible entry of New York Gov. Mario Cuomo into the race, Quayle said, “He’s not a candidate.”

Quayle urged Democrats in Congress to support the President’s growth package, which includes a capital gains tax cut and tax credits for research and development as two of its key components.

The vice president said Democratic leaders in Congress have to decide “whether they’re going to cooperate or whether they’re going to be obstructionist. Thus far, they have been obstructionist,” he said.

Quayle also made his strongest condemnation of David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard who is now Louisiana’s Republican nominee for governor. Like President Bush, Quayle said that Duke’s Democratic opponent Edwin “Edwards should be elected governor.”