Former President Bush campaigns in Michigan

HOLLAND (AP) - At a campaign rally at Hope College yesterday, Former President Bush called his son a man of character, conviction and leadership.

"If we can carry Michigan, George W. Bush will be the next president of the United States. Please continue working hard on his behalf," Bush told about 1,800 people.

"If our son is elected president, I will indeed be the happiest, proudest father in the United States," Bush said.

He evoked laughter when he told the crowd, "Barbara and I have made a decision. We're going to vote for George W. Bush."

Jeff Sharp, a spokesman for the Michigan Democratic Party, said the Bush rally was less successful than one held two weeks earlier in Grand Rapids supporting Al Gore.

"The room wasn't full and they bussed students in just as they chided Democrats for after the Gore rally," Sharp told The Holland Sentinel.

The Hope College Democratic Party planned to stage a "nostalgia lunch" in response to President Bush's visit to discuss Republican policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Local Republican leaders said the Bush campaign has made repeated stops in heavily Republican west Michigan in recent weeks to ensure a high voter turnout.

"To me, it makes perfectly good sense," Jack Holes, chair of the Ottawa County Republican Party and a Hope College professor, told The Grand Rapids Press. "I think it's very important to come in here and get out the vote."