Protest Has Sizzle but President Not Present : Demonstration: Crowd brings barbs for Bush to Odetics gates, but he enters plant by another way.

ANAHEIM — Sprouting signs proclaiming “Read His Lips: No New Jobs,” “Orange County Foreclosures up 780%” and “Sit Down and Shut Up,” about 300 frustrated protesters stood fuming in the hot sun outside Odetics Inc. headquarters Thursday in a fruitless attempt to demonstrate their displeasure directly to President Bush.

But the poll-battered President was actually greeted only by supporters, and may have left Orange County thinking the Republican mother lode is safe territory--because the protesters had picked the wrong building for their vigil.

It was an unorganized gathering of abortion rights activists, apostate Republicans and Libertarians who said they have defected to Gov. Bill Clinton, members of the American Postal Workers Union, assorted Democrats, Perot supporters and other people who said they were unemployed or not otherwise occupied on a sunny summer afternoon.

But their tongues--and their political tempers--were sharper than usual even for this feisty campaign season.

“Saddam Hussein still has a job, do you?” read one picket sign, while another announced, “OC unemployment 8-year high.” Two young women held a long banner on which the words “The Environmental President” and “The Educational President” were crossed out. Underneath they had printed a counter-slogan: “The Recession President.”

“How do you explain to your kids, ‘Get a diploma so you can get a job,’ and then they can’t get a job?” said Diane Valentino, a 39-year-old mother of five from Garden Grove, whose eldest son graduated from high school with honors and spent six months unemployed.

“I don’t think they understand at all what’s going on in this country--and a war in Iraq is not going to fix (it,)” she said.

Dietrich Nicholson, a 53-year-old construction worker, said he began the campaign season as a Libertarian, ended up supporting Jerry Brown, and will now volunteer for Clinton.

“Lots of guys have been out of work for months and months and months, and they’re running out of money,” Nicholson said. “I know a lot of guys losing their houses. . . .

“We could create a loan fund for the men out of work,” he suggested to Valentino.

“We could do anything we want to if we had the moral leadership,” she replied.

They stood on the grass in front of the robotics firm’s corporate headquarters on South Manchester Street, wondering aloud why the presidential motorcade wasn’t arriving. A banner announced, “Odetics Welcomes President Bush,” but all the doors were locked, as were all the gates to the secured parking lot.

Meanwhile, Bush was speaking inside an Odetics manufacturing facility on East Palais Road--tucked out of sight on the other side of Interstate 5--where his remarks earned a standing ovation from about 500 employees.

Still, some said they wished the President had been more specific about his plans for stimulating the economy.

“I’d like to hear where the jobs are going to come,” said Jim Hawver, a salesman who plans to vote for Bush. “He did say he would like to bring back our industries and our technology. It would be nice to regain that. But I don’t know where they’re going to generate new jobs.”

After weeks of Democrats Clinton and running mate Sen. Al Gore dominating the nightly news surrounded by cheering crowds, while the President was seen being heckled by relatives of MIAs, a number of Thursday’s protesters speculated that Bush was being insulated from discontented voters by his “handlers.”

“I wanted to show the President that he is not welcome in Orange County,” said Ron Kobayashi, 30, a jazz musician from Tustin. “I’m disappointed that he didn’t show up where he was supposed to so we could communicate this to him. . . . I wonder why he didn’t. . . . There was a large crowd of very angry voters there and I don’t think his advance people wanted the national media traveling with him to see that.”