ASPER, Wyo. - Debuting the newly packaged Republican presidential ticket, Governor George W. Bush and Dick Cheney yesterday breezed through the remote outpost where Cheney grew up, using their first joint appearance on the campaign trail to convey an image of solid Western conservatism.
The venue they chose was safe and familiar: The town, with a population of 46,000, is mostly Republican. People here know Cheney as senior class president at Natrona County High School, where he met his wife, Lynne, long before becoming a congressman and Pentagon chief.
So when Cheney returned triumphantly to his alma mater, addressing supporters in a gym festooned with newly minted ''Bush-Cheney'' signs, he was met with an unusually rousing reception. ''I assure you, they never treated me this well when I was their congressman,'' Cheney said. The crowd roared.
The familiar surroundings shielded Cheney from a barrage of partisan criticism aimed at his fledgling candidacy, as Democrats challenged him on three fronts: his conservative voting record (he refused to ban plastic guns and opposed abortion even in cases of rape and incest); his ties to the oil industry (he is chief executive officer of Halliburton Co., one of the largest oil services companies in the world); and his health (he has suffered three mild heart attacks).
As Democratic leaders quickly labeled the Bush-Cheney alliance the ''Big Oil ticket,'' Cheney sought to cast his company in a sympathetic light, describing Halliburton as a one-man operation that grew into a multinational corporation thanks to the American entrepreneurial spirit.
Responding to reports that Vice President Al Gore had accused him of holding ''extreme views,'' Cheney defended his record, telling reporters he was satisfied with how he had voted during his 11 years in Congress. In particular, he said he voted against imposing sanctions on apartheid South Africa on principle, saying it was ''not necessarily because I was concerned about South Africa so much as because I don't believe unilateral economic sanctions work.''
''I think they're often imposed not for foreign policy reasons but for domestic political reasons,'' Cheney said.
But he did not elaborate on his vote against banning so-called ''cop-killer'' bullets, or his opposition to banning plastic guns that can elude metal detectors, or his opposition to federal funding of abortions even in cases in which a woman has been raped or is a victim of incest.
Nor did Cheney address this apparent conflict: While Bush has long said he hopes to expand the Head Start program, moving it into the Department of Education, Cheney voted against Head Start funding in 1986.
''I am generally proud of my record in the House, the job I did representing the state of Wyoming,'' Cheney said. ''I'm sure if I were to go back and look at the individual votes I could probably find some that I might tweak and do a bit differently. But that was also the 1980s, a time when we had huge budget deficits, no money, and one really had to be concerned about federal spending.''
In a television interview the night before, Cheney said that he might reverse his vote on Head Start if he were to cast it again today. He said he might well take a different approach to spending issues, now that the nation is in ''a different era,'' a season of prosperity and surpluses, for which Gore and President Clinton believe they deserve considerable credit.
''We've got a surplus,'' he said. ''We've got the opportunity now, I think, to do some things we could not have done 20 years ago.''
Bush seemed unruffled by the questions about his running mate, a longtime foreign policy adviser and family friend whom he sought for the vice presidential slot from the beginning. And Bush insisted the former defense secretary was chosen neither to lend heft to his candidacy nor to harken back to the administration of his father, President Bush.
''I'm glad to have Dick Cheney by my side,'' Bush told reporters. ''He brings such strength to an administration. I also think it speaks volumes that I'm willing to pick somebody who is as strong a man as he is, that I'm comfortable with having excellence by my side.''
Asked about Cheney's record, Bush said: ''This man is a conservative, and so am I.''
Bush also said he was proud to ride into the campaign with another man of the American West. ''The West is a place of straightforward people - people who say what we mean, and mean what they say,'' Bush said.
Bush's campaign seemed ill-prepared to reconcile the uncompromising conservatism of Cheney's record with the Bush mantra of ''compassionate conservatism.'' And it remained unclear yesterday exactly how familiar Bush is with Cheney's background. Originally chosen to lead Bush's search for a running mate, Cheney solicited stacks of paperwork from other candidates, reviewing personal and financial details. But as a candidate himself, Cheney submitted his personal information directly to Bush. Communications director Karen Hughes said yesterday she did not know whether Cheney actually filled out forms, or whether the process was more causal than that.
She did, however, mock attempts by Democratic leaders to turn the vetting process into a campaign issue, given that Cheney has been cleared at the highest national security levels on three occasions.
''We are not going to make the fact that Al Gore voted for Secretary Cheney's confirmation an issue in this campaign,'' Hughes said, referring to his confirmation as defense secretary.
At least one of the questions that emerged after Cheney's appointment began to subside - his health.
A statement released by Cheney's doctor confirmed he is in good physical shape.
Bush and Cheney are expected to resume campaigning tomorrow. Cheney said he will then spend the weekend at home working on his speech for the Republican National Convention next week.
