European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 3, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes Andrew j. Glass picking up candidates helps keep pundits Busy after the primaries yield up the presidential nominees by before the comes Between inc two Fitt i Isis opens in Earnest political reporters still need something to do. Seeking to divine who the candidates will choose As their running males soaks up plenty of excess Energy. Such speculation remains harmless so Long As it s nol taken too seriously. George Bush and Michael Dukakis who have the biggest say Aren t Likely to say anything for some weeks to come. Pundits however rarely bother to Point ibis out. Lists arc duly unfurled for Public elimination. Each name is dissected to determine whether a potential partner might add sufficient strength to the ticket to slave off a debacle in november. It s said for example thai Dukakis can t win without carrying Ohio a circumstance that would Point to running with Ohio s sen. John Glenn. Alternatively moderate southerners arc seen As an essential element of democratic Success. That scenario in turn requires the services of Georgia s sen. Sam Nunn. Yet history records few instances when Avice presidential nominee can be credited with pull ing the ticket Over the finish line. Even John s i960 decision to team up with Lyndon Johnson in a bid to bag Texas 24 electoral Voles was t All it s cracked up to be. Kennedy would have won the presidency anyway even if he had lost Texas and Johnson had remained in the Senate. What s More Kennedy never expected Johnson to accept his offer it was made As a gesture to Salve pc convention wounds. No one should have to watch sausage being made or witness Whai actually occurs when running mates Are chosen. Suffice it to say that Campaign insiders usually View the problem in terms of who will hurl their candidate the least rather than who will help him the most. In 1976, Gerald Ford s handlers thought Ford s Best bet was to trod Down inc presidential highroad. Feeling inc need for a Slasher to Cut up Democrat Jimmy Carter they turned to sen. Bob Dole of Kansas. Dole did his duly but his political reputation has never truly recovered. These Days it s equally vital to select someone who would seem credible in the Oval office should the need Ever arise. That was t always so. In 1920, the democratic nominee gov. James Cox of Ohio ran with an attractive Young new David Broder yorker whose highest elective office until then had been As an Albany stale senator and whose top appointed Posl had been assistant Secretary of the Navy. Yet Cox s Choice Franklin d. Roosevelt had married a Distant Cousin who was the Niece of for mar president Theodore Roosevelt a popular re publican figure who had just died. The twin Roose velt connection to the gop proved a sufficient draw. There s really not Loo much to inc vice presidency yet another reason Why one should t take ticket balancing stories All that solemnly. No vice presi Dent has been elected directly to the presidency since Martin Van Buren did it in 1836. Perhaps that s also Why Bush in t doing All that Watt 152 years later we tend to Root for second stringers Only when they re needed on he could do worse than inform voters thai he s had lots of experience in and out of government qualifying him to follow in Ronald Reagan s foot Steps. The least of his qualifications. Bush should say however arc the eight Joyless years he s spent hanging around at no. 2. Treasury Secretary James Baker who might Lake Over the troubled Bush Campaign has toyed Wilh the idea of also using a vice president As a while mouse chief of staff. If Baker s double duly notion Ever gets moving inc vice presidency might genuinely run on a fast a Yort Tumi democrats Nof assured of White House yet when everybody in the nation s capital agrees on something it is prudent to be sceptical. Consider the Colum then As a septic s Effort to subvert the latest conventional Wisdom that the democrats will certainly recapture inc while House in november the euphoria is based on the polls which last week were speaking loud and Clear. A los Angeles times Survey showed vice president George Bush railing his Likely democratic rival Massachusetts gov Michael s. Dukakis 52-36 percent in California a state which has nol gone democratic since 1964. A new York times lbs news poll put Dukakis 10 Points ahead nationwide and the venerable Gallup poll gave Duka Kis a it Point Lead nationally. All this is pretty remark Able for a fellow who was barely visible in the polls year ago and has yet to cinch his parly s nomination. Certainly in my View Bush has loaded into trouble in the two months since he assured himself of the Republican nomination with his super tuesday sweep lie has been a passive witness to the unravelling of the Reagan administration the Nasty insider memoirs the embarrassing impasse with Noriega and the demeaning spectacle of de Meuse s demolition of the Justice department. And he has done nothing effective to put his own Case or Agenda before the people. What is worse Bush has Given not a hint that he understands what the voters have an their minds. He appears not to grasp the shift in the political Cli mate which has been Clear since the autumn of 1986. The voters recognize Ronald Reagan s successes in reducing taxes inflation and the military threat of the soviet Union. But they Are not satisfied with the status quo. They see new challenges in preserving and creating Good jobs in a Lime of rapid economic change. They feel squeezed in their quest for the traditional Middle class goals of a decent Home in a Safe drug free neighbourhood and in their desire for Quality Edu cation and health care for themselves their children and their parents. They wonder if the United Stales burdened by growing debt and stretched with overseas commitments has entered a period of decline. Unless Bush can address those concerns and make himself a plausible agent of the kind of limited nol Radical change and targeted governmental activism the voters now want he can forget about the while House because Dukakis clearly has had thai Agenda in his sights from Day one of his Campaign. But if Bush can liberate himself from immobilizing loyally to the Reagan legend and legacy which will not elect him by themselves and face the future this elec Tion is by no Means one the republicans have to lose. Americans hardly Ever entrust the White House to a Man who was As much a stranger a year before election Day As Michael Dukakis. The last Lime they did Wilh Jimmy Carter they were not pleased with the results. As the Waves of euphoria have rolled Over Washington this past week a few democrats have managed to keep their was and Point out the enormity of the task facing Dukakis if Bush does not continue to throw the election. One of them is Galston an aide to several past democratic presidential candidates now working at the Roosevelt Center for american polity studies this has to be the Nadir for Bush he says. I can t believe hell continue to do nothing As he has for the last 60 Days. Nobody is that stupid. Galston a speechwriter for Walter Mondale says thai even though he is a Loyal Democrat he has no trouble mentally constructing a non trivial Case for Bush to build his candidacy on the record of peace strength and Prosperity of the Cugan years. Give the historical solidity of the Republican base in the South and West when democrats nominate a Northern Liberal for president Galston Points out it is far easier to identify inc elements of an electoral College majority for Bush than for Dukakis. Another democratic septic Veteran activist Alan Baron has been pouring Over election the coincidences that jumped out at him was the fact that in both 1980 and 1984, inc democratic nominee received barely 14 percent of the popular Ole. To win even in a Squeaker Dukakis would have to add 10 percentage Points to that Caner Mondale base. A gain of that magnitude Baron notes has been achieved by the out party candidate Only twice in the postwar period. Dwight Eisenhower got a swing of exactly thai size in 1952, when he was 3 National her running against the nominee of a party saddled Wilh a bloody unpopular War and its attendant inflation Jimmy Carter achieved a 12 i Point gain Over the my Govro vote in 1976, running As the first deep South candidate since the civil War and against a appointed president who had pardoned the chief Cul Prit in the worst scandal of the Century watergate. For Dukakis 10 lift his party to a majority in today s circumstances would be an extraordinary feat Baron correctly says. None of this argues that Dukakis won twin. But All of it suggests thai the Republican dirges and the democratic celebrations arc hugely premature. Wuh Nymn foil in Fri group
