Dukakis on Tightrope: He Can’t Just Win in N.H., He Needs to Win Big

Shortly before he joined the presidential race last March, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis was invited to speak to more than 600 New Hampshire Democratic activists here. Given the audience and location, his staff members took no chances.

“They told him to put his hands on the podium when he started speaking,” said J. Joseph Grandmaison, the state party chairman. “Then they put sticky tape on the podium so his hands would stick there. That way, he’d remember not to wave his arms around. He’s his own worst enemy when he waves his hands.”

Six months later, Dukakis is still taking few chances in the critical first-in-the-nation primary. The “Duke,” viewed as a favorite son, has begun to build a solid campaign organization and leads decisively in early state polls. Today, aides say he will lead 1,400 volunteers in the campaign’s first statewide door-to-door canvass.

Huge War Chest

More than 50,000 New Hampshire residents go to work each morning in Massachusetts. Thousands more see lavish Dukakis coverage in Boston newspapers and on TV. He is instantly recognized on the street. And money is no problem: On Tuesday, he is expected to announce that he has raised $7.9 million so far nationwide, more than twice that of any other Democrat.

“I think his lead here is enormous,” said rival candidate Richard A. Gephardt, a Missouri congressman who has campaigned here for two years. “I think he’d be very hard to beat. . . . My hope would be to come in second.”

But campaign strategists and analysts say the 53-year-old Dukakis is walking a political tightrope in the volatile Feb. 16 New Hampshire primary. In some ways, they say, the three-term Massachusetts governor may be most vulnerable in his own backyard.

“I believe New Hampshire could end his candidacy,” said Grandmaison, who managed Dukakis’ first gubernatorial campaign in 1974. “I told him this could be more of a danger to him than an advantage. . . . People say he’s got it wrapped up. He knows better.”

Vicious Political Game

The chief reason is expectations, the vicious political game that has destroyed many a candidate here. New Hampshire Democrats, after all, knocked off incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 by giving an anti-Vietnam War candidate, Eugene J. McCarthy, a “better than expected” second place.

Nor are favorite sons necessarily favored. Maine’s Sen. Edmund S. Muskie lost here in 1972, despite winning the most votes, because he did not get a predicted 50%. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts did even worse in 1980, losing to a weak incumbent, President Jimmy Carter.

The usually confident Dukakis carefully downplays his chances. “I think it’s going to be a very lively and hot contest,” he said in an interview. “I want to do well.” An August poll that showed him with 52% of the vote was “meaningless, absolutely meaningless,” he said.

But opponents are happy to play the game. Their aides tell reporters that Dukakis needs 50% or 60% of the vote to show that he is not just a regional candidate, knowing that that percentage is probably impossible to achieve in a six-person race. And they assume that his high numbers in the polls will fall as rivals become better known.

“I don’t think he can go anywhere but down,” said Dave Lewis, state field director for former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt, “which is fine with us.”

Iowa Can Give Impetus

Dukakis faces another hazard here. As then-Sen. Gary Hart demonstrated in 1984, a strong showing in Iowa’s precinct caucuses can propel a little-known insurgent to victory over a front-runner in New Hampshire a week later.

“Iowa is crucial for Dukakis,” said David Moore, a University of New Hampshire political scientist and pollster. “If he can’t do well in Iowa, if he gets blown away, it’s going to be very hard to recover here.”

So far, Dukakis has spent more time and five times as much money in Iowa’s towns and cornfields than he has in New Hampshire. Partly because of Dukakis’ presumed strength here, other candidates also have favored Iowa with time, money and resources.

There is another factor, said Jim Carpenito, a lawyer who helped organize a wine-and-cheese party for Dukakis in Salem recently. “There’s an overall irrational prejudice about Massachusetts,” he said. “People have a distaste for Massachusetts, let us say. And he gets hit with the criticism. . . . It’s a tough thing to overcome.”

Many voters moved to New Hampshire, which has no income or sales tax, to escape a neighbor nationally derided in the 1970s as “Taxachusetts.” Although Massachusetts taxes have fallen and the economy is booming, the conservative Union Leader newspaper in Manchester still mocks Dukakis as “Dutaxes.” One bumper sticker seen here says, “Live Free or Live in Massachusetts.”

Others say a backlash against Massachusetts is wishful thinking but that Dukakis’ support may be thin. “People like Dukakis, but I don’t get a sense that there’s strong emotional commitment,” said Scott Williams, vice chairman of the state Democratic Party. “I think he could be surprised.”

Opposes Seabrook

Still, Dukakis has tremendous advantages here. He is well known, if only for his opposition to the controversial Seabrook nuclear power plant. By vetoing emergency evacuation plans for six nearby Massachusetts towns, he has stymied the federal licensing process and effectively blocked the plant’s opening. His stand has drawn strong support from anti-nuclear groups.

Polls show he is considered honest and competent, with few negatives. And he lives only an hour away in Boston’s Brookline neighborhood.

“He can just pop across the border and do an event or two and go home,” said Susan Calegari, Hart’s former campaign manager and now a Babbitt worker. “The expense for these other guys is enormous.”

Dukakis can also rely on a cadre of supporters within easy driving distance. “The fact is Dukakis has literally thousands of volunteers at his disposal,” said Ramsay McLauchlan, executive director of the state Democratic Party.

Dukakis’ campaign here, led by 29-year-old Charlie Baker, a red-bearded lawyer and former gubernatorial aide, has yet to stumble. With 14 staff members and 11 full-time volunteers in seven offices, Baker runs a deliberately low-key, low-profile operation.

Poster of John Wayne

The Manchester campaign headquarters, a storefront on a side street, is narrow, crowded and dingy. A poster of the other “Duke,” John Wayne, hangs on one wall. Desks are old and battered. Volunteers work in jeans, hand-addressing envelopes and licking stamps until late in the evening.

“They’re very careful,” said Steve Cancian, campaign manager for the Rev. Jesse Jackson. “They’re really trying to pump the message that this is a grass-roots campaign and not an invasion of Massachusetts professionals. They’re very conscious of the fact they could fall into the pitfalls of the Mondale campaign--looking top heavy, too organized, too inevitable.”

Dukakis benefits also from extensive coverage by Boston’s two main newspapers and three TV stations, which dominate New Hampshire’s densely populated southern counties. The influential Boston Globe put Dukakis on its front page six out of eight days recently. Not all the stories were positive or concerned the presidential race, but other campaigns were furious, calling the paper the “Duke daily” and a “campaign newsletter.”

Complaints on News Stories

“I can’t believe what they publish about Dukakis,” complained John Broderick, a prominent lawyer who was co-chairman of the campaign for Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who withdrew from the race this week. “If you only read them, you’d think Dukakis has only to pick the wallpaper in the White House.”

“They have become real cheerleaders,” agreed George Bruno, a former party chairman who supports Sen. Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee. “And they under-report the other candidates.”

Helen Donovan, deputy managing editor of the Globe, said the criticism is unfair but inevitable. “In one way, it’s a local story for us which we ignore at our peril,” she said. She said the paper was writing more about “everybody and everything” because of Dukakis. “But there’s no way we would cover, or could cover, other candidates in the length and detail that we cover Dukakis,” she added.

In any case, the coverage exposes Dukakis’ warts as well as his charms. Recent front page stories disclosed that the governor, long known for his frugal ways, was a beneficiary of a $1-million family trust that had included stocks in companies doing business in South Africa.

Dukakis, who often boasts that Massachusetts, in 1983, was the first state to divest such a portfolio, said the suspect stocks in his family trust were not sold until 1986. He said he was not aware of the holdings until then, but the Globe chided him for not apologizing or admitting error. “Sanctimony is an issue,” one editorial said.

Health Care Proposal

Other stories have focused on Dukakis’ ambitious proposal to make Massachusetts the first state to guarantee health care. The controversial plan, which would cost up to $600 million, would require all employers to buy health insurance for their employees and to subsidize coverage for the unemployed. Aides say the program will be a national example and will figure in Dukakis’ campaign.

Dukakis says the last six months have been “an extraordinary experience.” His fund-raising has been dramatically successful. He has campaigned across the South and West. Playgirl magazine dubbed him one of the 10 sexiest men in America.

And no one had to tape his hands to the podium again.

Related story on Page 24.