POLITICS ’88 : Could Swing N.Y. Primary in Black-Jewish Standoff : Dukakis Targets ‘White Ethnics’

The brass band was playing “Hey, Look Me Over” and Colleen Gavigan was doing just that Friday afternoon as Democratic presidential contender Michael S. Dukakis shook dozens of outstretched hands in the cheering crowd of office workers nearby.

“He has a message,” said the 32-year-old state Office of Aging budget specialist. “He’s real. He has substance. The others have nothing, nada, pffft,” she added with a wave of her well-manicured hand.

Gavigan is Catholic, of Irish and Italian heritage. And although battles for Jewish and black voters have dominated New York’s increasingly bitter primary race this week, she and other white, non-Jewish voters may be the real prize in the state’s roiling racial, ethnic and political mix next Tuesday.

‘White Ethnics Key’

“The white ethnics are key,” said Paul Bograd, Dukakis’ state campaign director. “They’re the plurality in this election. The real question is how they’ll turn out.”

The reasoning is that Jewish voters, who tend to support Dukakis, and black voters, who overwhelmingly support rival Jesse Jackson, may effectively cancel each other out. Jews and blacks each accounted for about a quarter of the total vote in the 1984 Democratic primary, according to exit polls.

Although Dukakis leads solidly in state polls, aides fear that an especially heavy turnout among blacks for Jackson, or an erosion of Jewish support from Dukakis to third-place rival Albert Gore Jr., could undermine Dukakis’ lead.

With that in mind, the Dukakis campaign conducted several focus groups of New Yorkers earlier this spring to help determine what message and issues would be most important to white ethnics. The result is a sharpened emphasis this week in both TV ads and on the stump on housing, jobs and, especially, drugs.

“It’s all aimed at that constituency,” Bograd said.

For the same reasons, after several highly publicized meetings with Jewish groups early in the week, Dukakis began to focus his final four days of campaigning in Upstate, blue-collar cities such as Rochester, Buffalo, Albany and Syracuse, while aides stepped up their courting of labor unions.

“Whether you’re Greek, Italian or Polish, we are all proud of our ethnicity and our cultures,” Dukakis told several hundred people crammed into the Polish Community Center in Port Dickinson, a gritty factory town outside Binghamton, late Friday.

Campaign aides say the bulk of the get-out-the-vote operation--including up to half a million phone calls--will be aimed at those Upstate areas, as well as such New York working-class boroughs as Queens and Richmond (Staten Island) and in Nassau County on Long Island.

The white ethnic New Yorker whose vote probably would be most valuable, however--the ever-voluble Gov. Mario M. Cuomo--declined to reveal his preference when the two men met for nearly an hour at the statehouse here Friday.

Instead, at a spirited press conference, Cuomo offered copious praise of his fellow governor, took several subtle jabs at all the candidates, argued repeatedly with reporters and then clarified, modified and confused several recent statements of his own.

Dukakis, Cuomo said, is “extremely knowledgeable . . . extremely intelligent . . . extremely decisive.” If nominated, Cuomo added, Dukakis will be a “superb” candidate who “will go on to be a great President.”

Cuomo twice shouldered Dukakis aside at the microphone to answer questions directed at Dukakis, and repeatedly chose the questioners as Dukakis pointed at reporters in vain.

When asked if he would consider putting Cuomo in a Dukakis Cabinet, Dukakis began saying it was too early to consider such things, when Cuomo interrupted:

“Can we fix a time?” he said with a grin. Dukakis smiled and quickly replied: “His mother always wanted him to serve on the Supreme Court.”

Banter Hid Frustration

The banter hid the frustration the Dukakis campaign has faced in recent days. Cuomo not only refused to endorse, but continued to dominate headlines with his public ruminations. New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch, similarly, met Dukakis late Wednesday only to spurn him Thursday with an endorsement of Gore.

Moreover, although Dukakis returned home to Boston all day Wednesday and Thursday, his New York campaign was on the defensive. He and his aides repeatedly had to clarify his statements regarding the establishment of a Palestinian state, negotiations with the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the use of nuclear arms in Europe.

“I thought we were winning here,” one top aide said in exasperation. “This place is intense.”

So is the family’s campaign pace. Dukakis’ mother, Euterpe, was in Buffalo. His wife, Kitty, spoke in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach. Kitty Dukakis’ father, Harry Dickson, ran events in the Hudson Valley. Son John and daughter Andrea worked phones.