Jackson Election Role Held Pivotal for Party : Pennsylvania a Test of Both Contenders

With characteristic diligence, Michael S. Dukakis’ aides had selected a remote corner of the Delaware River waterfront here for the Massachusetts governor and Democratic presidential front-runner to address the television cameras on the need to modernize this city’s aging port without fear of distraction.

But no sooner had the candidate launched into his spiel than a nearby freighter unfurled the blue and white Greek flag while its loudspeaker drowned out Dukakis’ words with a patriotic Greek anthem. When the music finally ended, Dukakis, who has made much of his Greek heritage during this campaign remarked: “This was an unplanned but important pause.”

There have been few such interruptions in the Dukakis battle plan this past week as his well-financed and well-organized campaign machine rolls on toward what most people expect to be a substantial victory over his sole remaining rival, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, in Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary.

But there are certain aspects to this campaign that set it apart from the previous state skirmishes and defy the best-laid plans of even Dukakis’ farsighted and cool-headed team of strategists. More than just another contest for delegates--there are 178 at stake--Pennsylvania is a test of the self-discipline and imagination of the two contenders.

Simply put, each must find a way to compete against the other without destroying his party’s chances for success in November.

Unique Competition

The Democrats have had home-stretch contests between a powerful front-runner and a beleaguered underdog before. But the 1988 competition is unique because of Jackson’s background and accomplishments.

On the one hand, Jackson’s candidacy faces formidable, and many believe, insurmountable barriers in most future contests. On the other hand, because of the prestige and fame he has gained in this campaign, Jackson possesses great power, stemming from his influence with black voters whose overwhelming support the Democrats need to regain the White House in the fall.

If their backing is critical to Dukakis, who is heavily favored to win the nomination, it is just about as important to Jackson, whose remarkable candidacy can only be fully rewarded--symbolically and practically--if his party wins in the fall.

Pressure on Jackson

This is a quandary for both men, but most of the pressure appears to be on Jackson as the pursuer who must at least try to catch up with Dukakis and at the same time avoid the sort of harsh criticism that would bring on charges of divisiveness.

Jackson did his best this past week to carry on campaign business as usual and, like Dukakis, he had musical accompaniment at times.

Squatting on the carpeted floor of a day-care center in nearby West Chester, Jackson chatted with a group of toddlers and their teachers and joined in singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

“It’s the first song I ever learned and I still haven’t learned to sing,” Jackson said wryly.

“In our drive to make America better it really starts here,” he said to the children. “The lessons learned at the start pay off for society later on.”

But the candidate, those close to him said, was badly shaken by his loss in New York, where the 14-point margin of defeat was larger than he had expected. And he was having a hard time regrouping his campaign for its finishing kick.

“He just doesn’t know what the hell to do,” said Ron Brown, a Washington lawyer and longtime Jackson confidant who is also well connected with the party leadership. “I think no matter what happens he will go all the way to the convention and hopefully it will be constructive.”

Indeed, sources close to the Jackson campaign say that the candidate was “very upset” about the talk emanating from his campaign manager, Gerald F. Austin, and his campaign chairman, California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, about the possibility of his being offered the vice presidential nomination on a Dukakis ticket. “He considers that sort of talk defeatist and presumptuous,” one well-placed Democrat said.

Seems to Recover Elan

By the end of the week, Jackson seemed to have recovered some of his elan. He declared himself in a “neck-and-neck” race with Dukakis and in a televised debate in Pittsburgh challenged the governor, face to-face, to commit himself firmly to big boosts in federal spending for education, the Head Start program for preschool children, combatting drugs and the like.

Dukakis managed to avoid a direct answer, as he had done earlier in the campaign when he was similarly pressed by other Democratic rivals.

“Jesse still has to figure out how to go after him,” one senior Jackson adviser said. A central concern, he said, is that white voters might react negatively if Jackson appears to be publicly “bullying” Dukakis, who is much shorter and slighter than his rival.

Campaign aides now talk increasingly about influencing Dukakis rather than alienating him, by pushing him into making promises on spending for domestic programs.

But now that front-runner Dukakis faces intensive scrutiny, Jackson could be pushing him on to dangerous ground. The questions about whether Dukakis will firmly pledge more funding for social programs leads to questions about how he will pay for them and could ultimately make him vulnerable to charges by Republicans that he is secretly planning to raise taxes. For his part, Dukakis has been striving to follow much the same course that has brought him this far, citing over and over again his achievements in Massachusetts, particularly his most recent triumph, the enactment of a state law making health insurance mandatory for all workers.

It is a formula that voters seem to find reassuring if not inspiring.

“Exciting he’s not,” said Joe Glowacki, a Democratic city committee member, after listening to Dukakis go through his methodical paces at a North Philadelphia union hall. “But he seems to know what he’s doing and I think what we need now is a guy who knows what government is all about.”

But if Dukakis’ New York victory came close to assuring his nomination it also, by eliminating Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. and making it a two-man race, made it harder for the governor to avoid differentiating himself from Jackson.

This is something Dukakis, eager to keep from offending black voters, has tried to avoid in the past and still seems to have a hard time carrying off.

Asked to draw a line between himself and Jackson, Dukakis said: “Jesse has his own strengths and his own message and it’s an important one. What I offer is a record.”

Did he mean to suggest that Jackson had no record? “I didn’t say that,” Dukakis replied. “He doesn’t have a record in government. I do.” Overhanging all of this rhetorical tap-dancing is the question of whether Dukakis should offer Jackson the vice presidency.

Because of Jackson’s victories, a good many people who once would have rejected that idea now think he deserves at least serious consideration for running mate. “I’ve never been a fan of his,” said Harris Wofford, Pennsylvania secretary of labor and industry and former state party chairman. “But he’s been tempered and tested in a lot of ways in this campaign.”

Difficulty for Dukakis

Dukakis seems to have difficulty dealing with the issue. At first he said it was something he would not consider until he had actually won the nomination. But during their debate here last week, he twice asked Jackson: “Are you interested” in the vice presidency?

The first time Jackson smiled and said jocularly: “You got it, Mike.” The second time, Jackson did not smile and his staff was later puzzled and resentful at this seeming teasing by Dukakis.

What the Dukakis campaign is concerned about is overconfidence here, which it fears might keep Dukakis voters home and allow Jackson, whose supporters are reckoned to be far more intense, to boost his percentage of the popular vote. As it is, Jackson, helped by the support of Mayor W. Wilson Goode, is expected to carry the city of Philadelphia.

Jackson Trailing in Polls

But the polls show him trailing Dukakis by about 25 to 30 points statewide. And even if Jackson improves on that, it will not help him much in the critical contest for delegates. The popular vote is a so-called beauty contest in Pennsylvania and has no bearing on selection of the delegates, who are chosen separately in the state’s 23 congressional districts. Here Jackson is at a great disadvantage because he has full slates in only 10 of the districts and none at all in four.

But Jackson and his aides still talk a good fight about the future. “Now that it is one-on-one, maybe people will listen to his issues more,” said New York state Sen. Olga Mendez, who came here to campaign for Jackson as she did in Connecticut and her own state. “And maybe that will help him get more white votes.”

Most politicians looking ahead to forthcoming primary battlegrounds believe the Jackson campaign may have already seen its best moments. One potential bright spot is the June 7 primary in California, where the volatile political environment and the heavy minority population could provide fertile ground for Jackson.

Otherwise, Jackson’s hopes for victory seem to be restricted by his ability to get white votes. He went as high as 25% in Wisconsin but fell back to 15% in New York. While race is undoubtedly a reason for this, other factors are his ultra-liberal views and his background, or lack of it, in government.

Staff writer Douglas Jehl contributed to this story.

THE PENNSYLVANIA PRIMARY

THE STATE

Population: 11.9 million (1986 est.).

Racial/ethnic makeup: 90% white, 9% black, 1% Latino. Economy: Steel, agriculture and food processing, health care and research, tourism. Unemployment rate (March): 5.1%.

Major cities: Philadelphia, 1.6 million; Pittsburgh, 420,000; Harrisburg (capital), 53,000.

THE PRIMARY

At stake in the primary are 178 national Democratic delegates and 78 Republican delegates. For both parties, the primary consists of a non-binding “beauty contest” and a separate election of delegates by congressional district. Democrats choose 116 delegates at the district level; 62 others will be chosen later by the party’s state committee, and allocated to presidential candidates according to the outcome of the primary. The 18 GOP delegates not chosen in the primary will be picked by the GOP state committee, and will be free to vote as they wish. Participation in the primary is limited to registered party members.