Dukakis Sweeps Pa.; Bush Clinches GOP Bid : Governor Defeats Jackson by 66% to 29%, Moves Significantly Closer to Democratic Nomination

Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis won a smashing victory over the Rev. Jesse Jackson in Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary, moving significantly closer to his goal of gaining the delegate majority needed for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Vice President George Bush, who has been running virtually unopposed since Kansas Sen. Bob Dole dropped out of the Republican contest last month, locked up the Republican nomination with his victory here.

With 88% of the precincts reporting, Dukakis had 66% of the vote to 29% for Jackson. Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. and Illinois Sen. Paul Simon, who have both suspended their campaigns, received 3% and 1% respectively.

Dole Tops Robertson

Bush received 79% to 12% for Dole. Former religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, who conceded several weeks ago that Bush would be the GOP nominee, received 9%.

Bush won an estimated 75 convention delegates, putting him over the 1,139 needed to assure nomination.

Dukakis’ lead in the competition for the Keystone State’s 178 pledged delegates to the national convention was even greater than the more than 2-1 margin he enjoyed in the popular vote, a so-called beauty contest that had no bearing on the award of the delegates.

Dukakis won an estimated 164 delegates to 12 for Jackson in Pennsylvania, giving Dukakis a total of 1,261 delegates so far compared to 850 for Jackson, according to the Associated Press. To gain a majority at the Democratic convention, 2,081 delegates are needed.

Pennsylvania’s convention delegates were chosen on the basis of separate elections in the state’s 23 congressional districts. Jackson was at a disadvantage in these contests because his support was concentrated in a few districts and because he did not have full slates of delegates running in most districts.

In Boston, where he had spent the day at the Massachusetts Statehouse tending to his gubernatorial duties, Dukakis called the results “a very big boost” for his candidacy, “particularly in a state that has been a bellwether state in the general election. It’s going to be very helpful.”

When asked if he considered his nomination inevitable now, as many of his supporters have begun to claim, Dukakis was cautious, referring to Democratic nominee Walter F. Mondale’s problems in 1984. “I reminded you several times that Fritz Mondale won New York and Pennsylvania and then lost a string of primaries,” he said.

The next round of contests comes next Tuesday, in Ohio, Indiana and the District of Columbia.

Jackson, clearly downcast after his defeat, continued to redefine victory at a late-night news conference in Cincinnati, saying: “Winning is, for us, to keep hope alive.”

“In many ways we are winning every day,” Jackson said. “Our message is winning, we are leading the nation and our party in setting the agenda. . . . In many ways between now and June 7 (the California primary) we will be debating the direction of our party.”

Mind Is on Agenda

Jackson pledged to continue a 50-state contest, but he laid out a strategy that made clear that his mind is more on agenda-setting than victory.

“Our game plan remains very much the same,” he said. “Expand the party. Build a broad-based coalition. Keep hope alive. Change our national priorities.”

Although Jackson carried Philadelphia, his campaign in this city and elsewhere in the state was hampered by internal disputes, with the national staff feuding with the state chairman, Philadelphia City Councilman Lucien Blackwell, about where Jackson should spend his time campaigning.

As a result, events were added and dropped at the last minute, resulting in small crowds and a general sense of confusion. Blackwell complained Tuesday night that Jackson had not spent sufficient time campaigning in Philadelphia, the center of his support.

Blames Squabbling

Jackson’s national campaign manager, Gerald F. Austin, said Tuesday that the internal squabbling had contributed to the size of Jackson’s defeat.

“There’s a lot of local politics involved here with folks who come together for Jesse Jackson but prior to that are fighting with each other.”

Interviews conducted by The Times as voters left the polls showed that the balloting in this first two-man contest in the Democratic race divided sharply along racial lines, with Dukakis getting only about 5% of the black vote and Jackson getting about 13% of the white vote.

The campaign here marked the start of a new and evidently final phase in the contest for the Democratic nomination. The competition that began 11 weeks ago in Iowa with eight contenders had been reduced to a two-man race after the New York primary by the elimination of Gore.

New York voters also gave Dukakis a 14-percentage-point victory over Jackson and 164 of the 255 delegates at stake, making him the undisputed front-runner. Going into Tuesday’s balloting, Dukakis led Jackson by more than 250 delegates.

In some ways Jackson and his entourage seemed relieved to go on to Pennsylvania after the tense and emotionally draining New York campaign, which lasted for two weeks.

Inflammatory Rhetoric

“In Pennsylvania there are no political pyromaniacs running around starting religious and moral fires,” said Frank Watkins, Jackson’s political director. He was referring to the inflammatory rhetoric used by New York Mayor Edward I. Koch, who said that Jews would have to be “crazy” to vote for Jackson and then publicly denounced Jackson as a liar.

But if the political climate in Pennsylvania was more stable than in New York, it was not a particularly hospitable environment for Jackson’s candidacy.

He had enthusiastic support from Philadelphia’s large black population and from Mayor W. Wilson Goode, and in a few other areas around the state. But by and large, Jackson found it tough going among the relatively conservative Democrats in central and western Pennsylvania.

On the other hand, the ethnic makeup of these voters, a mix of Poles, Ukrainians, Italians and Irish, seemed well-designed for the appeal of Dukakis. He relentlessly promoted his Greek heritage in an effort to add color and flavor to his candidacy, which was not otherwise conspicuous for these qualities.

Attentive Audience

Moreover, Dukakis’ claims to have accomplished an economic “miracle” in Massachusetts apparently found an attentive audience in Pennsylvania’s blue-collar regions, which are all undergoing an uneasy transition to a post-industrial economy.

Dukakis’ unwillingness to stir any controversy that might disrupt his seemingly inevitable progress to the nomination created particularly serious problems for Jackson.

Having devoted himself earlier to promoting party harmony while the other candidates squabbled among themselves, Jackson faced the challenge of picking a fight with Dukakis that would not leave him open to charges of divisiveness.

This was a problem Jackson grappled with throughout the Pennsylvania campaign without ever solving it. In their first two-man debate here, Jackson made no serious attempt to disagree with Dukakis, although he did scornfully dismiss talk of his being offered the vice presidential spot on the ticket as “premature to give out coronation roses” to his opponent.

On the next night, when they debated in Pittsburgh, Jackson pressed Dukakis to back up his support for education and other domestic programs by making specific spending commitments in his first presidential budget. But Dukakis parried Jackson’s thrust, contending that it was unrealistic to make such specific financial commitments so long before taking office.

THE PENNSYLVANIA VOTE Republicans 8,165 of 9,406 precincts reporting--87%. 96 convention delegates at stake.

Vote Pct. Delegates (Est.) Bush 558,822 79 75 Dole 85,554 12 0 Robertson 66,442 9 8

Democrats 8,235 of 9,406 precincts reporting--88%. 178 convention delegates at stake.

Vote Pct. Delegates Dukakis 885,254 66 164 Jackson 381,995 29 12 Gore 40,570 3 0 Simon 9,689 1 0 Others 18,464 2 0