POLITICS 88 : Keeps Privacy, Tomato Patch in Resisting Secret Service : Dukakis Limits Scope of Guards

Score one for the common man--Michael S. Dukakis has convinced the Secret Service to let him keep his tomato patch.

When Secret Service agents board Dukakis’ plane today for a campaign swing to New Jersey, Oregon and California, it will mark the end of a months-long debate in which the Massachusetts governor stubbornly resisted entreaties by his staff and his wife, Kitty, to accept bodyguards.

The tomato patch in the sunny spot at the front of his house, which the security men had planned to obliterate in favor of a parking spot for their command trailer, had become a symbol of the inconvenience and disruption that Dukakis insisted he did not want.

“Kitty and I have been very, very lucky,” Dukakis told reporters Tuesday. “In 25 years in political life, we’ve had a remarkably normal family life.”

Dukakis, said campaign manager Susan Estrich, “is very protective of his privacy.” But, she added, “with the nomination getting closer, a lot of people who have been in the business told him it was something he had to do.”

Also Tuesday, Dukakis responded to repeated recent complaints by the Rev. Jesse Jackson that the party’s delegate-selection process is unfair.

Jackson argues that he should be entitled to more votes from uncommitted “super delegates,” many of whom are beginning to endorse Dukakis.

“I think the system is a fair system,” Dukakis said. “We all knew what we were getting into when we ran in the first place.”

Dukakis’ aides were blunter. “Jesse Jackson has won 29% of the popular vote and 28% of the delegates,” said Tad Devine, Dukakis’ chief delegate hunter, dismissing the argument that the rules hurt Jackson.

“We’re getting the super delegates because we won big primaries,” he said.

In addition, Dukakis aides note that Jackson, unlike Dukakis, was deeply involved in the process by which the party’s current rules were developed and that Jackson, too, has benefited by some of the rules’ quirks.

In Texas, for example, Dukakis beat Jackson in the primary, but Jackson has captured a disproportionate share of delegates by deft organizational efforts in subsequent party caucuses. Similarly, Dukakis won heavily in Vermont’s non-binding primary, but Jackson won the state delegation, which was selected separately in a 2,000-person caucus.

The biggest remaining delegate prize, of course, is California, which votes June 7. Starting Thursday, with a trip that will take him to Los Angeles and San Diego, Dukakis increasingly will be turning his attention to the state.

State Is Key to Chances

Aides hope the extensive campaigning will serve two purposes--ensuring that Jackson does not upset Dukakis’ steady movement toward the nomination and bolstering their effort in a state which would be key to Dukakis’ chances against Vice President George Bush in the fall.

Meanwhile, the California primary, and the memories it evokes of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination 20 years ago, played a factor in Dukakis’ finally agreeing to accept Secret Service protection.

“There are just too many wackos in the world,” Estrich said.

The security guards are certain to change some of the informality of Dukakis’ campaign. Last week in Omaha, for example, Dukakis attended a large rally in the National Guard armory building, strolling through the crowd, shaking hands with supporters and others, merely curious, who had stopped by to hear the speeches and drink a beer.

By contrast, Secret Service guards tightly control access to Bush, keeping him away from most spontaneous contact with voters, and even Jackson has been kept away from crowds on some occasions. Jackson has had Secret Service protection since November. Bush has been guarded throughout his term in office.

Some things about Dukakis will not change, however. Dukakis told reporters Tuesday he still intends to ride the T, Boston’s subway, to work at the Statehouse. And he will keep the tomato patch under an agreement that will have the Secret Service post guards at his house but park the command trailer elsewhere.