Unpredictable Swing Votes Key to Fall Victory

Stanley Gajkowski can decide George Bush’s fate this November, so it was bad news for the vice president recently when Gajkowski stood in Buffalo, N.Y., rooting for Bush’s probable Democratic foe, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis.

Gajkowski, a 42-year-old maintenance supervisor, is a swing Democrat, the sort who for two elections now has slipped across party lines to sweep Ronald Reagan into the winner’s circle and in 1988 threatens to sweep Bush out of it. Two times, he cast his vote for Reagan.

‘Back to the Fold’

“Now,” he said, “I’m going back to the fold.”

Six months before the election, expected nominees Bush and Dukakis have their long-range sights set on people like Stanley Gajkowski--voters who, because of their unpredictable allegiance at the polls--hold the balance of power in 1988.

The arithmetic is simple: Democrats outnumber Republicans. To beat Bush, Dukakis must corral the rightward-leaning Democrats and independents. To beat Dukakis, Bush must hold tightly to his Republican core and also woo swing voters, the likeliest of which are conservative Southerners and Northern white ethnics.

President Reagan made the necessary alliances look easy in 1984 and, to a lesser extent, in 1980. Bush has yet to escalate his assault on swing votes, but the early signs are not encouraging for him.

Polls taken after primaries in recent months delivered Bush repeated doses of bad news, showing Democrats who voted for Reagan in 1984 moving in large numbers to Dukakis rather than to the President’s loyal subordinate.

To foster acceptance among Northern ethnics, Bush has embraced two former Democrats, Chicago’s one-time alderman, Edward R. Vrdolyak, and Philadelphia’s former mayor, Frank Rizzo, in hope that their appeal would rub off. But Vrdolyak and Rizzo carry some baggage--each is seen as a symbol of racial division, and could alienate other members of the fragile coalition Bush hopes to piece together.

Forced and Awkward

And Bush’s efforts to personally appeal to discomfited Democrats--on the rare occasions he has tried so far--have appeared forced and awkward. At a Pittsburgh job-retraining center recently, Bush moved cautiously into a room where several women worked on word processors. As cameras flashed, he tried to strike up a conversation with one.

“How’s it going out there in the real world?” he said.

“Fine,” the woman answered.

“Isn’t that nice?” he replied, nodding.

A week earlier, at the Lithuanian Village Hall in Cleveland, he greeted an audience with a few lines about baseball legend Stan Musial, then with particular emphasis enthused: “I love this ethnic pride, I’ll tell you!”

On a purely gut level, Bush lacks the easy touch and compelling personality that drew to Reagan the swing voters he needed. But it is still an open question whether Dukakis, either by force of issues or a cultural affinity, can make them stick with him.

Political analysts, while conceding that it is still early, give Dukakis a tentative edge among swing Democrats in the industrial North, while some believe Bush holds a slim advantage among conservative Southern Democrats.

Neither appears to be the heir to the overwhelming swing appeal of Reagan. When the votes were tabulated in 1984, Reagan swept the traditionally Democratic Catholic vote and cornered most of the votes of women and ethnics. He even won a small majority among blue-collar workers and households containing union members.

Stayed Within Party

In contrast, a study of Los Angeles Times exit polls showed that in primary states where registered voters could cast ballots for either party, far more Reagan-backing Democrats stayed within their party in 1988 to vote for Dukakis than strayed to vote for Bush, even in the South.

Exit polls conducted by ABC News also showed that more than two-thirds of the Reagan-voting Democrats in four states--New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia--said they planned to vote in November for Dukakis, not Bush.

The spate of recent national polls giving Dukakis the edge over Bush by between 7 and 16 percentage points also squares with the belief that swing voters are staying Democratic, as does a Los Angeles Times poll giving Dukakis the advantage in California, 53% to 36%.

In addition, Democrats overall have said they have not only a positive impression of Dukakis but a clearly negative impression of Bush. In the Times poll, for example, 40% of all potential voters responding viewed Bush unfavorably--half of them “very” unfavorably. Among Democrats, his unfavorable rating was 61%.

“Swing voters are going in a big way to Michael Dukakis,” said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster.

Joseph Crangle, chairman of the Erie County Democratic Party in New York, has seen strong evidence of this within the ranks of his Buffalo-area constituents.

“They’re more inclined to vote for Dukakis,” Crangle said. “They can identify with Dukakis, with the viewpoint of the ethnic son of the immigrant--and one not appearing to be like George McGovern, a liberal Democrat. I don’t think they see the identification with George Bush that they did with Reagan, because of (Bush’s) background.”

But even there, where circumstances lend themselves to Dukakis’ advantage, Dukakis has yet to lock up the swing vote. “That’s the big question mark,” Crangle said. “We know Bush hasn’t. . . . We’ve got to see how it plays out.”

Bush campaign officials and Republican analysts do not quarrel that swing voters are leaning toward Dukakis at this stage, but they contend that it is a function of the more active Democratic race and the fact that Dukakis, when compared to rival Jesse Jackson, appears more moderate than Bush will allow him to look come November. Then, they argue, the distinctions between the men will be more pronounced.

“A poll is a snapshot and like any snapshot sometimes you get things out of focus,” said Richard N. Bond, Bush’s deputy campaign manager.

“They have Bush out of focus because he’s not yet made his move in terms of his overall identity as a presidential candidate. . . . Dukakis, on the other hand, is riding a honeymoon as he’s moved into the circle of presidential acceptability.”

Bond suggests that Bush’s Reaganesque policy positions will more than offset any personal connection Dukakis makes with swing Democrats. “Dukakis might have the right last name but George Bush will have the right issues,” he said.

Except for Greek-Americans, however, Reagan Democrats interviewed at Dukakis rallies showed little interest in the candidate’s last name or immigrant family background. Rather, their support for the Massachusetts governor hinged mostly on distaste for Reagan Administration economic policies and an absence of faith in Bush himself.

In Buffalo, Crangle said, much of the bias against Bush is pure pocketbook. Optimistic Republican entreaties about the nation’s economy conflict with what many Democrats see there on the streets, Crangle said.

“While the unemployment figures show a low figure, everyone knows a great deal of that is people working and underemployed,” he said. “A fellow who was making $17-$18 is now making $6-$7. They’re counted as working but they’re still having a tough time.”

Gajkowski, the maintenance supervisor at Dukakis’ Buffalo stop, said his main concern is economics. “There’s more fast-food kind of jobs here now,” he said. “But you can’t make a living on minimum wage.”

And there is the lingering perception that Bush is not yet his own man.

“I voted for Reagan,” attorney Stacy Mattice, 30, said at an Albany, N.Y., rally for Dukakis. “But Bush, he doesn’t have enough push. I like what Dukakis stands for. There’s substance behind the rhetoric.”

Dukakis strategists hope to keep swing voters with arguments that focus on high-tech economic development and leadership, as well as contrasting Dukakis’ regular-guy background with Bush’s upper-crust upbringing.

“The governor’s basic message is the message he led with in the primaries,” said Charles E. Baker III, Dukakis’ national field director. “Who understands the components of a modern economy, and, second, who (can) lead this nation into the next century?”

Bush will concentrate more forcefully on picking up swing voters after the close of the June primaries, his strategists say. Essentially, Bush will revive Reagan’s approach, emphasizing traditional patriotic, family-oriented themes, appealing to concerns for low taxes and a strong military.

The vice president’s new push away from current controversial positions held by Reagan--the President’s support of embattled Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and of negotiations with Panamanian military leader Manuel A. Noriega--was also engineered to make Bush appear more independent and forceful, and thus appeal to swing voters and unconvinced Republicans.

In the last week, Bush also went on the offensive on the subject of Reagan’s recent veto of the trade bill, a veto that angered blue-collar workers because Reagan specifically objected to a provision that would have required notification of workers 60 days before plant closures.

Democrats have used the veto to portray Republicans--and Administration officials in particular--as heartless, an image Bush has taken great pains to negate.

“They’ll talk about plant closings and I’ll be talking about plant openings,” he said in Secaucus, N.J., on Wednesday. “I’m going to talk about plant openings--the fact that more Americans are at work today than ever.”

But as important as Bush’s positive message will be the success of his effort to tar Dukakis with the stain of past Democrats, much as Mondale was hit in 1984 with comparisons to his predecessor, Jimmy Carter.

“He may be the son of immigrants,” said Bush’s deputy campaign manager, Bond, “but he’s become the darling of the Brie-and-chablis crowd at Harvard University, and that’s a far cry from the values of these people.”

But selling Dukakis--publicly personified as a somewhat bloodless technocrat--as a Harvard darling may stretch the limits of credulity. Even some Republicans scoff at Bush’s attempts thus far.

‘A Waste of Time’

“He’s too dull . . . to be accused of being a smoothie,” said Claibourne H. Darden Jr., an Atlanta-based Republican consultant. “It’s a waste of time.”

Bush partisans believe that more conservative Democrats will abandon Dukakis as the fall campaign progresses, contending that right now--and not for long--he is succeeding at being all things to all voters.

But being all things to all people is also a central part of the Bush strategy. Two current efforts serve to underline the tenuous and conflicting nature of the support Bush wants to attract.

In his push to get the Democrats he needs for victory, the vice president has embraced Philadelphia’s Rizzo and Chicago’s Vrdolyak, both former Democrats with demonstrated appeal to ethnic voters.

But both men engaged in bitter fights with black politicians earlier in their political careers and have come to represent racial polarization.

Nevertheless, at the same time Bush is attempting to court black voters, last week inviting two dozen civil rights leaders to his Washington vice presidential residence to discuss pressing issues.

Bush defended his alliance with Rizzo and Vrdolyak as merely pragmatic--and debunked criticism of the alliances as “invalid, unfair liberal trash.”

“I’m certainly not going to write off the (white) ethnic communities of this country because of a prejudiced view,” he bristled recently.

“I’m just saying, you know, my God, to say that to show that I care about civil rights and human rights and reaching out to others that I have to turn my back on the ethnic neighborhoods, values and individuals who are strong in those areas, I’m not going to do that . . . I want the vote of people in these ethnic communities. . . .”

Shadow of Reagan

Bush’s strategists, battling to free the vice president’s public perception from the shadow of Reagan as he slumps in the polls, insist that Bush has the tools to unfurl a political umbrella over the disparate groups that Reagan cornered.

Bond argues that Bush’s success in appealing during the primaries to the breadth of Republican ideology, from very conservative to liberal, suggests that he will be able to attract non-Republican support as well. He compared Bush’s appeal to disparate groups to the quality in motor oil that allows engines to run in both hot and cold climates--”candidate viscosity.”

“It’s not Republicanism that unites them,” Bond said, “It’s George Bush. It’s viscosity.”

If no one is willing to bet on that yet, neither are many analysts willing to put their money on Dukakis’ ability to attract inconsistent swing voters.

“Anybody who calls it and calls it right now is just plain lucky,” said Republican consultant Darden.

Staff writer Bob Drogin contributed to this story.