Behind the Scenes : Wooing of Delegates Intensifies

Away from the crowds and commotion of the campaign trail, the candidates for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination have waged an aggressive, behind-the-scenes contest for delegates that rivals the more traditional politicking in intensity.

While Vice President George Bush has locked up the GOP nomination, competition between Michael S. Dukakis and the Rev. Jesse Jackson for Democratic delegates remains strong: Those who have stayed uncommitted now have the power to confer the party’s nomination.

Dukakis has been working feverishly to line up enough delegates by the end of Tuesday’s primaries to capture the nomination, a goal he is expected to achieve. But even after he is over the top, the courting of delegates will continue, because the battle doesn’t end there.

Control of Convention

Beyond the nomination, what is at stake is control of the Democratic National Convention, the nominee’s most important introduction to the nation. Ugly floor fights over the party platform, credentials or rules could mar this moment of triumph and leave voters with the memory of a candidate unable to control the divisions within his own party.

Delegate loyalty is crucial to avoiding such public bloodletting, and between now and mid-July much time will be spent analyzing which delegates can be counted on for absolute fidelity, which need watching and how and when to act to prevent defections.

“It is very, very easy to lose control of a convention,” warns Tad Devine, chief delegate hunter for Dukakis.

Vestiges of an obscure process that most people vaguely remember from civics class, delegates conjure up televised visions of nondescript people in funny hats beneath bobbing signs that say “California,” “New York,” “Virginia” or some other state. But as the primary season ends, these rarely considered players are replacing the voter in importance.

Fought and Fawned Over

By the opening of next month’s convention, 4,161 delegates will have been fought over and fawned over, picked over and pandered to, their every like and dislike recorded on computers in national campaign headquarters, the nuances of their conversations with campaign workers duly noted in files.

Marjorie Craig Benton, a delegate for Illinois Sen. Paul Simon, is already blase about the attention. A veteran of conventions, the wealthy Democratic fund-raiser is taking her cues this time from her “terribly good friend Paul,” who has asked his delegates to eschew the flirtations of Dukakis and Jackson until the convention.

“I’ve been followed around quite steadily--calls and that sort of thing,” said Benton, 54, who described the courtship while sipping tea in the sun room of her elegant home on the shores of Lake Michigan. “That’s the name of the game, isn’t it?”

Already, delegates are the source of squabbles between the candidates. Complaints about their distribution threaten to erupt into formal challenges.

Jackson, for example, has complained that although he won the popular vote in Puerto Rico, Dukakis grabbed the delegates. Dukakis’ campaign has countered that he trounced Jackson in a ballot vote in Vermont, but Jackson got an edge on the state’s pledged delegates in later caucuses.

The disputes reflect the hodgepodge of delegate selection. Although the distribution of delegates is commonly thought to mirror the preferences of voters, it is in fact influenced by party rules that vary from state to state, political infighting and the organizing ability of the candidates themselves.

It’s not exactly the way they taught it in civics class.

Nearly 16% of the delegates to the convention get there just by virtue of being governors, national and statewide Democratic Party leaders or members of Congress. These “super delegates” were created to give elected officials a greater say in the nomination.

Jackson has complained bitterly about their clout and has indicated that he may challenge their votes at the convention. He argues that a member of Congress, for example, should back the candidate who carried his or her district in the primary.

As early as last summer, the campaigns began researching the backgrounds of super delegates, assembling computerized profiles that included how many children these delegates had, their spouses’ names, their nicknames and the issues on which they felt strongest. The candidates made the phone calls.

Dukakis regularly calls 10 super delegates a day and has been known to make as many as 25 calls from airports, hotel rooms or his Boston office.

‘He’s Great at It’

“He is very willing to do it, and he’s great at it,” said Susan Brophy, 36, Dukakis’ deputy director of delegate selection. “He calls the ones who are on the verge of committing, and Kitty (his wife) gets the persuasion calls because she has a little more time.”

The campaign has come a long way from the fall and winter, when many super delegates didn’t return Dukakis’ calls. “Despite the look that we’re on a complete roll, nothing has come easy,” Brophy said.

When the governor began winning primaries, super delegates warmed noticeably to the campaign. One who had been “pretty abrupt” when campaign workers called her telephoned the Boston headquarters the day after Dukakis’ New York primary victory to congratulate the candidate. “She couldn’t have been nicer,” Brophy recalled.

If super delegates are the party elite, district delegates are its rank and file. They are teachers, merchants, attorneys, party activists, laborers--anyone who has worked for the candidate or been active in local campaigns and can get enough votes from his neighbors.

These men and women campaign to be delegates, usually running in candidate-sponsored elections in each state’s congressional districts. Depending on the state, delegate elections are held at gatherings before or after the primary, on the primary ballot or in conventions following caucuses.

Even though most delegates must pay their convention expenses (unions often pick up the tab for their members), there is serious competition for what most see as an opportunity to witness history and mingle at catered parties with well-known politicians and television personalities.

Dan Stamatelos, 54, an attorney, campaigned to be a Dukakis delegate at a recent convention in Iowa. He passed out leaflets listing his qualifications: He had “fed campaign workers” during Dukakis’ campaign for Iowa’s Feb. 8 caucuses, chauffeured them and the candidate, and performed office work and janitorial chores at campaign headquarters.

Gregarious Attorney

“I want to be there because I think it will be an historic event,” said the gray-haired, gregarious attorney. “I’m Greek and Dukakis is Greek.”

Stamatelos said he spent “a few hundred dollars” for leaflets and campaign mailings to other conventioneers. When the election was held by secret ballot nearly nine hours later, Stamatelos narrowly lost to a man who had telephoned the conventioneers prior to the gathering and plastered more signs at the convention site than anyone else.

In the crazy quilt of delegate selection, the biggest controversy this year has been over the direct-election delegate system. In direct-election states, would-be delegates run on the ballot along with the presidential candidates, and the top presidential candidate in each congressional district usually wins all of that district’s delegates. (In most other states, district delegates are divided up among all the candidates who receive at least 15% of the vote.)

Punitive for Jackson

For Jackson, the direct-election system has been punitive. In Illinois and Pennsylvania, to cite two examples, he carried a few urban congressional districts by huge majorities but got less than 20% of the popular vote--and no delegates--in most others. Statewide in Illinois, he got 31% of the popular vote, but at this point, less than 17% of the Illinois delegates say they plan to vote for him. In Pennsylvania, he got 27.5% of the popular vote, but so far he has less than 10% of the pledged delegates.

In Puerto Rico, where uncommitted delegates ran on the ballot under pro-statehood and pro-commonwealth slates, Jackson won the popular vote. But the governor of Puerto Rico later endorsed Dukakis and gave all of Puerto Rico’s delegates to the Massachusetts governor.

“We got cheated,” said Steve Cobble, who runs Jackson’s delegate operation.

Once elected, delegates become the prey of the delegate hunter.

The hunters, or trackers, stalk the uncommitted or those delegates who were elected to represent a candidate who no longer is in the race. They also regularly call their own delegates to pick up rumors, pass on campaign developments and make sure no one jumps ship.

Dukakis’ trackers include Mary Herlihy, 30, an attorney; Thomas O’Brien, 25, an insurance underwriter; Hodding Carter IV, 25, son of the Carter Administration’s chief spokesman for the State Department, and Deirdre Koppel, 22, daughter of Ted Koppel of “Nightline.”

They work out of a cluster of cramped, cluttered offices on the third floor of an office building in downtown Boston. Large maps of the United States, divided into four regions by black marking pen, hang above the desks. Each region is assigned a tracker.

Incentives to Sign Up

In their quest for Dukakis delegates, they offer uncommitted delegates incentives to sign up: bumper stickers, political buttons, lapel pins, T-shirts and autographed photographs of Dukakis.

Carter, who was born in Mississippi and tracks Southern delegates, said several have asked him whether he could help them get a good hotel room in Atlanta. He can’t.

“They’re always trying to figure out what abilities I have to get different things--certain parties they want to go to or floor passes,” Carter said.

It was more of a joke than a bribe, but two days after promising an uncommitted delegate a “Duke in Dixie” T-shirt, Carter got that delegate to go with Dukakis. “Probably she just got tired of hearing from me,” he said, smiling sheepishly.

Developing Relationships

The tracker’s goal is to develop relationships with the delegates by the time of the convention. Carter, for example, sent flowers to one of the delegates he was tracking when she married. He established such rapport with another delegate that she ended one of their conversations with: “ ‘I Love You.’ ”

“It was like I was talking to my mom,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I love you too’ and then I said goodby.”

Carter’s name has caused some delegates to confuse him with his father, a mistake that he said means that his calls get returned more often.

“I don’t try to trick them, though,” he said. “I say this is Hodding Carter the Fourth even though I hate saying it.”

O’Brien, assigned to the West, said many delegates, particularly party officials, want a commitment that Dukakis will visit their states during the general election.

“I tell them I think we can visit them during the general election,” he said, “but you don’t want to promise them anything.”

Job Like a Salesman’s

O’Brien approaches his job like a salesman. “You try to figure out what makes people tick,” he said. “If someone you are talking to says they have three boys, you remember that. And if they mention that their son is a soccer player, you remember that, and in the next conversation, you ask how he did at the state soccer championship.”

The consensus among delegate trackers is that Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr.’s delegates are the hardest to raid for two reasons: He has been out of the race less time than the others, and he has sent his delegates letters asking them to hold tight. Unlike Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who released his delegates when he withdrew, Gore and Simon have asked theirs to remain loyal until the convention.

A few weeks ago, the Dukakis campaign decided to become more aggressive with Gore’s supporters. A Dukakis tracker, himself a Southerner, traveled through the South knocking on doors of some Gore delegates and begging them to come over. Fourteen were swayed.

Richard J. Daschbach, 51, is the kind of delegate who makes trackers uneasy. He is pledged to Dukakis but his heart is still with Gephardt.

A representative of the Seafarers International Union, the New Hampshire resident was “totally captivated” by Gephardt. “He made me feel like when I was 21 or 22 years old and Jack Kennedy was running for President,” Daschbach said. When Gephardt and his wife, Jane, campaigned in New Hampshire, they stayed at Daschbach’s home. When the Gephardt campaign held elections before the primary to select district delegates, Daschbach ran and won a slot, eventually becoming one of four Gephardt delegates from New Hampshire.

Gephardt’s withdrawal on March 28 hurt, and Daschbach was still in mourning when the Dukakis campaign telephoned him and the other Gephardt delegates. The campaign wanted a quick endorsement, hoping it would be publicized as a surge for Dukakis.

The other delegates quickly buckled. In what Daschbach thought an “unseemly” display, the three held a news conference on the state Capitol steps the week of Gephardt’s withdrawal and announced their conversion to Dukakis.

‘Very Polite’ Letters

“I wasn’t part of their (Dukakis’) agenda, so I kept saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ ” Daschbach recalled.

The lobbying by the Dukakis campaign--and the Gore campaign as well--continued: “very polite” letters and telephone calls followed.

“My intention was to wait, to stay uncommitted all the way to the convention,” he said.

The pressure grew. Even Daschbach’s local paper ran an editorial urging him to endorse Dukakis. “It was crazy,” Daschbach recalled.

When Dukakis trounced Gore and Jackson in the New York primary, Daschbach felt the race was “clearly over” and went to see Gephardt in Washington. He said Gephardt told him that “Dukakis is going to be the nominee and we all have to support the Democratic nominee.”

So with Gephardt’s blessing, Daschbach called up the Dukakis campaign and pledged his support. It was not a happy moment.

“I have to say I didn’t jump for love,” he said. “It was a practical thing.”

Jackson, like Dukakis, keeps track of delegates by computer. But Jackson’s operation is smaller, largely because the campaign has less to spend. Dukakis’ trackers were already making calls when Jackson’s staff was still working out the bugs in their computer program.

The civil rights leader sends delegates letters of congratulation that encourage them to call his office if they have questions about the convention. These letters go to all delegates, not just his own. They are not meant to persuade; rather they are sent as a gesture of good will. Should the delegates later decide to switch, Jackson wants to be considered.

“I understand and appreciate your loyalty to Paul Simon,” Jackson says in his letter to Simon delegates. “He and I both want to elect a Democratic President in November.”

Enclosed is a questionnaire, seeking information that would be helpful if the campaign decides to lobby the delegate later. For example, it asks the delegate to name the quality or stand of Jackson’s that they least and most favor, and to check off the issues that most concern them.

As soon as the delegates step off the plane in Atlanta, the campaigns will be monitoring their movements. “We want to know where they are and where we can reach them the whole time they are in Atlanta,” Dukakis’ Brophy said.

Keeping track of delegates is important because the mood and focus of a convention can shift rapidly. Devine, the Dukakis delegate chief, describes conventions as “very volatile.” Different factions with competing interests are gathered in a tight space, rumors travel rapidly and signals can get crossed.

And if the expected nominee loses a floor fight, his delegates may become what Devine calls “targets of opportunity” for his opponents. “More important, the other campaigns will be given the incentive to tie up the proceedings as much as possible,” Devine said. “And that’s the real threat.”

A Single, Key Vote

At many recent Democratic conventions, there has been a single, key vote that could have thrown the nomination in doubt. In 1980, for example, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy challenged President Jimmy Carter over a rule requiring delegates to vote for the candidate they were elected to represent. The rule was upheld but has since been amended to allow delegates to switch.

“I think the nomination of Jimmy Carter would have been completely at risk and the ability to put together the first-ballot nomination would have been seriously jeopardized if the Carter campaign had not won,” said Devine, who tracked delegates for Carter. “It was clearly recognized as the test of strength, and the delegates voted on it with that in mind.”

Concerned that Jackson’s complaints about the Puerto Rico delegation, the direct-election system and the endorsements of the super delegates may escalate into formal challenges, the Dukakis campaign was not put at ease by Jackson’s recent hiring of Harold Ickes, a politically savvy New York attorney, to handle rules matters at the convention. “He’s dynamite,” said Elaine Kamarck, a political consultant, columnist and former deputy campaign manager for Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt. “If Jackson wants to file challenges to the rules, Harold’s the guy to do it.”

Preparing for Trouble

Dukakis’ campaign is preparing for trouble. A team of volunteer attorneys is researching the legal fine points of Jackson’s complaints and preparing memoranda “around issues that could potentially arise,” Devine said.

Part of Devine’s mission will be to ensure that the convention runs on a schedule that will give Dukakis the most prime-time coverage. “You don’t want a repeat of the McGovern situation,” Devine said, referring to the 1972 convention in which Sen. George S. McGovern delivered what many considered an excellent acceptance speech--starting at 2:48 a.m.

Once the convention is over and the nominee in place, delegates can relax--for a few days. State campaign organizations will soon be calling to solicit help for the general election: running phone banks, attending campaign events, promoting the nominee to civic groups.

Seated in her office at Dukakis’ Boston headquarters, Brophy considered the prospects. Another campaign official had just passed by gloating over her victory in landing a delegate; a young man nearby was plugging information on delegates into a computer, and several trackers were on the telephone wooing delegates.

Looking toward the general election, she mused aloud about the tasks that awaited these delegates. “We’ll certainly know how to reach them,” she said with a laugh.

Times researcher Doug Conner contributed to this story.