Dukakis Says He’ll Search ‘Far and Wide’ for Running Mate, Plans Fall Campaign

Michael S. Dukakis, his Democratic nomination for President finally in hand, moved quickly Wednesday to begin choosing a running mate and planning for the fall campaign.

“I’m going to cast my net far and wide,” Dukakis told reporters, before leaving Los Angeles for his home in Boston, of his search for a vice presidential nominee.

The Massachusetts governor said he would use no ideological “litmus test,” such as opposition to U.S. support of the Contras in Nicaragua, in making his choice.

No List of Favorites

“I’m not looking for a clone of Mike Dukakis,” he said. He said he had “no list” yet of favorites.

Dukakis named his campaign chairman, Paul Brountas, to direct the sensitive search. The two, close friends since they met at Harvard Law School in 1958, spent more than an hour conferring later on the campaign plane.

“We talked about a timetable,” Brountas said, but declined to elaborate. He said he would use “key staff,” not outsiders, to help him. But he said Dukakis would ultimately consult “political leaders, business leaders, labor leaders and others.”

In an apparent attempt to head off the inevitable speculation, Dukakis cautioned reporters that only he and Brountas were authorized to speak about the search, not “highly placed advisers or well-placed sources.”

Brountas, 56, a securities lawyer and senior partner at the prominent Boston law firm of Hale & Dorr, is an engaging, avuncular campaign figure, but is notoriously tight-lipped.

Dukakis repeated that his most important criterion was a running mate who would make a “first-rate President” if need be. He promised a “very thorough screening process” to avoid the personal problems that plagued such Democratic candidates as Thomas F. Eagleton in 1972 and Geraldine A. Ferraro in 1984. Eagleton withdrew as George S. McGovern’s running mate after it was revealed he had been hospitalized for nervous exhaustion, and Ferraro faced scrutiny over her family’s financial dealings.

Dukakis continued to keep at arm’s length from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Democratic runner-up. “There are a number of people who deserve special consideration,” not just Jackson, he said in response to a question.

The two met Monday night for the third time in three weeks, and Dukakis said they congratulated one another by phone late Tuesday as well. “We have good relations,” he said.

Dukakis also got a congratulatory phone call Tuesday afternoon, while he was resting at Fox Inc. Chairman Barry Diller’s home in Malibu, from Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. A Dukakis aide said Shamir was in New York briefly to speak at the United Nations, and that the two had tried to meet on a previous Shamir visit.

While having his plane refueled in St. Louis, Dukakis was endorsed by former rival Rep. Richard A. Gephardt. The Missouri congressman and Dukakis waged a bitter war of words and advertisements before the Super Tuesday contests on March 8, with Dukakis even mocking Gephardt for darkening his blond eyebrows, but they each offered only praise at an appearance on a blustery airport runway here.

‘Testing of Ideas’

“Yes, we clashed from time to time,” Gephardt said. “That conflict, that trying and testing of ideas and energy can only be good for the party and the nation. . . . Ours was not a dispute over ends but rather over means.”

Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois and former Gov. Bruce Babbitt of Arizona, whose campaigns also fell by the wayside during the year’s primaries, also endorsed Dukakis in separate press conferences. In New York, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo also gave his support.

Aides said the campaign will grow considerably now. The campaign headquarters in Boston, for example, will add three floors, doubling its current size.

Mindy Lubber, Dukakis’ chief scheduler, said her staff will grow from 10 to 40. About 250 others will be hired, she said, to handle advance and press work for the campaign.

POPULAR VOTE IN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES

All contests to date

DEMOCRATS

99.4% of precincts reporting

Dukakis 9,727,083 42.5% Jackson 6,707,199 29.3% Gore 3,135,523 13.7% Gephardt 1,315,027 5.7% Simon 1,079,473 4.7% Hart 405,467 1.8% Uncommitted 228,688 1.0% Others 216,961 0.9% Babbitt 87,497 0.4%

REPUBLICANS

99.9% of precincts reporting

Bush 8,124,979 67.9% Dole 2,306,244 19.3% Robertson 1,051,936 8.8% Kemp 323,833 2.7% Uncommitted 69,719 0.6% DuPont 49,855 0.4% Haig 26,818 0.2% Others 6,739 0.1%

Source: Associated Press