Dukakis, Starting 3-Day Swing in South, Says He Can Break GOP Hold on Region

Making his first extended campaign swing since clinching his party’s presidential nomination, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis headed South Thursday, stopping here first to receive the endorsement of former rival Sen. Albert Gore Jr.

Gore, who during the primary campaign sharply criticized Dukakis for offering “the same tired old formulas that cost the Democrats” four of the last five elections, said Thursday that Dukakis had been “growing and maturing” and “fleshing out” his positions during the campaign.

“Mike Dukakis’ image is very different from what a lot of people thought it was going to be,” Gore said, predicting that the Democrat would “be able to win five or six Southern states” against Vice President George Bush in the fall.

Insists He Has Appeal

Dukakis, for his part, insisted that he can appeal successfully to Southern voters, repeating his charge that Bush had been participating in a “phony war” on drugs and saying that as governor he would “either be thrown out of office or laughed out” if he had allowed the budget to go as far into the red as the Reagan Administration has done on the federal level.

Dukakis also repeated his defense of House Speaker Jim Wright’s handling of the House Ethics Committee’s investigation of his conduct, saying the Texas Democrat’s willingness to cooperate with the probe offered a “refreshing change” from the “stonewalling” displayed by Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III.

Nashville was the first stop on a three-day swing that will take Dukakis to Miami--where he will continue his recent emphasis on his record of fighting crime and drugs--then on to Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas, where he will speak at the funeral of prominent Latino leader Willie Velasquez and perhaps meet with his remaining rival for the Democratic nomination, the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

The trip is designed to “send an important signal,” Dukakis campaign manager Susan Estrich told reporters Thursday morning. “We want to give notice today we’re going to compete in every state in the South.”

With his own polls showing Dukakis “competitive” against Bush throughout the South, and a nine-state Southern survey released Thursday by pollster Claiborne Darden showing the two men essentially tied, the trip allows Dukakis to get a head start on consolidating his Southern support. Republicans have maintained a strong hold on the region for the last two elections.

Many of the events Dukakis has scheduled during the trip, particularly the ones emphasizing his anti-drug theme, appear designed to reach out to the moderate and conservative white voters whom he will need to attract in order to bear out Gore’s prediction of success.

While appealing to those voters, Dukakis is taking steps as well to build support among blacks and Latinos, the two minority groups that have formed the party’s most loyal base in the South and Southwest.

Dukakis’ two senior black advisers--longtime aide Joe Warren and Donna Brazile, a former top aide to presidential hopeful Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) who has now joined Dukakis as deputy national field director--are accompanying Dukakis on the trip.

To Speak at Funeral

Saturday, Dukakis will speak in San Antonio at the funeral of Velasquez, who was one of the nation’s leading Latino political figures as head of the Southwest Voter Registration Project until his death Thursday of cancer at the age of 45.

Velasquez had been slated to introduce Dukakis Saturday at the Texas state Democratic convention and to join the campaign as a senior adviser.

Campaign aides know Dukakis must win heavily among those minority groups while gaining about 40% or more of the white voters to prevail in the South. On the plane from Boston, where Gore and his wife, Tipper, joined Dukakis for the trip to Nashville, Gore conceded to reporters that “there’s a lot of work to be done” to meet that goal in his home state of Tennessee.

Remarks by Tennessee Gov. Ned McWherter, a Democrat, demonstrated the problem. Dukakis “on many issues is more liberal than I’m comfortable with,” McWherter told the Nashville Tennessean.

‘Understands Our Problems’

Later, at a press conference after he and Gore endorsed Dukakis, McWherter shrugged the remark aside, saying that while he differed with Dukakis over issues like abortion and the death penalty, Dukakis “understands our problems.”

Dukakis could win in the South if the campaign focuses on “basic issues” like education, health care and jobs, rather than the “emotional issues” his GOP opponents hope to exploit, McWherter said.

And Gore insisted that while many white Democratic leaders shunned the national ticket in 1984, “I don’t think you’re going to see that at all” in this election.

Not only is Dukakis not the traditional liberal the Republicans “were licking their chops over,” he said, “George Bush is not Ronald Reagan, he just doesn’t come across” to Southern voters.

“You’re going to see a lot of people who were standoffish in 1984 praising Mike Dukakis,” Gore predicted. “Bush cannot stop it, he doesn’t know how.” Most of Bush’s attacks, such as his recent criticisms of Dukakis’ ties to Harvard, simply cause “public bemusement,” Gore said.

Bush Also in South

Bush, meanwhile, also took a trip South on Thursday, calling on attendees at the U.S. Jaycees convention in Richmond, Va., to use their resources to combat recreational and workplace drug abuse.

He defended the Administration’s work thus far in combatting drug use and repeated his call for tougher judges, more prisons, seizure of property in which drugs are found, and testing of personnel in sensitive positions, such as prison guards, airline pilots and other transportation workers.

Bush has asked that private companies contracting with the federal government be required to establish “drug-free programs” for their employees, and on Thursday he suggested that all employers voluntarily put together programs to assist troubled workers.

Questions Defense Emphasis

On the return trip from Richmond aboard Air Force II, the vice president in response to questions called Dukakis’ recent foreign policy address “thoughtful” but questioned whether the Democratic governor’s emphasis on conventional forces would be too costly.

“Where’s the price tag?” Bush said.

While Dukakis favors a strengthening of conventional non-nuclear forces, Bush has urged continued development of nuclear weapons systems, and he argues that the Reagan Administration’s defense build-up forced the Soviet Union to bargain on arms control.