Kemp, Dole Lead List of Possible Bush Choices : Running-Mate Ritual Well Under Way in GOP

If your first name is Pierre and you have a IV after your last name, do not expect to be George Bush’s vice presidential running mate. If you have a preppie image, you are out of contention too, because one preppie on the Republican ticket is enough.

That is the reasoning--only half-joking--that Republican strategists cite for concluding that former Delaware Gov. Pierre S. (Pete) du Pont IV and New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, both of whom are often mentioned as possibilities to fill out this year’s GOP ticket, are out of the running.

“Pierre the Fourth” just does not sound right, they say, and Kean and Bush have country club backgrounds that are all too similar.

As such talk makes clear, for all the joking, the process of selecting a running mate is one of the most cold-blooded rituals in all of American politics. And the quadrennial game is in full swing these days for Republican nominee-apparent Bush and his legions of would-be advisers.

Indeed, speculation over Bush’s ultimate choice has been building ever since he sewed up the GOP presidential nomination last March--unexpectedly early in the primary season. The vice president himself has said he has no list of contenders and will not really “start on the list thing” until after next month’s Democratic convention--giving him the advantage of tailoring his selection to meet the competition’s lineup.

Nonetheless, aides say it is already clear that at least two of the rivals Bush vanquished in the primaries will get serious consideration for the No. 2 spot on the GOP ticket--and that several others who are being prominently mentioned are unlikely to be chosen.

Among the latter, for example, is California Gov. George Deukmejian. He is the reasonably popular governor of a politically crucial state, but he is considered unlikely to get the nod because his personality is considered about as exciting as Bush’s own. Adding Deukmejian to the Bush ticket would be “the bland leading the bland,” some Republican handlers gibe.

Moreover, California Republicans do not want him to run because if he wins it would turn the governor’s office over to a Democrat. And Deukmejian insists he is not interested.

Kirkpatrick Often Critical

Similarly, former U.N. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick is widely known as a foreign policy expert and stirs the blood of conservative ideologues, but she has been too critical of Bush to be acceptable as his running mate. And she probably would not be seriously considered for a number of other reasons--including lack of positive chemistry with Bush and views that may be too conservative for the vice president’s taste--even though a group lobbying for her selection produced a poll that indicated she would strengthen the ticket.

On the other hand, two longtime Washington political figures who lost to Bush in the primaries--Rep. Jack Kemp of New York and Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas--are increasingly mentioned by Republican strategists here as leading contenders because they are experienced campaigners who might help the ticket in some areas where Bush is relatively weak.

Bush advisers say both Kemp and Dole have figured heavily in the Bush campaign’s early discussions of a running mate.

Other names being bandied about by the Bush campaign, although all would be long shots, include former White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr., former Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole (Sen. Dole’s wife), Gov. James R. Thompson of Illinois, Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Senate Minority Whip Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Sen. William L. Armstrong of Colorado and former Govs. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Dick Thornburgh of Pennsylvania.

Of all the names being mentioned at this stage, said one Bush adviser, “none really leaps out, but you’d have to say Kemp and Dole would be around the top.”

Historically, presidential nominees rarely have chosen a running mate from among their vanquished opponents, but it has happened three times in the last seven elections with successful results: Witness Reagan-Bush in 1980, Carter-Mondale in 1976 and Kennedy-Johnson in 1960.

Although campaigning for a place on the ticket is generally considered bad form and Kemp says he realizes such activity would lead to “a dead-end street,” the congressman makes no secret of his eagerness to be Bush’s running mate. And while he stresses he is not campaigning for a spot on the ticket, he can rattle off a series of reasons he thinks he would strengthen it.

Will be ‘Good Campaigner’

Kemp, whose forces campaigned for him to get the vice presidential nomination at the 1980 GOP convention, says if he gets it this year “fine, but if not, I’ll be a good campaigner for Bush no matter what.”

Kemp has made several speeches for Bush after conferring with the vice president and his campaign manager, Lee Atwater, about being “a major surrogate” for Bush on the campaign trail. But Kemp said they have not discussed the vice presidential nomination.

Dole, unlike Kemp, says he has no interest in running as vice president. He has done it before, he says, in 1976 when he was then-President Gerald R. Ford’s running mate against the Carter-Mondale ticket.

And, Dole quips, he would rather be Senate Republican leader anyway because the vice presidency involves “indoor work with no heavy lifting.”

Despite Dole’s disclaimer, speculation has centered on him because it is believed he would strengthen the ticket in the Midwest, where the vice president is not particularly popular. Bush has added to the speculation in recent weeks by praising the senator, saying at one point: “He is speaking at conventions all across this country saying I should be elected, and I can ask no more of him.”

Dole has been such a longtime--and at times bitter--rival of the vice president, however, that some strategists question whether Bush would seriously consider selecting him. Their rivalry dates back to December, 1972, when Dole was pushed aside so Bush could succeed him as chairman of the Republican Party.

In this year’s Republican primaries, Dole was Bush’s most acerbic antagonist. On the night election returns showed Bush winning the New Hampshire primary, Dole, asked in a television interview if he had anything to say to his rival, gritted his teeth and called on Bush to “stop lying about my record.”

More recently, the senator, noting President Reagan’s praise of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev at the Moscow summit, cracked that Reagan had given the Soviet leader a stronger endorsement than he had given Bush because Gorbachev “has a political future.”

“The trouble with Dole,” says a Bush adviser, “is you never know what he’s going to say.”

Kemp, 52, who gave up almost certain reelection to his House seat from Buffalo for a 10th term in order to run for President, has been much more guarded in his public comments. He has gone through press conferences and a series of GOP presidential debates this year without committing gaffes that might cause problems for a presidential campaign, a fact he underscores in discussing his own chances of being on the ticket.

Kemp contends that as a New York congressman he could help the ticket in the Northeast, but says he did not have that in mind when he recently expressed concern at a Republican unity conference that the Bush campaign’s “Sun Belt strategy” might write off the Northeast and cost the vice president the election.

“Please don’t write off the Northeast,” Kemp implored the Republicans. “Please don’t think we can win by knitting together some kind of electoral base from the Sun Belt, and forget the Northeast.”

He also stresses he would be a plus for Bush among blue-collar Democrats who voted for Reagan, but who may be inclined to vote the Democratic ticket this year.

With Bush recently vowing to break the Democrats’ stranglehold on the black vote, Kemp, who has a strong record on civil rights, says he can help the vice president in that area as well.

He says that when he testifies before the Republican platform committee in Los Angeles on June 30, he plans to “make a strong case that the party has to broaden itself by showing minority Americans--Hispanic, Asian and black--are wanted by the Republicans.”

In calculating his own possible value to the GOP ticket, Kemp is even thinking ahead about Democrat Michael S. Dukakis’ choice of a running mate.

He figures that if Dukakis “moves to the center” and selects someone such as Sen. John Glenn of Ohio, who has strong defense-policy credentials, Bush will need “somebody who could take him on,” somebody like Kemp.

Staff writer Cathleen Decker contributed to this story.