Candidate Must Spell Out Own Persona and Beliefs

Since he started his run for the presidency 14 months ago, Michael S. Dukakis has done pretty much what he set out to do, piling up enough delegates to assure himself of his party’s nomination.

But with the Democratic convention opening here Monday, strategists in both parties contend that Dukakis must take care of some crucial unfinished business--defining himself as a candidate and as a man.

Unless he does that job well--explicitly and persuasively spelling out his own convictions and his goals for the nation--many politicians believe Vice President George Bush will do it for him. And that could very well cost Dukakis his current lead in the polls and ultimately the election.

Not since the Democrats nominated Jimmy Carter, former Georgia governor, in 1976 has either party picked as its standard-bearer anyone whose beliefs and persona are so little known. The convention, promising the largest television audience Dukakis will reach until the fall debates, offers the Massachusetts governor the best chance he has had so far to fill the information gap about himself.

But Dukakis faces a serious problem in taking advantage of that opportunity. As he freely admits, communicating is not one of his strengths. It is a flaw that is said to have greatly concerned his initial presidential campaign manager, John Sasso, who is still an informal adviser. “Sasso always worried that Dukakis would have trouble getting across to people the basic reason for his candidacy,” said another Dukakis aide who asked not to be identified.

Dukakis appears to have made things even more difficult for himself by selecting 67-year-old Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen as his vice presidential running mate before the convention began, and by failing to inform his last remaining rival, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, in advance of his decision.

The net result is that with one stroke Dukakis robbed the convention of a major element of suspense, forfeited the opportunity to pick a youthful running mate who would have underlined his overall campaign theme of “leadership for the future” and antagonized Jackson enough to risk a messy and distracting intraparty public squabble.

But Dukakis can use his acceptance speech and other convention events to deal with his fundamental difficulty--the hazy public perception of his beliefs and character.

This vague impression is no accident. It is in large measure a result of the sort of campaign Dukakis conducted.

In his campaigning, Dukakis has “held up a mirror of what America is about rather than trying to provide some bold light to lead into the future,” says Democratic National Committee spokesman Michael McCurry.

Tim Hagen, influential Cleveland Democrat and Ohio chairman for the 1984 campaign of Walter F. Mondale, is not so tactful: “Nobody can say with any conviction that Dukakis stands for A, B, C or D.”

Mindful of the problem, Democrats are hoping to rectify it here this week. “We need four good days of TV to introduce Mike Dukakis to the country,” says Marcia Hale, convention director for the Dukakis campaign.

But the advance indications from Dukakis’ advisers were that they were planning to use these days mainly for a reprise of the campaign, rather than to find new ways to reach voters. They appear to be aiming mainly at a “safe and sane” convention that would avoid discord and controversy--but offer no more clues as to what a Dukakis presidency would be about.

“We see this as an opportunity to go back to our strengths and communicate them to the voters,” says campaign communications director Leslie Dach.

To dramatize his concern with economic opportunity, Dukakis will take to the streets in Atlanta this week. “He will go to health-care centers and day-care centers and plant gates to continue his strong push on the economy,” Dach says.

Dukakis also can be expected to stress that theme, along with his own experience as an executive, in his acceptance speech. That address, of course, is normally the centerpiece of the convention.

And Dukakis aides think he will do better at it than many people expect, based on the candidate’s admittedly pedestrian performances on the stump to date.

“I think Dukakis is sold short in terms of his ability to move people,” says John DeVillars, director of operations at the Massachusetts Statehouse. He claims that Dukakis’ performances in other full-dress orations, notably a couple of his “state of the state” speeches in Boston, proved him to be a speaker “who could get out there and compete in the big leagues.”

But the word from the Dukakis command post on the third floor of the Chauncey Street headquarters in Boston is, don’t look for anything new in the acceptance speech.

“I don’t think he needs to say anything he hasn’t said before,” said Jack Corrigan, director of operations and No. 2 man in the campaign. “It’s not a question of saying anything new. It’s a question of millions of people being exposed to the message that has worked for us before.”

Most of the talk from convention planners is of problems they want to avoid--floor fights, logistical snarls, evidence of interest group influence--rather than points they want to make. Unity, along with good management, will rule the day if Dukakis’ planners have anything to say about it.

“We think this is a party that’s ready to go forward to beat George Bush in the fall,” says Dach. “We’re more united than at any convention in recent memory. Mike Dukakis is going in as the clear nominee with the overwhelming majority of the delegates.”

But that’s just the sort of convention Jimmy Carter’s handlers arranged back in 1976, when he enjoyed a bigger lead in the polls than Dukakis does now. And Carter blew nearly all of that advantage by November and almost lost the election to President Gerald R. Ford.

That lesson is not lost on some analysts who warn that unless Dukakis manages to use the convention to offer a strong message for his candidacy, he may not be as lucky as Carter.

“There’s a very strong analogy with Carter,” says University of Texas communications specialist Kathleen Jamieson. “The strategy that Ford used was to ask: ‘Who the hell is he?’ and Carter was very vulnerable to this line of attack.”

Bush has already been following a similar battle plan, pounding away at Dukakis almost every day--getting him “in focus,” Bush calls it.

In a broad indictment of Dukakis that has become close to a regular feature of his standard stump speech, Bush calls Dukakis soft on crime, because he opposes the death penalty for “drug kingpins”; quotes Dukakis as decribing himself as a “card-carrying member of the ACLU” (American Civil Liberties Union); and lambastes him for proposing cuts in weaponry, which Bush charges would leave this country “with an aging and increasingly obsolete deterrent.”

The evidence from recent polls suggests that the vice president has succeeded in raising Dukakis’ negatives and slowing the momentum that boosted the Democrat to an early lead in the polls.

‘Blood on the Floor’

“Since the California primary Dukakis has been getting more scrutiny and losing some ground,” boasts Bush campaign chairman Lee Atwater. “Every day there’s a little more blood on the floor.”

“Bush came off the ropes and started belting him and Michael didn’t want to mix it up,” says Larry Rasky, press secretary for Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential campaign. Rasky expects to take a slot with the Dukakis operation this fall.

Indeed, political give and take is not the natural style of Dukakis. When he announced his candidacy in April of 1987, Dukakis said “we can’t possibly predict” the problems that the next President will face. “But,” he added, “we can predict the character and competence of the person who will sit in the Oval Office.”

It became clear as the campaign developed that Dukakis believed that such forecasts should be inferred mainly from his past performance in the Massachusetts Statehouse rather than from specific statements about the future, which he resisted making. In looking over the competing candidates, Dukakis urged voters: “Ask more than what we are going to do. Ask what we have already done.”

Another potential Dukakis problem is his lack of rhetorical fire and passion. In some situations that call for coolness and composure, his demeanor serves him well. But in other circumstances, he strikes some listeners as remote and unfeeling.

This could be a particular obstacle to his hopes of inspiring the convention delegates and the millions watching at home. “You have to accept the idea that what drives public drama is human emotion,” says Michael Ford, a veteran Democratic strategist. And when it comes to emotion, critics complain, Dukakis generally shortchanges his audience.

Cleveland’s Tim Hagen says: “Dukakis is the quintessential process liberal,” resting much of his claim to the presidency on his vaunted managerial skills. “What he doesn’t understand is that politics is not an algebraic exercise.”

Dukakis aides contend that’s a bum rap, and cite his frequent references to his immigrant parents as evidence of the candidate’s ability to stir emotions.

“He gave people a positive view of what his values are by introducing his story as the son of Greek immigrants,” says senior adviser Kirk O’Donnell. “That sends out a very strong sense of what sort of values you want for someone in that job (the presidency).”

But when it comes to expressing those values for the convention and the millions watching on television, Dukakis aides have chosen to give their candidate some high-powered support in the person of his cousin, Academy Award-winning actress Olympia Dukakis, who will introduce him Thursday night when he makes his acceptance speech.

“Her real strength is that she knows Michael Dukakis’ family and his values,” says communications director Dach. “So she can speak to the values that were part of that family that he carries with him today.”

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, said to be a close associate of Dukakis, will nominate him for the presidency on Wednesday night and underline the relevance of his executive experience to the presidency.

“Instead of using our nomination speech as a kaleidoscope, we have chosen to let one person who knows what it’s like to be a chief executive,” said Dach. “Clinton knows the Dukakis record.”