1988 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION : Democrats’ Reluctance to Attack Reagan Indicates They Accept His Achievements

Michael S. Dukakis won the most votes and the nomination. The Rev. Jesse Jackson got the most tears, the most television time and the most attention from the more than 4,000 delegates gathered here.

But there was another political figure who had a profound impact on the Democratic National Convention that concluded here Thursday night. He did it without being a candidate for anything, without ever appearing at the podium--without even being a Democrat.

Ronald Wilson Reagan’s presidency has been tarnished by scandal and worn by time, but even the most partisan Democrats this week handled him with kid gloves--both in personal terms and in terms of the broad principles and values he has championed. And, by their reluctance to attack such ideas or to advocate positions sharply at odds with Reagan’s, they quietly accepted the changes he has wrought in the national agenda.

Seen as Invulnerable

“They have concluded that Reagan is invulnerable,” said John Deardourff, a GOP consultant seasoned by involvement in numerous past struggles for the presidency. “And they know that to win they have to go after the Reagan voters who used to be Democrats.”

Indeed, in accepting his party’s nomination Thursday night, Dukakis hailed Reagan as having “set the stage for deep cuts in nuclear arms--I salute him for that.”

This treatment, analysts note, was inspired neither by patriotism nor courtesy for a senior citizen but rather by the cold political judgment of the Dukakis strategists who have controlled the rhetoric at this convention.

Given their political imperative of getting “swing voters” to swing back to their side, it was probably not surprising that Democrats should refrain from attacking the still-popular “great communicator” personally. Keynote speaker Ann Richards flicked him briefly by complaining, without mentioning his name, that Reagan too often answered questions with “I don’t know” or “I forgot.”

‘Reagan’s Weak Sister’

But she quickly abandoned that line of attack. Like most of the other speakers, she preferred, as Southern pollster Claibourne H. Darden Jr. put it, “to pick on Reagan’s weak sister, George Bush.”

In fact, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy--one of the few speakers who actually referred to Reagan by name--did so like Dukakis in the course of complimenting the President for his Moscow summit success and then went on to contrast him favorably with Bush:

“At least Ronald Reagan accepts the blame as well as the credit for the policies of the past eight years,” Kennedy declared.

Manage It Better

Rather than directly challenging the President whom Democrats once scorned, the Dukakis strategy for defeating his would-be Republican successor seems to be to lure back rank-and-file Democrats from the GOP fold by pledging not to reverse Reaganism, merely to manage it better--and avoid the Reagan-era scandals that Dukakis pounded repeatedly.

“This election isn’t about ideology,” Dukakis declared in his acceptance speech. “It’s about competence.”

Said political scientist Gary Orren, describing the themes Dukakis and his surrogates hit continually during the convention: “It was hands-on this, monitor that and get things under control.” Orren is on the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and co-author of “The Electronic Commonwealth,” a new book about the political impact of new media technologies.

Just that point was made by Dukakis’ choice as running mate, Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, who in his acceptance speech Thursday night declared: “America is ready for the honest, proven, hands-on, real-world leadership of Michael Dukakis.”

Tender Treatment

But even more striking than the tender treatment of Reagan’s persona was the caution about attacking him on substantive grounds. Some convention speakers did complain about what they contended were the consequences of Reagan’s policies, such as the trade deficit.

“The red, white and blue era of American supremacy in world commerce” has faded, lamented Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia.

But the Democrats rarely said what it was that Reagan had done that they would undo. For example, the Reagan tax cut, generally accepted as the cornerstone of his economic policies, and once a favorite target for Democratic denunciations, was barely mentioned by any of the Democrats who delivered major orations here.

One reason, of course, is that any mention of taxes would revive memories of Walter F. Mondale’s pledge to raise taxes in his 1984 acceptance speech--a move most Democrats now regard as disastrous.

Voted for Tax Cut

Yet another reason for the reluctance to attack the tax cut is that Bentsen voted for it in 1981. During Dukakis’ campaign for the nomination, when he was just bidding for Democratic votes, he lashed out at one of his rivals, Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, for supporting the tax cut legislation.

But with the general election looming, and his sights on swing voters--many of whom probably feel they benefited from the cuts--Dukakis apparently has concluded it is no longer prudent to attack it.