Dukakis Savors Trappings of His ‘Overnight’ Success

Suddenly, after a year and a half in the public eye, after thousands of campaign appearances in 46 states, Michael S. Dukakis is an overnight success.

He is mobbed at a hotel lobby in Stockton. Supporters wait five hours at an airport under a searing South Texas sun. More than 8,000 people, his largest crowd ever, jam a rally in northern North Dakota.

Outside St. Louis, a man in Bermuda shorts waves a sign: “Hello, Mr. President.”

“He gives me hope,” said Judy Smith, a 25-year-old pastry chef who voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984. On Sunday morning, she drove 30 miles to Dukakis’ hotel in St. Louis to get a glimpse of a Democrat long seen as uninspiring and uncharismatic. “He shook my hand,” she said, flushed with excitement.

Life has changed dramatically for the Massachusetts governor since he won the Democratic presidential nomination in Atlanta and delivered what many considered the best speech of his political life last Thursday night to accept the nomination.

He and his running mate, Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, immediately took their wives and their newly minted Boston-Austin ticket into the nation’s rural heartland, taking an early offensive in states the Republicans have dominated in recent presidential elections.

And if they preached mostly familiar fuzzy themes of “community” and “family values” to farmers and churchgoers, rather than specific programs and proposals, few seemed to mind.

“Prior to that convention speech, I couldn’t follow a sentence he said,” said wheat farmer Abner Jacobson. “It was like a transformation.” Jacobson drove 120 miles Saturday afternoon to hear Dukakis speak at the North Dakota State Fair in Minot, a town of 32,000 about 50 miles from the Canadian border.

Retired Amtrak engineer George Saltsman, 64, and wife, Mary, 66, applauded warmly when Dukakis took the stage, flanked by tractors and state elected officials. Cows mooed loudly in a nearby exhibit hall.

“We had not made a concrete decision” on which candidate to support, Saltsman said. “Then, when I heard his acceptance speech, I was really sold.”

‘Simply Wonderful’

“Beautiful, simply wonderful,” agreed Sam Lushenko, a ruddy-faced, 77-year-old retired fireman who got up at 4 a.m. to milk his cows before coming. “I’m tired of Reagan and Bush. This guy’s record shows he can run the country.”

The town’s slogan, emblazoned on buttons and signs, is “Why Not Minot?” A better question was why the new nominees headed first for the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, the San Joaquin Valley in California and the Dakotas’ Red River Valley, rather than the major cities that are Democratic strongholds. And why North Dakota, which has not voted Democratic in a national election since 1964 and has only three electoral votes?

“There’s a symbolic portion that says we’re going to compete everywhere,” said Dayton Duncan, a campaign spokesman. “But there’s more than symbolism. We think we’ve got a good chance of winning here.”

Duncan noted that North Dakota’s governor, two senators and two congressmen are Democrats. “They all ran on economic issues: jobs, health care, education--the kinds of things we are talking about,” he said.

The stops in California and Texas were more understandable. They are the first- and third-richest prizes in next November’s contest for electoral votes, and Dukakis needs to carry at least one of those states if he is to win the election. Pennsylvania, where the Democrats’ final weekend rally was held, has 25 electors and is the fourth-largest electoral state.

But Dukakis himself appeared to have changed last week. Long described as cold and impersonal, he stripped to his shirt sleeves at nearly every stop over the weekend. And his new stress on “community” allowed him to empathize personally with families devastated by this year’s drought: “When you hurt, we all hurt,” he told Minot’s farmers.

‘Families Are Our Anchor’

Gone were references to photovoltaics and industrial policy. On Sunday morning, he told a packed congregation at St. Louis’ Third Baptist Church that he and his host, former presidential candidate and Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, had “talked (during the primary battles) about our families more than about issues, differences or politics. . . . They are our anchor. They are the thing that gives us our strength.”

The trappings of the Dukakis campaign have been transformed as well. The candidate now travels with two jets full of aides, Secret Service agents and reporters. “It’s a hell of a lot different than a half-empty six-seater flying to Iowa,” remarked Dukakis’ campaign chairman, Paul P. Brountas.

Formidable Motorcade

Dukakis, who owns only a 1981 Chevrolet Celebrity, was driven from the Erie airport Sunday afternoon in a shiny, black Cadillac limo. His motorcade, led by eight motorcycle policemen, included 17 cars and vans, an ambulance and four buses for reporters. An airport hangar held 40 phones for the press. TV crews stood on open tailgates, and although the ride was through deserted city streets, they filmed--just in case of an accident.

There was none, but Dukakis seemed weary addressing 6,000 people in Perry Square at the end of what he called “a wonderful week”:

“It’s going to be a great future,” he said. “It’s going to be an exciting future. It’s going to be a good future.”