1988 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION : GOP to Shift Spotlight Off Bush in Attempt to Close Gap in Polls

As the 1988 Republican campaign team of George Bush and Dan Quayle girds for battle against the Democrats, a look back at political history offers reason for confidence--but also gives them cause for concern.

The good news for the GOP is that in the course of winning four of the last five presidential elections it seems to have established a hold on the electoral college that amounts almost to a lock.

The bad news is that the record of the recent past suggests that after two successive presidential terms, the party in power will be turned out by the voters.

Seek to Close Gap

But GOP strategists believe they can overturn the historical law of averages and close the current gap in the polls by changing the way voters now look at this election. They are determined to make voters see it as:

--An examination of Dukakis, rather than a referendum on Bush. “We can’t elect George Bush,” said GOP consultant Eddie Mahe, who like other party insiders is well aware of Bush’s flaws as a campaigner. “But we can defeat Dukakis.”

--A debate over the fundamental Republican commitment to free enterprise and peace through strength versus the Democratic view of using government to meet everyday needs of the citizenry. This is exactly what Dukakis was trying to avoid when he declared in his acceptance speech in Atlanta last month: “This election isn’t about ideology. It’s about competence.”

--A chance to hold on to the economic stability achieved during Republican years, rather than an opportunity to gain the uncertain benefits of change offered by the Democrats. Religious broadcaster and unsuccessful presidential contender Pat Robertson made the argument succinctly at a recent party unity rally: “Don’t let them take it away,” he warned.

4 States Crucial

If they can accomplish these things, GOP leaders believe they can use their built-in advantage in the electoral college to gain victory--with the final outcome hinging on struggles in four hotly contested big states--California, Texas, Ohio and Illinois.

Not that Republican strategists minimize the problem they face in the national tendency to switch partisan horses periodically. “The single biggest problem we face is that there is a high amount of tradition in this country for one party being in two four-year terms and then another party coming in.” said Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign manager. In fact, GOP partisans say the reason Dukakis holds a double-digit lead in many polls is because of the electorate’s inclination to change.

Indeed that tradition has been broken only twice since World War I--in 1928, when Herbert Hoover extended the GOP hold on the White House to 12 years and in the 1940s by Democratic Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, who combined to give their party 20 years in the White House.

The reasons Republicans are trying to define the campaign issues as an examination of Dukakis, a struggle over GOP values and a danger to economic stability, reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the competing candidates.

Negative Reaction High

They want to divert attention from Bush because the high negative reaction of voters to their candidate is now their campaign’s biggest problem. This negative response seems to stem in part from Bush’s lack of forcefulness and discipline as a campaigner, and partly from his role as vice president.

But whatever the reasons, Republicans contend that the vice president, as the better known of the two candidates, has been subjected to the sort of intensive scrutiny that would be hard for any politician to withstand. They would much prefer voters to concentrate on Dukakis, who Republicans contend, has been able to conceal his true nature and beliefs from press and public--hence Bush’s labeling of him as “the stealth candidate.”

Dukakis impresses voters, contends Richard Billmire, a Bush campaign adviser, because unlike Bush, “he doesn’t smile a lot, he has a deep voice and a deliberative manner.”

All this helps create the impression of competence. “The way to go after that is to attack him on issue grounds,” Billmire said, contending that Dukakis’ record in Massachusetts shows him to be a big spender and a heavy taxer, despite his claims to the contrary.

“If you can show that he’s a phony on issue grounds, it’s like showing him to be a used car dealer who’s trying to sell Mercedes, but he’s really just another used car dealer,” he said.

President Reagan’s pollster Richard B. Wirthlin argues that Dukakis will not “wear well” under long and close public examination. “He’s stuffy. He’s not warm and he’s cerebral,” said Wirthlin, who also predicted that Dukakis will be damaged because his problems in balancing the current Massachusetts budget “will rise up to haunt him” in the midst of the presidential campaign.

Stressing ‘Big Issues’

Just as urgent in the eyes of GOP strategists as turning attention from Bush to Dukakis is the notion of stressing the “big issues” of peace and prosperity, rather than the so-called “micro-issues” such as the environment, child care and education.

In a sense, as Democrats acknowledge, Republicans can blame their own success for the fact that voters so far do not appear to be focusing on economic and international issues, which traditionally top the political agenda.

“The thing we’ve been most worried about the last 10 years is that the Republicans have been basically taking peace and prosperity away from us for the first time in the past generation,” said Democratic pollster Paul Maslin. According to public opinion surveys, Maslin said, Republicans “are now viewed as the party best able to keep America strong, to work toward peace and also deal with the economy. Those are the big issues.

“But this election is not an election on those grounds,” he said. And on the issues that so far have dominated the campaign, which Maslin said are such things as “helping kids, farmers or seniors, and the environment, the Democrats have a huge advantage,” gained because they are generally recognized as the party of government activism, and, therefore, more committed to such concerns.

Republicans intend to counter this public mood by hammering away during the campaign on the importance of peace and prosperity. Beyond that, they claim they have time on their side.

“The reason peace and prosperity haven’t been in focus is that people haven’t been thinking of this as a presidential race,” claims Atwater. “As they become more and more inclined to think of it that way the vice president will benefit from the economy in a way he hasn’t so far and he will also benefit that we’ve made progress at the treaty table with the Russians.”

Emphasize Achievements

Just as important to Republican chances of success is getting voters to recall what the Republicans have already done for them instead of thinking about what the Democrats might do for them in the future.

“Before we came to Washington (in 1981),” President Reagan declared in his valedictory address here, Americans had just suffered the two worst back-to-back years of inflation in 60 years.”

Reagan went on to reel off a long list of other hardships suffered under Democratic rule and then declared: “We hear talk that it’s time for a change. Well, ladies and gentlemen, another friendly reminder: ‘We are the change.’ ”

And in his address nominating Bush for President later in the week, Texas Sen. Phil Gramm made clear what a threat Gov. Dukakis poses to the beneficial changes wrought under Republican rule:

“Is there anybody who doubts that a President Dukakis would raise our taxes . . . spend our workers into poverty . . . cut defense and wimp America and endanger peace . . . expand the power of government and its control over our lives?” Gramm asked rhetorically, then answered himself: “No we don’t doubt it, and that’s why there is not going to be a President Dukakis.”

Republicans believe that if these efforts to mold the campaign debate are successful enough to bring them even with the Democrats they will in effect hold the upper hand because of their inherent advantage in the electoral college.

In each of the last five presidential elections the Republicans carried 23 states with a total of 202 electoral votes out of the 270 needed for a majority. By contrast, the Democrats, who won only one of the last five elections--in 1976--carried only the District of Columbia with its scant three votes in each contest.

Population Shifts Help

Special factors have contributed to the Republican electoral success. The shift of population to the suburbs and the Sun Belt states, areas where the GOP holds the upper hand, have worked to the GOP’s benefit.

Moreover, it is also helpful to the Republicans that their strength is fairly evenly dispersed around the country, while the Democrats are concentrated in a few large states. This means that, other things being equal, the Republicans will win more states with the same number of popular votes in any given election than the Democrats will.

For these reasons, Republicans start the campaign with a formidable advantage in the electoral college, particularly with a huge advantage among states in the South and Rocky Mountain West.

Of course each election presents different circumstances and offers the Democrats an opportunity to challenge the Republican dominance.

Thus, GOP pollster Wirthlin says he is “a little concerned” that Bush so far has not been runing as well in the South as Wirthlin had expected. “The Democratic convention was very successful in bringing back into the Democratic fold a lot of those Southern Democratic voters who voted for Reagan,” Wirthlin said.

Bush strategist Paul Manaforte concedes the Democrats pose threats in Arkansas and Kentucky to the solid South won by Reagan in 1984. Democratic pollster Harrison Hickman believes his party has a chance in Colorado and Montana in the otherwise Republican West.

But by and large, most strategists on both sides expect that the Democrats will draw most of their strength from the Northeast, while the Republicans will depend on the South and Rocky Mountain states.

The hottest contests are expected in the Midwest, on the West Coast and in Texas, which has taken on extra importance in this election because it is the home state of Republican presidentia1814064751presidential candidate Sen. Lloyd Bentsen.

Expectations in States

Among the nine largest states, Florida--seventh in size with 21 electoral votes--seems all but assured of going Republican; number two, New York--with 36 votes--is leaning almost as strongly in the Democratic direction. While Dukakis is showing strength in New Jersey, the Garden State, ranking ninth with 16 electoral votes, has gone Republican in every election since 1968 and the GOP expects to claim it again.

Democrats are far more hopeful regarding Michigan, ranking eighth with 20 votes, and Pennsylvania, number four with 25 electoral votes. Both states have gone Democratic in the three close elections of the second half of the century--1960, 1968 and 1976.

That leaves California, number one with 47 electoral votes, Texas, number three with 29 votes, Illinois, number five with 24, and Ohio, number six with 23, as the big states that seem likely to produce the toughest contests.

Most Republicans argue that the Democrats cannot win the election without carrying California and many Democrats contend the GOP cannot elect Bush without winning his home state of Texas.

In Illinois the Democrats can no longer count on the power of the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley’s machine, which helped them carry the state in the close contests of 1960 and 1968. But they probably will be helped by discontent among the state’s farmers. Farm distress also could hurt Republicans in Ohio, the state whose loss cost them the presidency in 1976.