Bush Took a Present Risk Tying His Future to Quayle

Only in symbolic terms can the Republicans construct any coherent case for the puzzling selection of Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle as George Bush’s running mate.

The geographic argument is flimsy: If Bush can’t carry Republican Indiana on his own he might as well spend the fall watching the leaves change at Kennebunkport, and Quayle is too little known to have much impact elsewhere in the Midwest. Baby boomers who have been defiantly diffuse all their lives are unlikely to unify behind a Midwestern millionaire embraced by Jerry Falwell. It’s silly and demeaning to believe that women will flock to Bush because he selected a handsome running mate or voters will consider Bush more presidential when they contrast him to the youthful Quayle. After Quayle’s inadequate answers to the press last week, some GOP operatives anxiously question whether the senator will be able to handle pressure that can only increase.

Quayle’s principle asset is his youth--which Bush hopes will help him be seen as a candidate commited to change. The asset became a liability when Quayle was scorched by questions about whether he pulled strings to escape combat in Vietnam. Bush’s willingness to consider such an unknown quantity reinforces the conclusion that his camp has decided it cannot hold the White House simply by promising continuity.

In that sense the choice of Quayle, which looked cautious but has become an enormous gamble, cements the striking role reversal that has defined the early stages of the general election campaign. Bush, the candidate who has spent the last eight years in the White House, is running a campaign in many ways typical of a challenger--stressing where he would change current policy, and barraging his opponent with bristling attacks. In sharp contrast, Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis is running the kind of campaign usually employed by incumbents: vague, upbeat, restrained in its calls for change and determined to remain above the fray.

Strategic considerations have squeezed both candidates into these unusual positions. Bush’s most pressing need after eight years of abject political subservience to Ronald Reagan--neatly captured by his agonizing wait for Reagan at Belle Chasse Naval Air Station last Tuesday for the symbolic passing of the torch--is to demonstrate he’s his own man. Whenever Bush questions Administration dogma--urging activism on education, for example, or opposing an offshore oil sale in California--aides stress that he is breaking with Reagan. Even minor deviations are treated as major declarations of political independence. Bush’s incentive is to underscore the change he would bring to government, even to the point of overstatement.

While praising Reagan, speakers at last week’s GOP Convention followed that course, too. New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, who delivered the keynote, devoted the final third of his speech to an implicit endorsement of the Democratic assertion that a substantial unmet domestic agenda awaits Reagan’s successor. “Today America demands a new vision,” Kean declared--no doubt to the surprise of the Reaganites gathered to celebrate the vision that won 49 states four years ago.

Besides promising change, Bush has adopted a second tactic more common to challengers: personally pummeling his opponent on an almost daily basis. Even during his acceptance speech, he raised the explosive social issues that he has hammered at Dukakis since the conclusion of the Democratic primaries in June: gun control, the death penalty and Dukakis’ veto of the Massachusetts bill requiring the Pledge of Allegiance.

Bush’s own problems have forced him to be tough on Dukakis. Bush enters the general election less personally popular with the voters than any presidential candidate in recent memory. Nothing is more difficult for politicians than to soften the views of voters who view them unfavorably. “Bush can affect that around the edges,” said Tim Hibbuts, who polls for Democrats in the Pacific Northwest, where Bush’s negatives inspire comparisons to the Cascades. “But he has been running for President for a year and a half, and if anything people like him less.”

Faced with that grim math, Bush advisers decided that they must raise substantial doubts about Dukakis, whose image is still shallow. Bush has tried to diminish Dukakis’ stature among the “Reagan Democrats”--urban ethnics who backed the President, but are cool toward Bush--by casting the Democratic nominee as a doctrinaire liberal who gives murderers weekend furloughs, raises taxes and holds naive views on national defense. At the convention, speakers reinforced Reagan’s recent assertion that Dukakis represented a dangerous “blind date.” The message isn’t subtle: Even if you don’t like Bush, Dukakis is worse.

Dukakis has tried to stay aloof from all this. Challengers usually reach for divisive issues that can splinter their opponents’ coalition. But much like Reagan in 1984, Dukakis has positioned himself as a candidate above partisan divides, who unifies America around basic principles. Others ridiculed Bush at the Democratic Convention; Dukakis praised Reagan. Like many of the successful Democratic Senate candidates in 1986, he is basing his campaign not on the promise of dramatic change--a fundamental rejection of Reaganism--but on moderate, measured tinkering, a call to “do better.” If Bush is accentuating his commitment to change, Dukakis is minimizing his.

With that approach, Dukakis produced a surprisingly stirring acceptance speech last month. But it has left him with little to talk about from day to day. His campaign is almost devoid of the polarizing populism that struck such vivid sparks with Democratic voters last spring. Since the Democratic convention, Bush’s pointed attacks have dominated the news; Dukakis’ soft-edged generalities are relegated to the inside pages. Dukakis has neither damned Reagan’s agenda nor filled in his own. That has allowed Bush to control the debate. Even when Dukakis strikes out at Bush, it’s a counterpunch. For the Democrats, that’s an untenable situation.

Bush, though, almost certainly can’t sustain his strategy either. Bush must soften the voters’ views of him, and it’s impossible to do that while consistently attacking. “No one whose own negatives are at 40% can stay negative in his campaign for 11 weeks,” said Republican media consultant Larry McCarthy. Bush is already shifting gears. In the days before the convention, and in his acceptance speech, Bush, like Reagan in 1984, sought to identify himself with an American renaissance. If America is poised on “a new era of greatness” as Dukakis maintains, Bush wants to argue that it’s the Republicans who brought us there.

That’s a powerful argument. But it remains to be seen whether a more positive appeal can shave Bush’s negatives--especially now that his running mate is accumulating problems of his own. Many GOP strategists have glumly concluded that Bush cannot convince a majority of the public to embrace him enthusiastically. That means raising more doubts about Dukakis--meaning negative advertisements and an inexorable return to attacking the Democrat. Dukakis can’t float above that all fall. He began to sharpen his critique of Reagan’s economic legacy last week. As Kirk O’Donnell, a senior campaign adviser, said, “You have to be prepared to respond to paid negative media with paid negative media.”

Both candidates hit high notes at their conventions. The season of low blows may soon be upon us.