But Aides Say They ‘Fully Expected’ Bush to Dominate News : Some Democrats Fear Dukakis Campaign Is Drifting

Ever since Atlanta, the booming sound of “Coming to America” has been the signature tune of rallies for Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis.

Thursday, organizers of a Dukakis rally in Pittsburgh found a new version of the song to play. It was slower, flatter, a little raspy--an unintentionally perfect metaphor for Dukakis’ week.

These should be the best of times for the Massachusetts governor. He came riding out of his convention in Atlanta last month with a big lead in the polls, and three weeks later, his opponent, Vice President George Bush, came out of the Republican convention embroiled in the controversy over his choice of Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana as his running mate.

Polls Reflect Tie

But Dukakis has been unable to capitalize fully on the GOP’s problems. Instead, Bush appears to have caught up in the polls--the latest tallies by the Washington Post and Louis Harris show the two men essentially tied--and Democratic professionals not connected with the campaign have begun to complain that the Dukakis campaign is drifting.

Dukakis aides insist the concern is overblown. “It’s kind of a microscopic view,” said campaign spokesman Mark Gearan. In the broader view, “there are these waves of attention that move” back and forth, he said. “We fully expected” that Bush would dominate the news and see his standing in the polls rise after the GOP convention, Gearan added.

Of course, in a campaign where neither candidate yet seems to have sunk deep roots with the voters, today’s malaise could disappear quickly. As recently as a few weeks ago, Dukakis seemed to be moving steadily up, exciting crowds with the same speech that now appears to leave them cold. And Bush’s “bounce” in the polls coming out of the convention has shrunk quickly.

Focus Will Change

Paradoxically, Dukakis could benefit if the media spotlight moves away from Quayle, providing more opportunity for him to get his own message out. And after Labor Day, when more voters likely will be paying attention to politics, the candidates’ debates, major speeches and paid advertising will provide a very different focus to the campaign.

For now, however, “you certainly feel a flattening out” of the Dukakis message, said Iowa Democratic chief Bonnie Campbell, who blamed much of the problem on the media’s concentration on Quayle. “Anything you could have done in the last 10 to 14 days would be lost in the soap opera,” she said.

Out on the road, the campaign has seemed at times tentative in deciding when to attack Bush and how to respond to his jabs.

Drops Debate Issue

Earlier in the week, Dukakis hit Bush hard over Bush’s unwillingness to debate before late September. But the next day he seemed to drop the issue.

Similarly, Dukakis responded when Bush tried to pick a fight with him over the Pledge of Allegiance, saying Bush would be “unfit for office” if he would sign an unconstitutional law requiring people to say the pledge.

“Someone should ask Mr. Bush” if he really would sign such a law, Dukakis demanded on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Bush said he would, indeed, sign such a law and appeared to question Dukakis’ patriotism for being unwilling to do so himself. Dukakis’ response was to drop the issue, declining to respond when asked about Bush’s statements at a press conference.

Both issues are likely to return. Bush seems determined to keep hitting away at the pledge and Dukakis, Campbell notes, has a hard job on the issue since he is opposing the GOP’s “emotional argument” with a “rational, legal” one.

Chairmen to Meet

As for the debates, Dukakis campaign chairman Paul P. Brountas will meet Bush chairman James A. Baker III on Tuesday, and further maneuvering on the issue is sure to take place after that.

Dukakis aides are hoping that Bush’s reluctance to debate will make him look weak. They also hope that an early debate on foreign policy would blunt GOP attempts to paint Dukakis as inexperienced and naive on those issues.

Until the debates take place--not until late September at the earliest, Bush insists--Dukakis will have to rely on his own efforts. This past week, they were decidedly mixed.

Dukakis unveiled new, sharper, attacks on Bush’s record, but they were muted by a delivery that, even for him, was uninspiring.

State Business

And much of his schedule remains taken up with the business of governing Massachusetts. That will change soon, campaign officials say. They have tried to give Dukakis a fair amount of time home in August, anticipating the final sprint in the last two months before the election. But they concede that campaigning from Lawrence, Fitchburg and Waltham, Mass. is, at best, a poor substitute for stumping through Oregon, New York and Texas.

When he is on the road, Dukakis’ schedule for now is largely built around advertising and fund-raising efforts.

As Dukakis travelled through Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas by train late last week, for example, he had along with him a film crew and a still photographer gathering pictures both of him and the crowds.

Those advertisements will begin to air in September. Dukakis aide Francis O’Brien, who is overseeing the effort, expects to have as many as 30 different commercials ready to go, including some specially prepared for major markets in California, Texas and Florida.

30 Major Fund Raisers

As for money, finance chief Bob Farmer has Dukakis committed to attend 30 major fund-raising events for the fall campaign. To get as much money as possible in hand early--and also to clear Dukakis’ schedule during the heart of the campaign--Farmer has crammed as many of those events as possible into August.

Last week, for example, Dukakis attended a major meeting of fund raisers in Dallas, at the home of developer John Hay. This week, he built his schedule around $2-million-plus events in Cleveland and Boston. Wednesday in Los Angeles, he holds one of his biggest fund raisers of the year, followed by another million-dollar party in Seattle on Friday.