‘Capture the Flag’ a Vital Game in ’88 Campaign

After the defense plants all summer long, a citizenship ceremony last Saturday, and, yes, even a visit to Flag City, U.S.A., in Ohio last week, George Bush couldn’t miss this one: a stroll through a factory that, day in and day out, turns out approximately 21,000 American flags.

“Good visuals,” said Rich Bond, the Bush campaign’s political director. “The right state, a good motif, a good issue.”

And so, the Republican presidential nominee spent Tuesday morning at the Annin & Co. flag plant--a United Nations of a factory, populated by stitchers and cutters from Puerto Rico, Colombia, China, Poland, Yugoslavia, India, Greece, Lebanon, Italy and Peru--watching as pieces of red, white and blue fabric, cascading about him, were turned into the Stars and Stripes.

Flags and Cheers

For Bush, the small factory on a side street among the clapboard and shingle homes of this old city in northern New Jersey offered the perfect photo opportunity: flags galore, a cheering audience, a high school band, and one more stop at which to denounce Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis in one of the key states in the presidential race.

But, in a campaign that has become a cross-country version of “Capture the Flag,” the visit also brought home the importance of the U.S. flag to the Bush effort--and, similarly, the emphasis given to the Pledge of Allegiance by the campaign after Bush began publicizing Dukakis’ 1977 veto of legislation requiring Massachusetts students to say the pledge each day. The governor has pointed out that the state Supreme Court said such a law would be unconstitutional.

Ever since the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago at the height of the Vietnam War, “the Republicans have had unchallenged custody of the flag,” said Ross K. Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N. J. He described the flag as “a symbol for a whole series of elements the Republicans want the public to use to distinguish between themselves and the Democrats.”

Now, he said in an interview, Dukakis is “trying to wrestle it away from the people who have it . . . . Bush has it firmly planted at his feet and Dukakis is trying to get it.”

Issue Attracts Ethnic Voters

For good reason: In 1980, according to a key member of the team that ran Ronald Reagan’s successful campaign, “the commitment to the flag and country” helped bring blue-collar, Roman Catholic and ethnic voters over from the Jimmy Carter camp.

This, he said, “has not been lost on Bush, but Bush has gone after it in a more biting, aggressive way.”

And, as a political issue, patriotism, symbolized by the attention given to the flag and the Pledge of Allegiance, appears to be a winner.

A recent Los Angeles Times poll asked whether “people these days are placing too much emphasis on patriotism or about the right amount” or whether not enough emphasis was being placed on patriotism.

Of those with an opinion, 15% said too much emphasis was given to patriotism, 26% said it was being given the right amount and 53% said it was not being given enough emphasis.

The poll asked also: “How do you usually feel when someone doesn’t pledge allegiance to the flag? Do you think of that person as being somewhat less patriotic or doesn’t it concern you very much one way or the other?”

Among those expressing an opinion, 62% said such people were less patriotic and 33% said they were not much concerned. The poll surveyed 1,105 registered voters from Sept. 9 to 11.

Cites Olympic Team

On Tuesday, the flag figured prominently not only in the tour of the factory but in the setting for Bush’s remarks and in the remarks themselves--comments into which he managed to weave yet another embodiment of patriotism--the U.S. Olympic team.

Facing one oversized flag, with another to his left and a third at his back, his pale blue dress shirt fading into one of the chest-size white stripes behind him, Bush told the flag makers that their product is a source of global inspiration.

“You can see that inspiration on display this week in the tears that flow down the cheeks of those Olympic champions,” he said.

“America in 1988 is a nation with her spirit restored, her defenses strong and her economy growing again,” he said. “We are poised for a new era of greatness.”

Standing outside of a factory that has experienced a 28% sales increase since Reagan took office in 1980, Bush acknowledged that “the task now” is to apply the Reagan Administration’s economic policy “to places which have not yet felt the full impact of the recovery, from the nearby city of Newark to my home state of Texas.”

Just as Bush sought on Tuesday to make the flag the visual symbol of his campaign, the Pledge of Allegiance has become the verbal flag.

Seeking Political Mileage

Ever since Bush’s aides discovered that Dukakis had vetoed the 1977 legislation, they have been doing their best to gain political mileage from the issue.

Over the last month, as Bush focused on the issue, public opinion surveys have shown him overcoming an 18% to 20% deficit and gaining a lead that, according to some surveys, has been as great as 8%, although others place the two candidates neck and neck.

Support in South

“It’s very difficult to feather out the impact of one issue; but, if you look at what groups have moved most decisively to Bush, it’s clear that among them one reason is the Pledge of Allegiance issue,” said a Republican poll taker who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

He said that Bush, over the last month, has “very strongly solidified support” among Republicans and has picked up support in the South among the independents and Democrats who placed that region solidly in Reagan’s column in 1980 and 1984.

To some extent, the pledge has played well for the vice president because the two candidates are not known well and perceptions of patriotism have become a convenient measure of the two nominees.

“Without question . . . the allegiance issue has been used as a marker to stamp Bush as a conservative and Dukakis as a liberal,” the GOP pollster said, adding, in an assessment that was echoed by officials of the Republican presidential campaign: “It’s been one of Bush’s best issues.”