Dukakis Avoids Acid Pits as a Backdrop

Gov. Michael S. Dukakis came to Riverside County on Friday and in the process dramatized both the best and the worst of his presidential campaign.

First, he visited the state’s most notorious hazardous waste site--the Stringfellow acid pits. But rather than give a speech there--a backdrop that would have dramatized his message that George Bush and the Reagan Administration have failed to clean up toxic waste sites--Dukakis left quickly for a meeting here with about 100 area residents.

Dukakis has an abiding affection for citizen forums in which he takes questions from the audience and discusses government policies with them.

“I can’t speak for others running for President,” he told the group. “But these are the things that drive me on, the things that strengthen my commitment to help people.”

Substantive Discussion

The discussion--ranging from health care for people suffering from environmental illness to homelessness to biodegradable plastics made from corn--made for a substantive demonstration of Dukakis’ breadth.

It also made for terrible television. And he never did get around to attacking Bush’s environmental record as he had done the day before in New Jersey.

The roughly 100 people in his audience, most of whom were supporters already, appeared to come away impressed with Dukakis’ performance. But the millions in the potential viewing audience across the country are unlikely ever to see it.

And that underscores a frustration for Dukakis’ advisers that abates at times but never entirely disappears: Dukakis’ unwillingness to stick to the sort of media-driven campaign that GOP strategists have perfected.

It is a contrast the Dukakis campaign hopes eventually will turn their way. Dukakis often says the voters eventually will tire of “sound bite” campaigning. And his campaign Friday began airing an advertisement showing a fictionalized re-enactment of a strategy session by Bush’s “handlers” that will push a message that Bush’s campaign is a pre-programmed facade.

So far, however, Bush’s style of campaigning appears to be passing the ultimate test: He is still ahead in the polls.

But California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, on board Dukakis’ plane as he flew into the state, confidently predicted that Dukakis will win here in November.

Polls show that many of the undecided voters in the state are “in the black community, women and renters,” said Brown. Those are people who usually vote Democratic and now “are starting to move, they’re getting the message.”

Bush, he said, is “at his max, he’s gotten whatever he’s going to get.”

Later at a $1.8-million fund-raising dinner in San Francisco, Brown, introducing Dukakis, said: “I wish I had his reputation for integrity.”

Earlier Friday, Dukakis pressed home his attack against Bush in one of the vice president’s strongholds, West Texas.

Against the backdrop of endless plains of cotton and sorghum, Dukakis visited a farm between the towns of Idalou and New Deal. And he listened while Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower blistered Bush as a fake Texan without sympathy for the state’s depressed farm communities.

“His idea of a good farm program is ‘Hee Haw,’ ” Hightower said. “If ignorance ever hits $40 a barrel, I want drilling rights on George Bush’s head.”

Democratic strategists are hoping that such populist gibes will help them turn around Bush’s lead in the state, which Dukakis’ Texas campaign director, Tom Cosgrove, estimated at 6 to 8 points.

Dukakis did his best to follow suit, saying that “Republicans put America on the auction block” and that Bush’s “farm policy can be summed up in five words: the fewer farmers the better.”