Nunn Says Dukakis Takes Risk if He Writes Off Southern Voters

Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn said Tuesday he will urge Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis to come out swinging in Texas, Georgia and other Southern states with a series of speeches and ads that clarify his positions on defense spending and gun control.

“It is not too late,” Nunn said in an interview in Los Angeles.

“Even if Dukakis does not think he is going to win the South,” Nunn added, “he cannot afford to write it off because that leads to despair in other parts of the country.”

Nunn said he talked with defense industry workers in Dallas Monday and learned “they have gotten a huge dose of advertising (by Republican George Bush) to the effect that if Dukakis is elected the defense industry in Texas is going to shut down.

‘Cumulative Effect’

“You add on top of that gun control--they are not saying Dukakis simply wants a waiting period, they are saying he wants to take everybody’s gun and rifle. And you add on top of that the (prison) furlough issue, which he has never adequately answered, and that kind of cumulative effect is hurting.”

Both Texas and California employ hundreds of thousands of workers in the defense and aerospace industries, and they are considered highly likely to vote in presidential elections because they view their jobs as being on the line.

Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and an authority on military spending, said that Dukakis had failed to get across the fact that while their priorities differ, he and Bush “have endorsed about the same level of defense spending.”

He added: “I think Dukakis ought to say something like, ‘If you work in an MX missile plant, I’ll understand if you vote for George Bush. But if you work for any industry that emphasizes conventional defense . . . Bush can’t pay for your programs because he’s got the squeeze from the others.’ ”

Ready to Challenge

While insisting that Dukakis can still win, Nunn made it clear that if he loses, moderate Democrats are prepared to renew their fight to change the way the party chooses its nominees and applies liberal litmus tests in such states as Iowa.

Although he accused the Republicans of “distorting” the Massachusetts governor’s record, Nunn said, “Dukakis does have certain positions that lend themselves to attacks from the right, including gun control and the death penalty.”

But the major problem, he said, is the Democratic Party’s selection process itself, “which tilts out of the mainstream of America.”

Leadership Council

After the party’s landslide loss in 1984, Nunn and other moderates formed the Democratic Leadership Council to try to move that selection process away from liberal interest groups.