Dukakis Doubles Effort--Bush Stays Confident : Democrat Seeks Key Support in Midwest

So much to do, so little time.

The time remaining until Tuesday’s vote is counted in hours now, not days. And the most telling thing about a presidential candidate fighting to come from behind is not what he says--no time now for a new message--but where he goes.

And so, rising long before dawn on a campaign day that would last some 21 grueling hours, Democrat Michael S. Dukakis sought Saturday to secure his Midwestern base--flying west from Chicago to heavily Democratic Rock Island for a last rally in Illinois, then back east for two stops in Michigan--before flying south to Texas then north to Colorado in a last-ditch search for votes.

There is “a fundamental question in this campaign,” Dukakis told his listeners. “Is it George Bush or Mike Dukakis who will stand up for the average working family in this country?

“We’re on the side of people who live off a family budget, not a family fortune,” he said.

“If you believe in good jobs, fair wages for our workers, fair prices for our farmers and a fair shot at the American dream for every single citizen in this land, then we’re on your side.”

So crucial is Illinois now that campaign officials decided to send running mate Lloyd Bentsen to Chicago on Saturday night rather than have him welcome Dukakis, as planned, at a rally here, near Bentsen’s home.

‘Big Brother Tactics’

Speaking partly in Spanish to a mostly Latino crowd of several thousand in Edinburg, Dukakis denounced Texas Republicans for using “Big Brother tactics” in an attempt to “scare voters into not voting.”

The state GOP has run Spanish-language radio ads that warn people of possible prison terms and fines if they vote illegally.

“I’m sure you share my anger at those Republican radio commercials,” Dukakis said. “These Big Brother tactics have no place in America, no place in Texas. This is not a dictatorship, it’s a democracy.”

But the fact that Dukakis cannot yet take places like the Rio Grande Valley or Michigan or Illinois for granted illustrates the difficulty he faces. The big states that form the heart of the Democratic Party’s traditional strength are almost all up for grabs this year.

So in scheduling his last three frantic days of campaigning, Dukakis’ aides chose to concentrate Saturday on securing Illinois and Michigan. In exchange, they had to forgo spending time reaching for another state, such as Ohio, where polls show Bush solidly ahead.

Looking Elsewhere Too

Dukakis must now scramble to find votes elsewhere, touching down in Kentucky on Friday, for example, and in Colorado late Saturday.

That difficulty, of course, is nothing new. With the exceptions of the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson landslides, Democratic presidential victories, when they come, have always been narrow. In fact, Jimmy Carter, who got 50.1% of the popular vote in 1976, is the only other Democrat since the Civil War even to break 50%.

Dukakis has taken heart from his party’s tradition of narrow victories, telling his supporters not to be discouraged by his continuing deficit in the polls. In Illinois, his supporters hearkened back repeatedly to 1968, when Hubert H. Humphrey came from 12 points behind in the final few weeks of the election and lost, in the end, by only 0.7% to Richard M. Nixon.

“If we had all just worked a little bit harder . . . think how different history would have been,” said Illinois Sen. Paul Simon as he exhorted Democratic activists in Rock Island, Ill., to work enthusiastically for a large Democratic turnout.

A Suitcase of Hope

Enthusiasm, at least, Dukakis now seems to have gained. In Rock Island, more than 5,000 people woke up early to hear him speak at 8:30 on a drizzly Saturday morning. In Lansing, Mich., hundreds stood in a cold driving rain while Dukakis spoke in a packed airport baggage claim room and received a suitcase emblazoned, “Next Stop 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.”

And in Taylor, a working class “downriver” suburb of Detroit, thousands more cheered as Dukakis and his wife, Kitty, rode into a convention hall on the top of a 1936 Ford convertible.

“Being the underdog, being feisty, fighting back,” those qualities have helped Dukakis in Illinois as elsewhere, Simon said at the Rock Island rally. And indeed, Dukakis, belatedly, has begun to break down the emotional barrier that long separated him even from his supporters.

A hand-lettered sign in the Lansing crowd summed up the feeling that many Democratic supporters now have for their candidates: “Mike, Thanks for the Tough Fight Back,” it said.

Brings Up Quayle Issue

Along with feistiness, two other factors seem to be fueling Dukakis’ campaign: his repeated attacks on Bush for negative campaigning and voter concern over Bush’s running mate, Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana.

Dukakis hit both notes Saturday. Bush, he noted, had said in a television interview with David Frost that he might put Quayle in charge of the White House Crisis Management Group, a coordinating body that advises the President during major crises.

“That’s a frightening thing, isn’t it?” Dukakis said. “That’s enough to make you vote for Mike Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen without any other reason.”

Bush made the remark in the Frost taped interview, which had been scheduled to be televised Saturday night. Dukakis also hit Bush over and over for running a negative campaign.

“I think the American people are fed up with this Republican campaign,” he said. “When you take that cover off the Republican box, there’s nothing there, nothing there.”

Shouts of ‘No More Lies’

As the Republicans “slip, they’re going to be more desperate, and in the closing days, you’re going to hear even more,” he warned, as the crowds shouted back what is rapidly becoming the Democrats’ favorite slogan: “No more lies.”