What the Democrats Need Is a Caped Crusader : Politics: Forget the ‘regular guys.’ Give me someone remote and dignified.

Here’s my advice to Democrats beginning to despair about regaining the White House, or even winning a single electoral vote in 1992: Find a candidate who can wear a cape.

Ever since the voters picked the poker-playing, cussing, bourbon-drinking Harry Truman over the urbane Thomas E. Dewey, every presidential candidate has taken pains to show that he is a regular-guy American. The practice reached its nadir with James Earl Carter signing treaties on behalf of the United States of America as Jimmy Carter, and was capped in the last campaign by George Bush’s revelation that his favorite snack was pork rinds.

When it comes down to it, though, I don’t want a regular guy as President. My image of a great President comes from our Founding Fathers. Someone remote and dignified. Someone to whom other leaders turn for advice and wisdom. Someone who can preside at a state dinner as though the guests drew their nourishment from him rather than the food. Someone who could pledge his life, his fortune and his sacred honor without anyone smirking--not even a reporter. Someone who wears a cape instead of a warm-up jacket.

That’s the test. I want a President who can wear a cape. Picture George Washington stepping into the hallway of a Virginia mansion while a heavy wool mantle slips off his shoulders into the hands of a waiting aide. A man like that can stand up to a king. Or Abraham Lincoln handing aside his hat and cloak before bestowing his knowing look upon a child who will grow old never forgetting those eyes. That kind of dignity helped to preserve the Union. Or Franklin Roosevelt, crippled and days from death, nonetheless imperious in an elegant cape, brushing past Stalin in Yalta as though Stalin were a stable boy. People like that know how to wear the mantle of leadership.

“Why the Democrats?” Because the Democrats, still eating the dust from Desert Storm, are going to need Sequoia-size presidential timber if they aspire to so much as an hour of prime-time television coverage for their ’92 convention.

Let’s see how it’s shaping up. Bill Clinton in a cape and Everlast shorts would look ready for the 15-round primary, but not for the presidency. Mario Cuomo would resemble Sherlock Holmes, intelligent and interesting; it could work, but not in ’92. Lloyd Bentsen brings up images of a magician whose last trick didn’t quite work--a reminder the Democrats don’t need. On the other hand, Jesse Jackson would look too hocus-pocus. All Ann Richards would need is one political cartoonist to picture her in the cape astride a broom, and she’d be finished. Douglas Wilder has good cape potential; no more calling him Doug, though.

This test eliminates any candidate who wears cowboy boots and bolo ties, or is photographed in a bathing suit aboard a boat named Monkey See, Monkey Do, or while wearing combat headgear, or, for that matter, any old man who dresses up as a soldier, cowboy, Indian, Boy Scout or anything else he is not.

Would a cape elect a President? I think so. The look is hard to fake. Even Ronald Reagan, who could act virtually any part, would fail the cape test. Reagan in a cape would look like Prince Charming: handsome, debonair but cartoon-like, not Jeffersonian. Anyone who wears a cape as Washington, Lincoln or Roosevelt did has to fill it with his or her Life, Fortune and Sacred Honor. In this age of media scrutiny, it’s a large mantle. Like it or not, the Democrats won’t win with any less.