NEWS ANALYSIS : In 3-Way Race, Ricochets Can Sting Attackers

The peculiar political geometry of 1992’s triangular presidential contest may be increasing the risks that surround negative campaigning, forcing all three contenders to rethink the tactics they employ in attacking their opponents.

“It means you have to be very smart, you have to be very good,” says Hamilton Jordan, campaign strategist for undeclared candidate Ross Perot. “The dynamics are different.”

The challenge facing the candidates was underlined by an ABC/Washington Post poll released last week that showed prospective Democratic nominee Bill Clinton having gained seven percentage points, apparently benefiting from the recent high-profile confrontation between the forces of President Bush and Perot. Clinton’s rise put him in a virtual tie with Perot and Bush in that poll.

A CNN/Gallup poll released later in the week showed Bush and Perot in a statistical tie, with Clinton running narrowly behind them. But Clinton’s support rose by 3 percentage points compared to a CNN/Gallup poll in mid-June.

Whatever the varying poll measurements in this volatile political season, strategists for all three campaigns have come to a consensus: Each candidate must now be wary that an attack on one opponent may have the consequence of giving his other foe a boost.

Does this possibility portend less of the negativism that has come to dominate American campaigns? Tom Luce, overseer of the Perot campaign, thinks so.

“I hope it sends a message to both political parties that voters really don’t want politics as usual,” he says. “I think the attack politics mode is over, hopefully.”

But don’t bet on it. Instead, look for attacks that are more sophisticated, more subtle and perhaps more laden with substance.

The cut and thrust of attack politics seems too deeply embedded in the thinking and habits of the candidates and their advisers in all three campaigns for negativism to be abandoned altogether. Moreover, the prevailing dark mood of the country and the perceived weaknesses of the three contenders tends to foster negativism.

“People are saying, ‘There are these three guys, none of whom is too appealing, but you have to make a choice,’ ” says Mervin Field, director of the California Poll. The winner, says Field, “is going to be whoever has the least negatives.”

Until recently, Perot’s negative ratings in the polls were markedly lower than those of his two rivals. As a result, Bush strategists believed they had no choice but to try to add to Perot’s minuses with a carefully targeted attack. They did so with a coordinated effort that called attention to published charges that Perot has a penchant for snooping into the lives of business and political foes.

Perot struck back hard, reviving memories of the Watergate scandal by depicting himself as the victim of Republican “dirty tricks.”

Despite the possibility that Clinton was the immediate beneficiary of the spat, Bush campaign pollster Fred Steeper says the President’s forces had no choice.

“I think raising some critical points about Perot needed to be done, and it was effective,” he says.

And Bush’s campaign thinks that any ground claimed by Clinton can be taken back. “We think Clinton is vulnerable, too,” says Steeper. “We know how to defeat liberal Democrats. Just review 1980, 1984 and 1988.”

Certainly, the Republicans are well prepared for the attack. “We have about a dozen cash-starved interns clipping newspapers and a couple of analysts over them looking at the data,” says Republican National Chairman Richard N. Bond of his party’s opposition research operation.

Although Clinton’s advisers like to portray him as operating on a lofty plane above the fray between Perot and Bush, they have made plain they are prepared to respond in kind to attacks from Bush.

“We learned in the primaries that Bill Clinton can take a punch,” says Clinton campaign consultant Paul Begala. “And I think you will learn in the general election that he can throw one, too.”

Still, interviews with rival strategists and independent analysts suggest that if they know what’s good for them, all three candidates will adjust to the demands of this race’s triangular configuration before they strike out at their rivals.

The changed dynamics of a three-way race are likely to affect their strategies in several ways:

Targeting--Bush strategists believe that one reason their recent attacks on Perot may have helped Clinton is that by emphasizing the snooping charges, they were dramatizing an issue likely to be of most concern to civil libertarian Democrats among Perot’s backers.

The solution, GOP strategists argue, is to attack Perot on grounds more likely to give pause to his Republican backers. They believe they may have found just such an issue in a recent statement by Perot that seems to accept the recent Supreme Court decision barring obligatory prayers in school. “If it’s going to disrupt the school system . . . let’s do it (praying) at home,” Perot said.

Says Bush pollster Steeper, “We know a lot of people leaning to Perot who also favor school prayer.”

Timing--From Clinton’s point of view, the Bush-Perot confrontation could hardly have come at a more propitious moment. For weeks, the Arkansas governor had been struggling to attract attention from the media while the President and Perot dominated the scene.

Suddenly, with the approach of the Democratic convention that begins July 13 and the surge in speculation about his choice of a running mate, the spotlight shifted to Clinton. And he was able to use that access to depict himself in a positive light while Bush was boosting Perot’s negatives--and his own in the process.

Reflecting on this, veteran GOP consultant Eddie Mahe suggests that Bush would be best served by attacking either Perot or Clinton when those two are at each other’s throats, a situation he says is bound to happen.

“Clinton and Perot at some point will have to go after each other,” Mahe says. For example, he says, since both appeal to supporters of abortion rights, they ultimately will have to fight over who is the strongest advocate of that cause.”

Positioning--The surest way for an attacker to avoid losing ground in a three-cornered race, some analysts believe, is to strike at both foes at once. But to be able to do so, the attacker must be perceived as possessing positive attributes that the others lack.

“Your positive message has to position you so it cuts the other two in a negative way,” says Tad Devine, manager of Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey’s failed Democratic presidential campaign.

From his position as incumbent President, for example, Bush was able to jab this week at both his opponents. “People are going to say, ‘Who has the experience, who has the temperament, to take on these big problems, day in, day out,’ ” he declared, alluding to the fact that neither Perot nor Clinton has experience in national office and that some critics feel Perot’s temperament is unsuited for the Oval Office.

For his part, Perot is able to snipe successfully at both Clinton and Bush by positioning himself as an outsider and an anti-politician.

Devine believes Clinton can gain a similar advantage on the attack by positioning himself as an effective agent of change.

Substance--An attacking candidate can shield himself against the damaging fallout ordinarily produced by negative politics by basing his assaults on more substantive grounds.

“A fight in a campaign is not necessarily a bad thing, if you are fighting over people’s lives and their future,” says Clinton aide Begala. “But what (Bush and Perot) were fighting over was their own egos. And that’s what turns people off.”

To attack Clinton and Perot successfully, “we also need a positive message,” concedes Bush aide Steeper.

One of Bush’s problems is that the nation’s continuing economic difficulties keep overshadowing his accomplishments in other areas.

Charles Black, senior adviser to the Bush campaign, cited last month’s summit meeting with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin. “Coming up with an arms control agreement and eliminating two-thirds of all the nuclear weapons in the world--you’d think you’d get a little credit for that,” says Black. “But it may well be that everybody is still totally focused on the economy . . . so they don’t care about this other stuff.”

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