FOOLING NONE OF THE PEOPLE : Just how much influence does the campaign have on the electorate?

How many presidential debates will George Bush--or is it James A. Baker III--agree to participate in? Just how fast is Bill Clinton’s “immediate-response” team? Which campaign will launch the first negative ads?

These are the questions that today concern the nation’s political class. The dirty little secret of American politics, however, is that none of this matters much.

Beneath these preoccupations lies the premise that elections are won--or lost--by strategic and tactical decisions. But election outcomes are determined primarily by larger structural forces, such as the partisan alignment of the country, the economy and the country’s international standing. Advertising, speeches, attacks and the rest operate at the margins. Only when the underlying realities do not clearly favor one party does the campaign really matter.

1992 does not appear to be such a year. This is an election driven by one elemental force: economic discontent. Clinton hopes to ride this wave to the White House. Bush fought it much of the year, and was smashed on the rocks. Last month, he tried to change the subject--to “family values”--and found his campaign becalmed. Last week, he bowed to the inevitable, following Clinton, Paul E. Tsongas and Ross Perot in issuing an economic blueprint.

This election turns more on the country and its condition than the candidates and their campaigns. The voters are in the driver’s seat; the political professionals are just along for the ride. But the pros--and those who write about them--haven’t caught on. Here are four of the more popular competing analyses of this election. Taken together, these myths make up much of the conventional wisdom.

Myth 1: A volatile electorate is up for grabs .

Whatever else they may disagree on, political observers almost unanimously see a volatile electorate, as recorded in the “wildly gyrating” polls. This view has the advantage of promising an exciting campaign. The disadvantage is that it just ain’t so.

The stability of this year’s electorate is most evident if we look at Bush, the candidate about whom voters know the most. When the presidential field first took shape in early May, Bush was at 35% in Gallup polls, narrowly ahead of Clinton and Perot. He fell a bit in June, then recovered. Today, Gallup has him at 39%. The choices have changed, but Bush’s vote hasn’t. The President’s job-approval rating also stands--not so coincidentally--at 39% in Gallup polls, a finding on which other polls concur.

But didn’t Perot’s candidacy demonstrate volatility? Not really. When Perot rose to first in the polls, many asked (with great consternation): “How can these people vote for Perot? They don’t know anything about him.” The answer: They didn’t vote for Perot--they said they would vote for him if they had to vote that day.

Voters have a way of learning what they need to know. In May, Perot was a way of registering discontent. Voters knew they had time to learn more about Perot and make up their minds. As they did, his support fell.

The shape of the election becomes clearer by Labor Day, with about three-fourths of the electorate pretty well locked in. Polls since the GOP convention have been consistent. Every national media poll, but one, shows Bush’s support within a narrow range of 39% to 42%.

Clinton’s vote always falls within a slightly wider range of 47% to 55%. The average is Clinton 51% and Bush 40%, a substantial lead at this stage of the campaign.

The candidates have been volatile, and the media perhaps fickle--but the voters have been a model of consistency.

Myth 2: Baker can save the Bush team.

Republicans of all ideological stripes reportedly cheered the return of the omni-competent Baker to head the Bush reelection effort. Baker and his “Gang of Four” from the State Department are supposed to bring a new level of professionalism to the race.

The assumption is that Bush is in trouble because he’s been running a weak campaign. Many point to 1988 as a precedent, when Bush rode a strong campaign to a comeback victory. But 1992 is not 1988.

First, 1988 was a year of relative prosperity--the public was upbeat. Today, the public believes the country is in economic decline. The resulting demand for change is overwhelming.

Second, Bush is the incumbent. He has a record to defend. In 1988, he had some room to redefine who he was. Today, Americans feel they know this man.

These two factors severely limit Bush and Baker’s strategic options. They can promise that Bush’s second term will be different from his first. However, voters know that you reelect a President to stay the course, not change it. Performance matters more than promises. What’s more, the President is nothing if not a status quo kinda guy.

If Bush wins, it will mean that Americans’ dissatisfaction with the condition of the country is more superficial than analysts think, or they fear Democratic management of the economy more than polls indicate--or both. But Baker will have little to do with it. It’s not that his political skills aren’t considerable--but that the factors driving this election are beyond his control.

Myth 3: The Democrats have run a flawless campaign.

This is the mirror image of Myth No. 2. The reasoning goes: Clinton is ahead in the polls, therefore--since we “know” strategy and tactics drive the election--his campaign is brilliant. The Democratic Convention was masterful, since that’s when Clinton surged to the lead.

In particular, many have praised Clinton’s “rapid response” to Republican attacks. But this misses the more important point: On most days, Bush sets the agenda. The debate was whether Clinton--not Bush--raised taxes 128 times. Nor has Clinton found the discipline to shape his array of policy ideas into a clear message. Not many voters could tell you the two or three major things Clinton would do if he’s elected.

Even the much-vaunted convention had its shortcomings. Its first two days practically invited an attack on the Democrats as the party of AIDS and abortion. It wasn’t until New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo took the podium late on the third day that the party articulated a compelling critique of the Bush Administration.

But it didn’t matter. Voters tuned in hoping to like Clinton and Al Gore. When Perot dropped out on the final day, the floodgates opened.

If Clinton were behind in the polls today, he would be trashed for fudging on critical issues, assembling a geographically-narrow ticket and failing to aggressively attack the President. Now these are all seen as strokes of genius.

Myth 4: The All-South, All-Boomer team is a winner.

The “demography is destiny” thesis. Nominating two Southerners allows the Democrats to challenge the GOP in their electoral stronghold. And baby boomers, by far the largest generational age group in the electorate, will jump at the chance to finally bring their generation to power.

Well, let’s look at the Democrats’ regional support. Clinton gained his party’s nomination with impressive wins in the South and industrial Midwest, while faring much less well in the Northeast and the West Coast. Where is his lead today over Bush the greatest? On the two coasts. What do these regions have in common? They are where Bush has his lowest approval ratings.

OK, but what about the appeal of the All-Boomer ticket? Bill and Hillary and Al and Tipper, and that great Fleetwood Mac tune. Surely, this counts for something? Apparently not. The Democrats’ lead over Bush and Dan Quayle is smaller among the baby boomers than any other age group. It is working-class voters on whose shoulders the Clinton/Gore lead is built. Like the sign in Clinton headquarters says, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Clinton is winning because Americans’ income is falling, not because they liked his bus tour. He is winning because the U.S. manufacturing base has withered, and people don’t see new jobs on the way--not because they see a young, attractive candidate.

Many of the same analysts who see a tremendously volatile electorate are now confidently predicting a close election. Perhaps. But it’s not even the most likely outcome, much less a sure thing. Incumbent Presidents usually win or lose by decisive margins, and the evidence available today points toward a comfortable Clinton win.

Of course, something could still happen to dramatically shift the terms of this campaign. If Bush still trails Clinton at the end of September, you might want to cancel any vacation plans you have that involve North Korea, Libya, Iraq or Cuba. Yet by October, the question may be not who will win, but whether the Democrats can achieve a landslide.

The real story of campaign 1992 is one of constancy, not instability. Since the New Hampshire primary, voters have indicated this is an election about big things--most of all about the economy.

As drama, this leaves much to be desired. But as democracy, it has great virtue. The audience has taken center stage, the players relegated to the wings.

This year we would do well to recall the observation of the great political scientist V.O. Key. Describing what he had learned from years of studying the U.S. electorate, he concluded simply: “The voters are not fools.”