POLITICS : Iowa? Wilson Bets on Wholesale Politics

“It’s a world-class stupid move,” a veteran commentator said on television. Bob Dole’s deputy campaign chairman called it “a serious, serious mistake.” Lamar Alexander’s communications director was less delicate. “This is the beginning of the end of the Wilson campaign,” he predicted.

What did Pete Wilson do to earn such universal contempt? Rob a bank? Make a dirty movie?

No, he announced that he would not compete in the Iowa caucuses or participate in any more straw polls.

Oh.

To most observers, that means Wilson is a diminished candidate. For the next five months, he won’t be part of “the story.” “The story” will be about who’s up and who’s down in Iowa and who’s likely to pull an upset in the straw poll of Young Republicans of South Succotash.

Is that a calamity? Scholars who study such things have found out that straw polls have absolutely no predictive value. They don’t predict who’s going to win a party’s nomination. They don’t even predict who’s going to come out ahead in a particular state.

Nor do the Iowa caucuses mean a great deal when it comes to determining the eventual nominee. In 1988, Michael S. Dukakis and George Bush came in third in their respective Iowa caucuses. The winners were President Richard A. Gephardt and President Bob Dole.

Dukakis and Bush went on to win the New Hampshire primary a week later. That’s what mattered. The rule is, nothing of importance happens in a presidential race until the New Hampshire primary. New Hampshirites will tell you--it’s probably in their state constitution--that no one has been elected President in the last 50 years without winning their primary.

Except once. Guy name of Bill Clinton. He came in second in the New Hampshire primary. But it was a moral victory. Technically, Paul E. Tsongas beat him. But Clinton did better than “expected” after the Gennifer Flowers and draft-letter controversies. New Hampshire gave Clinton the title of “Comeback Kid.”

Sure, Jimmy Carter got some attention when he won the Iowa caucuses in 1976. But what really helped him was winning New Hampshire.

Supposedly, a victory in Iowa gives you momentum going into New Hampshire. That’s what Bush thought. He beat Ronald Reagan in the 1980 Iowa caucuses--largely because the former California governor also decided to bypass Iowa. Giddy with success, Bush claimed he had “the Big Mo”--which lasted until Reagan beat him in New Hampshire.

Wilson’s miserable showing in last month’s Iowa straw poll was an omen. The message: Wilson was going to lose the straw polls. And he was going to lose the Iowa caucuses. Big time. A string of losses would demoralize his campaign, hamper his fund-raising and, quite possibly, finish him off. Better to be out of “the story” than to be in it as a perpetual loser.

Straw polls and caucuses reward qualities Wilson doesn’t have. As his campaign manager put it, “The caucuses reward campaigns that are talented at moving relatively small groups of supporters from one location to another.” That’s called retail politics. It’s totally alien to California politics.

Remember, Iowa holds caucuses, not a primary. A primary is an election. A caucus is a meeting. You don’t just show up and vote. You have to spend an evening, meeting face-to-face with political operatives and, even worse, your neighbors. There’s no secret ballot. At a caucus, you have to proclaim your political preference in front of God and everybody: “I’m for Patrick J. Buchanan and I’m proud of it!” That’s intimidating to most voters. Which is why caucuses get much lower turnout than primaries. Who wants to go through all that?

Answer: extremely committed voters (and some voters who should be committed). Candidates who do best in straw polls and caucuses are people who elicit intense ideological support, such as Jesse Jackson and Pat Robertson. Or candidates who have a strong organizational base. Walter F. Mondale had the support of labor unions and teachers’ organizations. Robertson and Jackson had churches. All they had to do was bus ‘em in.

Wilson doesn’t have either intense ideological commitment or a strong organizational base. He’s a typical California politician. In California, the secret of political success isn’t organizing. It’s advertising. Wholesale politics. California is the state that almost elected Max Headroom to the U.S. Senate last year. There was never any definitive proof that Michael Huffington actually existed. He may have been a hologram. But he had a $30-million advertising budget. And he almost beat Dianne Feinstein.

So Wilson has decided to do something different. His aides call it “cutting-edge presidential strategy.” It’s also called targeting. He’s going to concentrate on what he calls “The Three News”--New Hampshire, New England and New York. Those are states with a long tradition of moderate Yankee Republicanism. Former Govs. Nelson A. Rockefeller (N.Y.) and Frank Sargent (Mass.). Former Sens. Jacob K. Javits and Kenneth L. Keating (N.Y.), Edward W. Brooke (Mass.) and Lowell P. Weicker Jr. (Conn.). Current Sens. William S. Cohen and Olympia J. Snowe (Me.), John H. Chaffee (R.I.) and James M. Jeffords (Vt.). And, of course, Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld, Wilson’s guide and patron.

They’re Volvo Republicans--rich, pragmatic and socially progressive. But Yankees no longer hold dominion over the GOP in the Northeast. They’re being challenged by newer Republicans from a far different social milieu--white ethnics. People like that Alfonse M. D’Amato person. D’Amato now owns the Republican Party of New York just as surely as Rockefeller once did. And not only does D’Amato support Dole. He’s trying to keep every other Republican candidate off the New York ballot. As they say in the Empire State, D’Amato delivers.

Wilson’s strategy comes with a price. He’s heightening expectations for himself in the states he’s targeting--including New York, where the Lord have mercy on those who take on D’Amato. Wilson has to win, or come damn close to winning, New Hampshire. He has to win Massachusetts, where, according to a Boston Globe poll, Weld is losing popularity fast. Why? Because Massachusetts voters think he’s lost interest in their state. They think he’s spending too much time on the Wilson campaign.

Wilson has to win California, too. And that’s another problem. Last week’s Los Angeles Times Poll shows Wilson’s favorability at a record low in his own state. Two-thirds of California Republicans say he shouldn’t be running for President.

Wilson’s big problems have always been with Republicans. He’s the heir to California’s progressive GOP tradition--the tradition of Earl Warren. But that tradition is no longer dominant in California. As in New York, moderates have been displaced by a more aggressive strain--Reagan Republicanism. Just last year, when Wilson won a stunning victory over Kathleen Brown in the general election, he lost a third of the GOP primary vote to an unknown challenger.

Wilson’s strategy of building a base among moderate Republicans could run into two difficulties: 1) moderate Republicans are not so dominant any more in the states he’s targeting, and 2) Wilson is not so moderate himself any more on the issues he’s running on--affirmative action and illegal immigration.

One more thing. Wilson is betting that Dole will carry Iowa as expected, so the Iowa caucuses won’t mean much. But suppose Dole stumbles between now and Iowa. Suppose some hot challenger beats, or nearly beats, Dole in Iowa. Won’t an outcome like that crowd Wilson out?

It would if the hot challenger is Colin L. Powell. But Wilson is betting Powell won’t run as a Republican. He’s betting the candidate who pulls an upset in Iowa will come from the party’s right wing--Phil Gramm, say, or Buchanan. Republicans are unlikely to unite behind either of those guys. They’re too divisive.

The best outcome for Wilson may be for Dole to be mortally wounded in Iowa by an unacceptable conservative. Wilson would be in a perfect position--the only broadly acceptable alternative.

Wilson has always had a special genius for positioning. That’s what he’s doing now. Right up there on the high wire.*