A Tie That May Tightly Bind

By Evan Thomas

Mondale's solid union support is a double-edged sword

The question demanded a simple answer, but it dogged Walter Mondale all week: "Can you cite one major domestic issue in the past three or four years where you have disagreed with organized labor?" At first Mondale ducked. He protested that his endorsement by the AFL-CIO was "not a deal." When reporters pressed him he turned testy, his eyes becoming cold, his face hard, his voice clipped. Repeatedly he replied, "I'm not going to spend my time offending people who support me."

Finally, realizing that his stonewalling was doing more harm than good, Mondale's aides advised their candidate to cite some differences with labor. He mentioned his opposition to the B-1 bomber, the Clinch River breeder reactor and the weakening of clean air standards. The examples were "small potatoes," conceded an AFL official. "They're not going to quiet the howling beast." The clumsy handling of the issue was a rare stumble by Mondale's smoothly efficient machine, which is being publicly tested for the first time in Iowa this Monday and New Hampshire next Tuesday.

It was Gary Hart who, at a debate among the eight Democratic candidates sponsored by the Des Moines Register, so pointedly raised the question of how beholden Mondale is to organized labor, whose support could be worth as much as $20 million. At a press conference in Atlanta last week, John Glenn followed with a harsh rhetorical question for AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland. Asked Glenn: "What does Kirkland think he's buying with his $20 million? A President who will never disagree with the AFL-CIO? If the Democratic nomination can be bought for $20 million in the spring, it isn't going to be worth a plugged nickel in November." The Glenn camp says that it may file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging that Mondale has failed to report fully all the assistance he has received from labor in Iowa and New Hampshire. The National Right to Work Committee, an organization that opposes compulsory union membership, went further: it disclosed that it would hire detectives to infiltrate labor groups working for Mondale in order to publicize the extent of their aid.

The National Conservative Political Action Committee got into the act by announcing a $2 million ad campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire designed to highlight Mondale's liberal record. The assault by the right-wing "NicPac" was one Mondale was able to parry easily: "If you can judge a person by the enemies he makes, I've just been paid a big compliment." But he is still plagued by the problem of turning his early strategy of building a coalition of activist groups into a campaign that appeals to a broad spectrum of voters.

Mondale had good reason to avoid offending labor. Union support will be a net plus in the Iowa caucuses, where voters must go out into the winter night to meetings that can last up to three hours. With apathy running high, a good organization is necessary to turn out voters. In addition, because voting is open at the caucus meetings, union shop stewards can cast a watchful eye on their members. One union alone, the National Education Association, hopes to produce 7,000 of the 100,000 voters expected to turn out for the Iowa caucuses.

In New Hampshire, where the electorate tends to be more idiosyncratic and more conservative than in Iowa, strong union backing may not be as effective.

Vote getting in the Granite State is retail business. The state is so tiny (267,000 Democratic and independent voters) and the campaign season so long that the candidates must harvest votes household by household. Factory workers can hardly punch the clock in the morning without first having to shake a candidate's hand, and registered Democrats are not surprised to get several calls a night from the 1,000 or so phones working the state for different camps.

The game of retail politics is being played skillfully by Gary Hart. Unable to afford much TV time, Hart has no choice but to win his votes one by one in New Hampshire. He tries to shake 1,000 hands a day at work places and shopping centers, and his volunteers have canvassed 60,000 homes, more than any other campaign. Hart has begun to shed his personal reserve and warm to the task. After watching him leap up from his lunch to table-hop at Newick's restaurant in Newington, N.H., Hart's state coordinator, Jeanne Shaheen, smiled, "A month ago, we'd have to have twisted his arm before he'd do that." Lacking the cash to buy a word processor, his campaign is sending follow-up letters written in longhand. Volunteers have mailed out 30,000, and expect to post 20,000 more.

Of the candidates, only John Glenn has not relied heavily on flesh pressing and baby kissing, hoping that his space-age appeal and media campaign can win support on a wholesale basis. "Just being an American hero will always get him some votes up here," says Democratic State Senator Bobby Stephen. Glenn's reticence with voters and his performances on the stump--some fine, some less so--are making it hard for him to recoup ground he has lost to Mondale. The latest Gallup poll shows Mondale with the support of 49% of Democratic voters nationwide, while Jesse Jackson (14%) has drawn even with Glenn (13%). But the man whose pulse rate rose by only one beat when his problem-plagued space capsule re-entered the atmosphere seems unfazed.

The Mondale juggernaut, meanwhile, was demonstrating that it was as adept at doorbell-to-doorbell combat as it is in harvesting endorsements. Said Agnes Tomkinson, 79, of Portsmouth: "They all keep calling me on the phone and I don't know why.

It won't affect the way I vote. I like Mondale." Tomkinson had already met Mondale in person--twice. --By Evan Thomas.

Reported by Sam Allis with Mondale and Richard Homik/Concord

With reporting by Sam Allis with Mondale, Richard Homik/Concord