Now for the Real Fight

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

The Democrats soared in San Francisco, but can they beat Reagan?

It was a typical convention-ending scene: thousands of balloons descending toward the packed floor, the band blaring rousing music, the delegates waving small American flags, colored spotlights panning the rostrum, washing over the smiling, happy candidates. But what happened in San Francisco last week was more than a ritual display of party unity. The cheers were genuine, and so were the tears of joy that flowed unabashedly from the eyes of many delegates. The Democrats knew they were making history: the woman up on the podium was the first ever selected for national office by a major party. As Geraldine Ferraro had told them earlier in accepting her nomination (by acclamation) as the vice-presidential candidate, "By choosing a woman to run for our nation's second-highest office, you send a powerful signal to all Americans. There are no doors we cannot unlock."

It was not the first time tears flowed at last week's Democratic Convention, nor the first time history was made. Two nights before, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, voice hoarse, shirt soaked with sweat, had moved even delegates opposed to him with an evangelical plea for "the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised." He was the first black to play so pivotal a role at a major-party convention, the leader of a significant bloc of delegates (he got 465 1/2 votes on the roll call for the presidential nomination) whose every move and word stirred anxious speculation. So much so, that amid all the cadenced fire, it was a simple declaration, one that would have sounded anticlimactic from anyone else, that many delegates waited most eagerly to hear: "I will be proud to support the nominee of this convention."

But all the history, all the tears--what were they leading toward? In the most emotional moments, every delegate on the floor of the Moscone Center knew that Presidential Nominee Walter Mondale, no matter how galvanizing his choice of ticket mate, was fighting against heavy odds. In the modern era, when presidential nominations are decided in primaries and caucuses and Vice Presidents are chosen by their running mates, a convention has functions other than picking a ticket. It serves as a kind of combined pep rally to lift the spirits of a party's electoral foot soldiers and a huge free TV commercial to put a campaign message, as phrased by the party's best orators, before the public. A divided and bickering convention can destroy a candidacy, but a harmonious and uplifting one may bring little more than a temporary boost in popularity.

What the San Francisco convention could do to give the Democratic ticket a rousing sendoff, it accomplished. As symbolism, the mere presence of Ferraro, and to a lesser extent Jackson, on the podium might help bring to the polls many women, as well as blacks, Hispanics and members of other minorities who have not voted before. As show biz, the convention produced such an exceptionally high level of oratory that some oldtimers were arguing which speech was the best in their memory: Jackson's stem-winder or the stirring keynote by New York Governor Mario Cuomo. Party-splitting brawls were avoided, and unity was pledged by many orators, some of whom sounded as if they meant it. Colorado Senator Gary Hart promised full support of Mondale, who defeated him in a grueling and bitter primary campaign, and Jackson, after losing a string of floor fights over platform planks, made a point of apologizing to any fellow Democrats who might have been offended by his preconvention stridency. More important, he appealed penitently to the Jews who had been especially disturbed by his previous oratory. Said Jackson: "We must turn from finger pointing to clasped hands."

The Democrats also zeroed in on the issues and themes they will stress in the campaign. Speaker after speaker painted a portrait of false prosperity menaced by gargantuan budget deficits and of a fragile peace threatened by Ronald Reagan's alleged warlike proclivities. But the overriding message of the convention was that America must return to old-fashioned values: hard work, playing by the rules and, above all, devotion to family. If that sounds rather Republican--indeed, Reaganite--Mondale, Ferraro and their supporting cast converted it into an assault on the "fairness issue." In contrast to what Mondale in his acceptance speech called Reagan's "Government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich," they said the Democrats will treat the entire nation as an extended family, offering unstinted help and succor to all its members.

At the end, the delegates left San Francisco a great deal more upbeat and determined than they were when they arrived, but only marginally closer to victory. Mondale and Ferraro now face the daunting task of persuading the public to vote against a popular President at a time of surging economic growth and no obvious threat of war. Many Democrats, including Mondale's top planners, readily concede that the nominees can win only if they shape and carry out a virtually flawless strategy and get some breaks besides. Willie Brown Jr., speaker of the California assembly, wryly suggests that divine intervention may be needed too. Says he: "It's going to take the Lord's being more interested in Mondale than Reagan."

Moreover, Mondale, who can afford to make few, if any, mistakes, made a big one even before launching his campaign. Rather than waiting for the convention to end before replacing the Democratic National Committee chairman with his own man, as is customary, Mondale jumped the gun. As the convention was about to meet, he attempted to dump D.N.C. Chairman Charles Manatt for Bert Lance. Dissuaded by an uproar within the party, he reinstated Manatt and installed Lance as general chairman of the Mondale campaign instead. To the nominee and his aides, Georgian Lance is a steadfast Mondale loyalist and an expert on Southern politics who might be able to shape a victorious strategy in a vital region. But the public remembers Lance--and if it has forgotten, Republicans will offer numerous reminders--as the Office of Management and Budget director who, despite Jimmy Carter's initial assertion, "Bert, I'm proud of you," was forced out of the Carter Administration by a furor over his freewheeling practices as a private banker. Lance was later brought to trial on 33 counts of bank fraud and other financial misdeeds; the jury acquitted him on nine charges and deadlocked on three others, and the judge dismissed the remainder.

Gleeful Republicans plan to cite Lance's presence in the Mondale campaign if the Democratic challenger tries to attack the numerous ethical lapses by the men and women Reagan has appointed to office. Lance, said a delighted Reagan campaign aide, "eliminates the sleaze factor for us." The Reaganauts also think the Lance appointment will help them tie the Democratic nominee to the still unpopular Carter Administration, in which Mondale was Vice President. A major element of Reagan's message to the voters will, in effect, be the question: Do you really want to go back to the Carter days?

Even without Lance's complicating matters, Mondale figured to start the campaign far behind, at least according to polls taken before Ferraro's selection. A Gallup survey completed on the eve of the convention gave Reagan a 53%-to-39% lead. Private state-by-state polls, claim Democrats who have seen some of them, were considerably more jarring. Arkansas Senator Dale Bumpers said he did not know of one state in which Mondale led prior to the convention. Pollster Pat Caddell, an adviser to Hart during the primaries, asserted that only in Massachusetts did Mondale trail by fewer than 10 points.

A presidential election is really a set of 50 simultaneous state elections out of which a candidate has to put together 270 electoral votes. Reagan's strategy is simple: sweep the West and South, where his social and economic conservatism and stress on military strength are highly popular. Even if he missed a few states, his Sunbelt strength would bring him so close that he could win the election by adding one or two Northeastern or Midwestern industrial states. New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Connecticut and Michigan are the likeliest targets.

Mondale's planners still have not drawn up a firm list of pivotal states. Before the convention, their battle map was the reverse of Reagan's: sweep the industrial Northeast and Midwest, which have become the new Democratic heartland, then pick off a few big Western or, more likely, Southern states. Lance mentions Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida as possibilities, and adds, "We have to win Texas to be elected."

But by the end of last week Mondale strategists were insisting that with the selection of Ferraro and the national exposure she received during the convention, all bets are off. "These overnight polls are incredible!" exclaimed Campaign Manager Robert Beckel at midday Friday as he examined charts spread out on a table at the Meridien, Mondale's headquarters hotel in San Francisco. Campaign Chairman James Johnson, studying the same figures, said that "tracking" polls showed a rise in the popularity of the ticket every night of the convention, with an especially sharp jump of 10 to 15 points after the nominees' acceptance speeches on Thursday.

Tracking polls are quick surveys of small numbers of voters who have been polled previously that attempt to ascertain whether news events have changed their minds. Whether the results that so elated Mondale's staff will later be supported by more comprehensive polls and whether the phenomenon will last are open to question. Nonetheless, on the strength of the new data and the enthusiasm over the Ferraro candidacy, Mondale's planners now say they will make a much more extensive effort than originally intended in the South. At a meeting arranged by Lance between Ferraro and Southern Governors and party leaders, she was invited to campaign in each of 13 states. In the West, Mondale strategists initially talked of possible victories only in Washington and Oregon. Now they vow a significant drive in California, which they had all but written off.

Mondale's aides regard Ferraro, despite her liberalism and Queens accent, as a woman for all regions who can appeal to every type of voter. Blue-collar, urban ethnic voters, especially Roman Catholics, will listen to her, they think, because she is one of them: the Catholic daughter of an Italian immigrant who represents a conservative blue-collar district. Well-educated suburbanites may be attracted to her as a symbol of new ideas and new departures in politics, even though her voting record in the House followed a rather traditional liberal Democratic line. Democrats hope she will win voters under 40, who in recent polls seemed to be turning heavily toward Reagan. That 2 is an ominous signal to Democrats, not only for this election but for the future. Men 50 or older, not surprisingly, were most opposed to Ferraro's selection in early surveys. But according to Johnson, Mondale's tracking polls showed that her performance at the convention was changing more minds in that group than in any other. Ferraro will campaign extensively on her own and probably make some joint swings with Mondale.

The Democrats' highest hope is that Ferraro's presence, and the aura of tradition-breaking excitement she brings to the ticket, will spur their efforts to register millions of new voters. Even before her selection, they had been talking of a total voting turnout on Nov. 6 of up to 100 million people, vs. 86 million in 1980. The bulk of these first-time voters, they calculate, will be minorities sympathetic to the Democratic Party; many others will be women energized by the Ferraro campaign. Johnson classes crucial Texas specifically and the whole South generally as "registration states," where a heavy turnout of new voters could upset all current political calculations.

Prospects for drawing new voters to the polls for Mondale, however, depend not just on Ferraro's appeal but on Jackson's efforts among blacks and other minorities. While Jackson is pledged to support the ticket, the degree of enthusiasm he may bring to that task is not certain. The day after his fiery speech to the convention, the volatile preacher was telling a caucus of black delegates that "you all got nothing" out of the gathering. But after the convention closed, he asserted at a fund-raising dinner that with 106 days left before the election, "I will commit for at least 100 of those days for the nominee." At about the same time, Lamond Godwin, a Jackson campaign aide, talked of Jackson's forming a new political organization that would "be a force within the party as organized labor is a force within the party."

Jackson is holding out for specific concessions, like the naming of blacks acceptable to him to top posts in the Mondale campaign. Even if he can be satisfied and stumps hard, however, his efforts would present another problem for the party. They might spur Republican attempts to sign up conservative-minded whites whom Jackson frightens, at least partly offsetting Democratic registration drives.

In any case, Mondale can hardly rely on new registrations and Ferraro's help alone to put him over. Even with Ferraro at his side, he cannot win a campaign based on personality and image. Reagan is just too genial, too popular, too skilled in handling television, a medium that diminishes Mondale. Says Robert Strauss, former head of the Democratic National Committee: "This country is never going to like a Walter Mondale as much as a Ronald Reagan. But they can respect him more for his qualities of governing this nation." To have much chance of whining, the Democrats will have to develop a cogent and compelling case on the issues, a job that can be performed only by the head of the ticket.

It is a forbidding task. To begin with, the Democrats have to make it clear they are criticizing Reagan's policies rather than his person, since an ad hominem attack would almost certainly backfire. But the effort "to separate the salesman from the product," as Cuomo put it in his keynote address, turns on subtle distinctions that are not easy to draw on the stump.

In order to make his case, Mondale last week challenged Reagan to a series of six televised debates, each confined to detailed discussion of a single topic, like arms control or the deficit. Democrats think such a format would give Mondale an opportunity to expose weaknesses in White House arguments. Reagan, however, will probably agree to only one or at most two debates, and Mondale would have no choice but to accept, though his supporters are gloomy about his prospects. A wide-ranging debate puts a premium on the instant image and snappy response, classically typified by Reagan's quizzical look and "There you go again" line to Carter during their 1980 face-off. At least one debate between Ferraro and Vice President George Bush is likely too, and Democratic chances in that would be much better. Bush would be under considerable restraint, having to gauge how sharply he could assail a woman opponent, who would not have to win to be effective. Ferraro would just need to prove that she could hold her own against the man Republicans insist is far better qualified to stand a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

On the tube and the hustings, Reagan can and will campaign on what at least appears to be a rosy record. With production growing, inflation sharply reduced and joblessness a shade lower than when he took office, he will not hesitate to ask again his question of 1980: Are you better off than you were four years ago? He knows that this time most voters will answer yes. He will boast of increasing military strength and a firm foreign policy that has won the respect of adversaries. Failures like the stationing of Marines in Lebanon he will simply ignore.

There is little chance that events will undermine this case, at least in time to do Mondale much good. Interest rates may rise further, but it is unlikely they will topple the economy into a new recession that would be felt by Nov. 6. "By the luck of the draw, it looks like we are going to wage a campaign at the top of the economic cycle," said a Reagan aide last week.

The President's political planners do fear a new leftist offensive in El Salvador that might present Reagan with the glum choice of increasing U.S. military involvement in that country or risking its loss to Marxism. Failing that, though, they doubt that voters will be much disturbed by overseas events. "The public does not focus on foreign policy unless American boys are committed somewhere," says a Reagan planner. Preliminary talks with the Soviet Union on banning antisatellite weapons, should they take place in Vienna in September, could help the White House counter vehement Democratic charges that Reagan is more interested in winning an exorbitantly expensive and deadly nuclear arms race than in trying to restrain that competition.

The Democrats began developing their line of attack at the convention. On the key issue of the economy, often decisive in U.S. elections, they are sounding two themes. One is that the drop in inflation was bought only at the price of a savage recession, succeeded by an uneven recovery whose effects have yet to reach many of the poor and disadvantaged. In his keynote speech, Cuomo contrasted Reagan's performance with the Democrats' 50-year record of striving to build prosperity shared by all. His eloquence drew wild applause from the delegates, but to some outside the hall he seemed to be dwelling in the past. SUDDENLY, IT'S 1936, jeered the headline over a Wall Street Journal editorial.

The second Democratic theme is to present the party as one of hard, tough realism, willing to look beyond the glitter of temporary prosperity and demand the sacrifices necessary to head off a calamitous bust. Thus Mondale in his acceptance speech became perhaps the first candidate ever to run for President on a pledge to raise taxes. To lower the deficit, he said, "that must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did." Mondale also vowed to cut federal spending, telling Congress, in words that sounded odd from a Democratic rostrum: "If you don't hold the line, I will. That's what the veto is for."

Intellectually the Democrats' case is eminently arguable. But politically it is hard to sell. Voters may not believe that a party whose convention resounded with exhortations about the sanctity of Social Security and Medicare is serious about cutting spending. Mondale's promise to raise taxes certainly was courageous enough, but the deficits that prompted it are too large to be anything but an abstraction to many American voters, and the pledge is open to obvious Republican attack. Gibed White House Spokesman Larry Speakes: "We will let Walter Mondale do the talking about raising taxes. This Administration has been talking and working for three years to ease the burden of taxation on all Americans." Worst of all, from the Democrats' viewpoint, the party will appear to be preaching fear of the future, and that is scarcely as appealing in the voting booth as Reagan's all-weather optimism.

Perhaps the cheeriest thought for the Democrats, as images of the convention fade from TV screens and delegates return home, is that more than three months remain before the election. In modern politics, that is half an eternity. Just about anything can happen, as witness the dizzying twists and jolting turns of the Democratic primary season. Certainly three months ago, hardly anyone thought the Democratic vice-presidential nominee would be a woman named Geraldine Ferraro. But it will take something almost as unexpected to prevent the tears of Democratic joy and pride that flowed last week in San Francisco from turning into tears of a very different sort come November.

-- By George J. Church. Reported by Robert Ajemian, Sam Allis and Douglas Brew/ San Francisco

With reporting by Robert Ajemian, Sam Allis, Douglas Brew/San Francisco