Grapevine

So long, it's been good to know ya. Attorney General Edwin Meese will be gone before the Democratic Convention, Bush sources hope. He'll resign just as soon as he has had a chance to mount a face-saving p.r. offensive against the impending report from Independent Counsel James McKay.

Gender swipe. Texas State Treasurer Ann Richards, an excellent speaker with a biting wit, will keynote the Democratic Convention as living proof that gender is a Bush, not a Dukakis, hang-up. She will also stake her claim as a real Texan, not one whose "residence" is a Houston hotel.

Richards' Republican counterpart is New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, a moderate who has already stirred up the kind of trouble usually reserved for Democratic conventions. New Hampshire Senator Gordon Humphrey has threatened a walkout during Kean's speech (Kean is against a constitutional ban on abortion) unless an antiabortion speaker is given equal time.

Florida, or your money back. Allies of Senator Bob Graham's are guaranteeing delivery of Florida if their guy is on the Democratic ticket. They have even paid for a poll that shows Dukakis-Graham taking the critical state by a comfortable 10-point margin.

Author, author! Speaker Jim Wright's nemesis Newt Gingrich has an ethical problem of his own. Democrat David Worley, hoping to win Gingrich's Georgia congressional seat, totes a blank book to campaign stops. The title: What I Did on My Summer Vacation, by Newt Gingrich. It refers to the European trip Gingrich and his family took to do "research," using a $13,000 advance for a book he never wrote.

Designated hatchet. His disdain for Dukakis is deep enough to make Ronald Reagan this campaign's perfect hatchet man. The President "is eager to do it," says a Bush aide. Last week he upped Bush's anti-Duke epithet "Brookline liberal" to "true liberal."

"((He is)) the kind of guy who wants to know whether it's time to eat."

-- Bush Media Adviser Roger Ailes, on Michael Dukakis