If Not the Sandinistas . . .

The alternative is Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, widow of the venerated Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Cardenal, the La Prensa newspaper publisher whose assassination by the right-wing Somoza dictatorship in 1978 touched off the uprising that led to the Sandinistas' elevation to power. Since winning the nomination of the United Nicaraguan Opposition (U.N.O.) coalition last September, she has managed to improve on a thoroughly inept start. But her campaign still lacks both substance and imagination. Dona Violeta does not discuss issues. She appears. She smiles. She presses flesh. She departs. Her stump speeches are long on teary references to her late husband and short on almost everything else.

Some of her early appearances were little short of disastrous, revealing her as shockingly unfamiliar with economic and foreign-policy issues. She has also spent considerable time out of the country, raising funds among wealthy exiles and testing the world stage. This has made little impression on an electorate more worried about the price of food in Matagalpa.

Alfredo Cesar, one of her chief strategists, promises she will stay close to home once the campaign formally opens Dec. 4. But Dona Violeta needs more than that to defeat the well-organized Ortega. U.N.O. must reach its natural constituency among those hurt most by the Sandinistas. Even the U.S. is uncertain how strongly to back her. While Ortega is one of Bush's least favorite heads of state, lavishing U.S. resources on a lost cause could succeed only in making Ortega more difficult to deal with in a second term. Still, the U.S. will spend $9 million to support the election, giving some to U.N.O. and some -- by Nicaraguan law -- to the Sandinista government.

"We are conducting our campaign like a long-distance runner," says Cesar, "gathering speed as we go along." But unless Chamorro injects some substance into her candidacy, the race may prove not just long distance but long shot.