Front And Center

By Michael Kramer

It was like a Republican Convention. Everything worked. The words were good. The television was good. The propaganda, especially, was good -- in fact astonishingly good for a party forced to accept a wrenching philosophical tug off its traditional moorings. The also-rans, assigned supporting roles, performed as if they were claiming the prize, with only the habitually cranky Brown proffering a (predictable) sour note.

The Democrats did it, and they were rewarded. The bounce was theirs, the biggest in 50 years. But the Candidate has been a front runner before, and he fully expects to be playing catch-up again. So he smiled and went along and shared in the wonder -- but the Candidate is a realist and he knows it. So he said, quietly and almost to himself, "It won't be easy. Bush is wrong about most things, but he was right when he said this is a weird year."

There was, however, one survey result Bill Clinton coveted -- and he was truly pleased when he got it. According to his campaign's own research, which has been famously rigorous and appropriately pessimistic, the number of people willing to think of Clinton as President has gone through the roof. That was the week's goal, a "mission defined" and a "mission accomplished," to borrow the words of the man Clinton would replace. "It's confirmed," Clinton was told last Friday. "We have our second chance. The playing field has been leveled."

Clinton's success in New York City was the product of three carefully plotted moves. The first, the culmination of a long and dictatorially controlled process, was the creation of a platform that moves the Democratic Party unambiguously to the political center. The second, the 14-min. biographical film that preceded Clinton's acceptance speech, began the arduous task of creating empathy for a candidate carrying enough political baggage to fill a container ship. The third, the acceptance address itself -- well crafted and eloquently delivered, if a bit long -- was most significant for its contemptuous strikes at Bush. Clinton's mocking disparagement of Bush's disdain for "the vision thing" signaled the beginning of a bruising, take- no-prisoners campaign whose outcome may be decided, in the words of a Bush aide, with a low turnout of turned-off voters who disgustedly choose the "least worst alternative."

One of those alternatives vanished last week as Ross Perot shut down his campaign with all the brutality of a plant manager pink-slipping loyal workers at Christmas. His method confirmed the worst assessments of his character. Without warning, Perot stranded the millions who had poured themselves into his effort, whom he had repeatedly promised to "serve" selflessly if only they would follow his lead.

Of the many reasons posited for Perot's decision, the most laughable was Perot's "conclusion" that his continuation in the race would throw the election into the House of Representatives, thereby depriving the next President of the time required to prepare for office. Oblivious to the stunned cries of betrayal, Perot insisted, as he tiresomely does with every gesture, that he was interested only in the good of the country. The most probable explanation for Perot's reversal is simpler: he couldn't take the heat. Politics is perhaps the only professional game amateurs truly believe they can win. "Even professionals who've been in the minor leagues all their lives don't really appreciate what awaits them at the presidential level," says Michael Dukakis, who has more than a nodding acquaintance with the majors. As a nonprofessional, Perot recoiled when reality intruded, a petulant autocrat who apparently expected a grateful nation to crown him without dissent.

Bush and Clinton reacted like political ambulance chasers, each inviting Perot's folks to "sign on" and offering predictable theories for what it all meant. Bush's handlers said Perot's exit helped the President most because a majority of Perot followers were self-described white conservatives. Another view, supported by last Friday's quickie polls, was that those conservatives walked away from Bush's "failed, status quo" presidency and will turn to Clinton as the only remaining nonincumbent agent of change. This analysis (spun to negate the Democrats' earlier hope that Bush and Perot would eventually lock themselves in a death grip that would carry both over the precipice) holds that Perot's followers were, like Clinton, fiscal conservatives and social liberals.

Strategists on both sides are more comfortable with the known terrain of a two-man race. The Republicans see their "electoral lock" triumphing again. "We're looking at a victory resembling the coalition of states that has won for us in the past," said Republican chairman Rich Bond, "the South, of course, and most of the small Western states, with some good showings in the Midwest and a few Northeastern pick-offs." The Democrats concede the "cotton South" to Bush and admit that such electoral-vote powerhouses as Florida and Texas will probably remain with the G.O.P. But they believe that Al Gore will help secure the border states and that Clinton will do almost as well in the Northeast as Dukakis did in 1988. Both sides think Washington, Oregon and Colorado will go for Clinton, and the President's men concede privately that the biggest prize of all, California, will probably be Clinton's. "It's lost," says a Bush aide. "Gore appeals to the environmental wackos out there, and the state's lousy economy is blamed on us. We'd need a big recovery to get competitive there, and we're not going to get it." The bottom line of this early speculation is familiar: another election decided by small margins in the Rust Belt bastions -- Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan.

All of this assumes that blacks, who are not exactly thrilled with Clinton, return to the Democrats in decent numbers and that after the gutter balls are rolled both Bush and Clinton are still standing as viable contenders on Nov. 3. As each side began its effort to render this assumption bogus, the strategies were on full display. "Clinton's speech was the road map for us," said his aide, George Stephanopoulos. "The lines of attack and defense are all there." Said a White House official: "Bond has telegraphed almost everything we're going to do. It's now a matter of execution."

The Republicans will push against Clinton on three broad fronts: character, record and ideology. Character has two components. As currently scripted, the "dirty stuff" -- Gennifer Flowers, draft evasion and the like -- will be recycled near the end of the campaign, and then only if necessary. "Given the Willie Horton backlash," says a Bush adviser, "we're going to wait and see how bad it has to get." Character's second prong sees Clinton as too eager to please and therefore too "soft" to be President. "It's admittedly hard and probably impossible to portray Bush as the change guy," says a White House assistant, "so risk is our card: Yes, communism is dead, but there's a lot of bad news around the world, and we want voters to consider the risk they'll take with a novice as they warm to their desire for change." But "to run with that effectively," retorts Stephanopoulos, "you have to give it content, and that means talking about Clinton-as-compromi ser. We'll turn that into an action/inaction argument, since Bush is seen as a paralyzed domestic leader. Sure Clinton compromised; that's how he got things done."

Clinton believes his mere perseverance, the resolution and stamina he demonstrated through six grueling months at the hands of the tabloids and his primary opponents, is answer enough for those who doubt his toughness. "In the end, though," says Stephanopoulos, "we'll prove or disprove the proposition -- and all the others too -- when we match up face to face." It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the presidential debates to Clinton, who does not shy from the Reagan analogy. In 1980, with Jimmy Carter perceived as ineffectual, Reagan was hobbled by the inchoate fear that he was a warmonger, a lingering unease that persisted until Reagan deftly deflected the charge in the debates as the hapless Carter looked on. Clinton knows, similarly, that concerns about his character have lodged in the collective consciousness and that they'll remain there as time bombs until the electorate focuses seriously, which he expects won't happen until he and Bush argue eye to eye.

"Clinton is the failed Governor of a small state who couldn't move Arkansas above near-bottom rankings in everything despite a legislature of his own party," says Bond, enunciating the G.O.P.'s slash at Clinton's gubernatorial record. "Will anyone want him to do for America what he's done for Arkansas?" Stephanopoulos counters, "Will anyone not understand the Federal Government's complicity in strangling the states' ability to function? We've got tons of quotes from even Republican Governors saying just that."

The oldest of Republican attacks -- that any Democratic candidate is, by ideological definition, a liberal big spender is also in full flower. "Clinton has stolen our calls for investment and entrepreneurship," says G.O.P. consultant Roger Stone. "He's got the words, but the music is still all about big government and higher taxes." That's right, concedes | Stephanopoulos, "but if you look closely -- and we'll make sure that people do -- you'll see that we'll raise taxes on the wealthy only, and we'll spend to rebuild the nation's infrastructure, which anyone who isn't asleep knows needs massive fixing."

The Democrats' mantra can be understood in a single sentence: "Everyone knows domestic policy bores Bush," says Stephanopoulos, "so it's no wonder he's presiding over the worst economy since Herbert Hoover." The Republicans are readying two responses. "There will be a reform agenda soon," promises Bond -- and to muddy perceptions it will likely incorporate much of what Clinton has already put forward. "Steal shamelessly," says a Bush aide. "Don't let the Democrats draw economic contrasts unfavorable to us." The trouble here is that the Bush White House has been laboring for almost a year to bring forth a "reform agenda" acceptable to the Republicans' various factions. The campaign's top echelon continues to believe that this "problem" is "easier to fix" than Clinton's character weaknesses -- but they have yet to fix it.

The G.O.P.'s other defense involves gridlock. Bush's call for a Republican Congress will be amplified. "We'll play to our strength," says Bond. "In foreign policy, where the President isn't thwarted by Congress, he has been brilliant. Give him a Republican Congress, and there's nothing domestically he won't be able to fix." How far this gambit is pushed depends on Bush's standing in the polls. "We've urged the President to go for broke," says a Bush strategist. "We think he should say, 'Either give me a Republican Congress or give the Democrat Congress a Democrat President.' So far, though, the President is nowhere near being ready to throw that kind of bomb."

Of the few hot-button issues that truly roil the nation, abortion is certain to get a full workout sooner or later. Before Perot, the Republicans toyed with the idea of a "big tent" platform -- language that would reiterate Bush's own pro-life stance while welcoming pro-choice Republicans. When Perot came along, the G.O.P. decided on an electoral strategy emphasizing the party's hard-right base, and those thoughts were stowed. Changing back would be "disastrous," says Roger Ailes, the media magician who still advises Bush informally. Some Republicans see the Democrats' "abortion on demand" platform as ripe for ridicule because, as Bond says rightly, "a majority of Americans favor some restrictions." But knocking the pro-choice position frontally could further alienate those repulsed by the G.O.P.'s tactics during the Clarence Thomas hearings. "And besides," says Stephanopoulos, Clinton "defended against that one pretty well in the acceptance speech when he slowed to a crawl to say, 'Hear me now: I am not pro-abortion; I am pro- choice.' Let them trot out abortion. We can't wait."

As the thrusts and parries commence and the Republicans consider the President's long bomb -- give one of us at least an undivided government -- the Democrats are dreaming of their own October surprise. "Assume it's real close around Oct. 1," says a Clinton adviser. "The Supreme Court convenes, and Justice Blackmun says he'll be leaving in January. Instantly the 'one Justice away' fear becomes a reality. I'm not saying anyone's even whispered anything to Blackmun, but that'd be kind of a neat kicker for our side, don't you think?"

A dream, or a real possibility? For want of a better metaphor, presidential politics is routinely described as a game. It is not. Bush has said forthrightly that he will not yield America's ultimate power willingly. In Clinton, the Republicans face for the first time in years a challenger who has already proved that he will not shrink from whatever it takes to acquire it.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: From a telephone poll of 500 registered voters taken for TIME/CNN on July 16 by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman. Sampling error is plus or minus 4%

Includes 113 registered voters who had planned to vote for Perot. Sampling error is plus or minus 9%

CAPTION: Do you think Clinton can win the presidential election?

Do you think Bush can win?

Do you have a favorable impression of

Perot voters who have a favorable impression of

If the presidential election were held today, for whom would you vote?