THIGH AND MIGHTY

By CALVIN TRILLIN

I FIGURED BOB DOLE MIGHT BE IN TROUBLE WHEN I SAW THAT POOLSIDE picture of him in Florida wearing the only white T shirt left in America with nothing written on it. I could easily imagine some Republican campaign strategist asking, as he holds up the picture for his colleagues to see, "Is that really the message we want to project? The other guy is the Gap, and our guy is Fruit of the Loom?"

The media seemed as interested as the Republican National Committee in how Dole conducted his holiday. Reporters discussed which books a vacationing Dole was reading and which video he had decided to rent. Much was written about the state of his thighs. For a while the discussion of which level of relaxation the majority leader had attained made the political columns sound a bit like helpful hints on effective yoga.

Was I offended by this intense scrutiny of a man who was officially off duty? I might as well admit that I was among the jackals of the press who got out a magnifying glass to see if the baseball cap Dole was wearing advertised any of the corporations that have been generous when he was in need of, say, a ride in a corporate jet or a wad of campaign cash.

I can explain that. You see, a few weeks ago, when Dole became, for all practical purposes, the Republican nominee, I thought about (but eventually decided against) offering him a little deal: if he quit referring to himself in the third person, I would never mention Archer-Daniels-Midland. If the cap had said Archer-Daniels-Midland on it, I would have felt confirmed in my decision that making such a deal, just because Dole had the nomination locked up, was premature.

It's the sort of deal you make with a newly elected President, a gesture of the sort the Washington Post editorial cartoonist Herblock made when he presented Richard M. Nixon, whom he had always drawn swarthy, with a shave two days after his election. Dole is not the President. What he is, though, I realized last week, and what is making him the subject of so much scrutiny now, is the Shadow President.

A shadow head of government is common, of course, in parliamentary systems. John Major, poor fellow, has two: the Labor Party leader Tony Blair and the tossed-aside Margaret Thatcher. One of Major's problems in coping with the crisis in Europe over mad-cow disease is that anyone who still yearns for Mrs. Thatcher knows perfectly well how she would have handled the situation: she would have invaded. Which country would she have invaded? That's not the sort of detail the Shadow Prime Minister has to worry about.

Americans don't have a lot of experience in living with a Shadow President. There have been only a few occasions in modern times when the alternative offered by the opposition party was available for long-term inspection. Thomas Dewey, for instance, was the Shadow President from 1944 to 1948. Given a nominating system that can produce surprises and cut down front runners, the opposition usually presents its certified alternative to the President for only the two months between Labor Day and the election.

This time around, with the primary system front loaded and the convention having long ago been transformed into a made-for-television ratification ceremony, we produced a Shadow President well before Easter. The campaign hasn't started. We have time to get acquainted with him at our leisure, even if it also happens to be during his leisure. We have time to inspect his thighs.