NOTEBOOK

By KATHLEEN ADAMS, PATRICK COLE, WENDY COLE, CHARLOTTE FALTERMAYER, NADYA LABI, LINA LOFARO, WILLIAM MCWHIRTER, JEFFERY RUBIN, DOUGLAS WALLER

WINNERS & LOSERS

POLITICS AND OTHER FICTIONS

[WINNERS]

BILL CLINTON Tweaks G.O.P. convention with book release; Dole's campaign tome just got to HarperCollins

TIPPER GORE Second Lady publishes Picture This: A Visual Diary, which humanizes her stiff husband

GARY ALDRICH Despite rapid-response attacks from WH, his Unlimited Access becomes No. 1 best seller

[& LOSERS]

MARK HELPRIN Novelist/Dole speechwriter huffy after candidate rejects four paragraphs for big speech

HILLARY CLINTON It Takes a Village bashed in Dole acceptance speech; perhaps a sign of mudslinging to come

CORP. FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING Desperation move? Will air animated version of PBSphobe Bill Bennett's Book of Virtues

SPORTS: THE RUN FOR THE WHITE HOUSE

The candidates from all three major parties have their delusions of jockdom. Sometimes those dreams even manage to sneak into their political rhetoric.

CANDIDATE BILL CLINTON golf, golf and more golf--and jogging

ATHLETIC PEAK Shot his personal best in San Diego in June, before the Grand Old Party could distract him

METAPHORS "Let's don't take our eye off the ball. I ask for your support, not on a partisan basis, but to rebuild the American economy."

[CANDIDATE] BOB DOLE track, football, basketball

[ATHLETIC PEAK] Once held Russell, Kansas, record in the half-mile

[METAPHORS] "Everything before has been a warm-up lap, a trial heat...In San Diego the real race begins."

[CANDIDATE] AL GORE basketball, swimming, football

[ATHLETIC PEAK] Captain of his high school football team

[METAPHORS] "[Progress] takes teamwork...It's three yards and a cloud of dust."

[CANDIDATE] JACK KEMP football

[ATHLETIC PEAK] Quarterback, Los Angeles Chargers and Buffalo Bills

[METAPHORS] "You're the quarterback and I'm your blocker, and we're going all the way."

[CANDIDATE] RICHARD LAMM mountain climbing

[ATHLETIC PEAK] Climbed 49 Colorado peaks higher than 14,000 ft.

[METAPHORS] "Let's take a moment to review the record of Democratic and Republican dominance...Their legacy is a mountain of debt."

[CANDIDATE] ROSS PEROT tennis (and some riding)

[ATHLETIC PEAK] Whipped boyhood friend in a tennis match after practicing secretly

[METAPHORS] "Do you want a government where the elected, appointed and career officials come to serve and not to cash in?"

THE RIGHT WOMAN

Mitsubishi has come up with a novel approach to try to rise above a mire of unresolved sexual-harassment cases. The Japanese automaker has quietly circulated word among U.S. public relations firms that it is searching for a new head of p.r.--with important damage-control prerequisites. The candidate must: be a woman; reside in the assembly-plant town of Normal, Illinois, where the scandal broke; and pass an interview with the plant's Japanese manager. Despite a salary said to be near $200,000 and a requirement of only five years' experience, there have been no takers. Meanwhile, the company is enduring a federal investigation that may involve as many as several hundred complaints from women employees.

AND 2,350 MILES FROM HOLLYWOOD........

Why would Demi Moore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jack Nicholson and Sharon Stone stay on a small island that is just within sight of an oil-tank farm and is located near a busy shipping channel and a sewage-treatment plant? Perhaps it's to bask on a beach of imported white Bahamian sand, flex pecs in the 22,000-sq.-ft. spa, volley at any of the 18 tennis courts or choose from more than 11 brands of bottled water at the local market.

They and other glitterati are flocking to Fisher Island, the former Vanderbilt estate and the latest haven for stars and millionaires seeking refuge from the glare of publicity.

The island management keeps its tenants' identities a closely guarded secret, enforced by a 45-member security force that patrols the 216-acre island. The only access to Fisher Island is by private ferry, helicopter or yacht. If that doesn't keep the hoi polloi at bay, then property prices averaging nearly $2 million will.

MALEFICENT SEVEN

The fallout from the TWA Flight 800 crash is ruffling diplomatic feathers in New York City. A week ago the Federal Aviation Administration ordered that complete searches be conducted of all airline passengers traveling out of the U.S. with passports from any of the seven countries Washington has designated as state sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba. Such passengers, in addition to being run through electronic detectors along with their carry-on and checked bags, are being hand searched. Snared in the new order have been diplomats from the affected countries who are posted at U.N. headquarters. They have lodged protests with the State Department, arguing that the hand searches at J.F.K. violate diplomatic protocol. A Libyan envoy complained that he was ordered to remove his shoes for an airport inspection.

LOCAL HEROES

LAURA BAKER, 28; SPARTANBURG, S.C.; potter An artist herself, Baker knows that gifted children need more than glitter and glue to thrive. In 1993 she started COLORS, an art studio that provides inner-city children with professional materials and guidance. More than 650 children have participated in the program, in which they paint community murals with educational messages. Says Baker: "Art is a way to get to know yourself and to express who you are without being completely vulnerable."

THE REV. BUSTER SOARIES, 44; SOMERSET, N.J.; youth worker In 1994 Soaries, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Somerset, intervened to secure the release of 12 middle-school boys jailed for leading a brawl. He then founded Brothers Working Together, which he says aims "to help young people realize that they have options beyond the street corner." The program, which offers guidance and tutoring to 60 at-risk students, was lauded by Governor Christine Whitman at the Republican Convention.

WHO'S THAT GUY?

As one of the century's iconic images, V-J day, Times Square, by the late LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, has provoked endless speculation about its subjects' identities. In 1980 Edith Shain wrote to Eisenstaedt admitting to being the nurse. But who was the sailor? Last week in the Wall Street Journal the Rev. George Byron Koch of West Chicago, Illinois, recounted the claim of his parishioner, Jim Reynolds, that he was the kisser--but that the photo was "a journalistic deception," posed and taken on V-E day, May 8, 1945, not V-J day, Aug. 14, 1945, when dress whites would have been the uniform. Now a security guard, Reynolds, 75, says he previously kept quiet out of deference to his recently deceased wife of 51 years, Mary Ann. But Reynolds' belief is wrong. LIFE says Eisenstaedt was not working on V-E day; it also has the same scene at a different angle by another photographer--on V-J day. Shain backs the claim to spontaneity. And the Navy says by 1942 sailors were allowed to wear white or blue. Even now, LIFE's Website has 11 sailors claiming to be the "smoocher." The real kisser, it seems, remains Everyman.

--By Kathleen Adams, Patrick Cole, Wendy Cole, Charlotte Faltermayer, Nadya Labi, Lina Lofaro, William McWhirter, Jeffery Rubin, Douglas Waller