From the Bunker To the Hill

By Evan Thomas

Mandale sallies forth

August was a sour month for the Democrats. The party's presidential ticket languished ten to 15 points behind the Republicans in the polls. Geraldine Ferraro parried reporters' persistent badgering about her finances, Jesse Jackson sulked and demanded more respect, and Walter Mondale for the most part remained holed up in his suburban bunker in North Oaks, Minn. This week the Democrats will try to shake off the ennui, as Mondale and Ferraro take off together on a five-city, four-day campaign swing, the first leg in a long and uphill march toward Election Day.

The activity comes none too soon. A delegation of 15 Democratic Governors pleaded with Mondale to loosen up and try to show the American people what a regular fellow he really is--to "let his hair down," as Maryland Governor Harry Hughes put it. Mondale, hair firmly in place, stiffly replied: "There is no question that a person has to communicate effectively. But this campaign is going to be won on the issues."

Mondale will portray Ronald Reagan as an extremist and a flaky showman while casting himself as a seasoned, responsible realist. He accuses the President of trying to "flim-flam the American people" and "skate by the election" without confronting hard questions like the federal deficit. Mondale expects to introduce part of his own budget plan this month, possibly including a pledge that new tax revenues would be used to reduce the deficit, not fund social programs.

Running Mate Ferraro, meanwhile, harped on the war-and-peace issue before large and enthusiastic crowds. As a mother, she said, she feared that a second Reagan Administration might send her son John, 20, off to war. She dismissed as specious a Philadelphia Inquirer story that a man later convicted of labor racketeering gave $700 to her congressional campaigns in 1980 and 1982. Nor did she seem burdened by the financial questions that still plague her husband, who was dismissed last week by a New York City court as the conservator of a woman's estate that he allegedly mishandled. A Harris poll released last week showed that 77% of voters were satisfied with Ferraro's handling of the controversy.

Mondale's aides insist that the issues--the deficit, the arms race, "fairness" -- favor their man and that he understands better than the President the complexities of running the Government. "Public opinion is going to force the Reagan camp out of the photo-opportunity, nondebate strategy," says Mondale Campaign Manager Robert Beckel. "If Reagan will stop ducking and running, I think you'll see that style is overtaken by substance and that the American people are pretty smart." Last week the two camps agreed to at least one Mondale-Reagan debate, and possibly more.

Mondale has already made some progress on the deficit, convincing at least some voters that the federal debt crisis is so severe that taxes will have to be raised despite Reagan's promises to the contrary. The real question, he argues, is which candidate will raise taxes more fairly.

Most voters pay scant attention to presidential campaigns until after the formal kickoff on Labor Day. The Democrats must get voters excited because without a record turnout, Mondale has little chance. "We need 100 million or more people voting to win," says Party Chairman Charles Manatt. This would be a sizable jump from 86.5 million in 1980. The Democrats sound wishful when they tot up their prospective recruits: 5 million new voters, 5 million registered Democrats who did not vote in 1980, and -- even more unlikely--4 million voters who cast ballots for Reagan last time. As a result of the endorsement of former Independent Candidate John Anderson last week, Mondale hopes to collect some of the 6 million votes Anderson won in 1980.

Even more daunting is the electoral map: the Democrats can count on carrying only about half a dozen states (Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Hawaii, West Virginia, Minnesota), and Mondale could be shut out west of the Mississippi. He hopes that Ferraro's appeal will give him a chance in trendy California, and polls show him running surprisingly close to Reagan in three Midwestern states--Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin--where small farmers are suffering. But Mondale's shaky poll standing in two big swing states indicates the length of the odds against him:

> Michigan should be a prime target for the Democrats. It was ravaged more by the last recession than any other state in the country. Unemployment still stands at 11.3%. Yet, according to two surveys, Reagan is running slightly ahead and has a majority among white males. Explains a Mondale aide: "Our problem has more to do with Mondale's image and Reagan's esteem than with people making hard-and-fast decisions about who's best for the future."

> No Democrat has ever won the White House without carrying Texas. But Mondale still runs 20 points behind there. His lack of appeal was on display last week on a brief swing through Dallas. His talk to 300 small businessmen was so deadening that a local TV station reported that his performance proved that he had written off the Lone Star State.

The Democrats' assumption that the country is with them on the issues, and that Reagan is ahead only because of his personal appeal, remains to be tested. In the meantime, Mondale's campaign strategy requires voters to work, actually to study issues and think about them. Listening to Mondale is like reading a book, and a heavy one at that. Reagan's campaign of good feeling, on the other hand, can be watched like television, effortlessly. In the video age, that gives the President a distinct edge.

--By Evan Thomas. Reported by Sam Allis/Washington and Jack E. White with Mondale

With reporting by Sam Allis/Washington, Jack E. White, Mondale