Poised for the Big Move Up

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

In the Mondale camp, there is hope that the worst is past

Call it fantasy, wishful thinking, whistling in a graveyard. But Walter Mondale and his planners believe that the Democratic nominee has passed the low point of his presidential campaign and is poised to move up. One or two less self-interested observers suspect that they just might be right.

The most visible signs, to be sure, point in the opposite direction. Polls have never looked gloomier for Democrats: a national survey by NBC News, published last week, showed Ronald Reagan leading Mondale by an astonishing 62% to 32%. Press coverage of the campaign is still predominantly funereal in tone. A sample headline from the New York Times, over a story about the attitudes of Democrats running for state or local Offices: SOME CANDIDATES FEAR MONDALE'S VISITS. The nominee is having trouble these days simply making himself heard over the jeers of pro-Reagan hecklers who now turn up at almost every campaign stop. Chants of "Mondale's a wimp" just about drowned out a speech the Democratic candidate gave in Los Angeles last week to students at the University of Southern California.

Why, then, the belief that the worst is over? "Mostly instinct," said Mondale in a campaign-plane interview with TIME. "I think the crowds are more excited. I think I'm getting my arguments across." He referred to an endorsement by the Sierra Club, the first in that environmentalist organization's 92-year history. He also pointed to the success of his running mate, Geraldine Ferraro, in getting Chicago's feuding Democrats, Mayor Harold Washington and Councilman Edward Vrdolyak, to share a platform with her in a display of party unity. Said Mondale: "I think that means something. I think there's evidence that we're starting to move."

There are some other signs too.

Scheduling and advance work have improved after a disastrous start that was symbolized by a Mondale visit to a factory in Green Bay, Wis., two weeks ago: he had to wait for what seemed an eternity before any workers showed up to shake hands. At a meeting with top aides in Tupelo, Miss., following the fiasco, Mondale demanded that they stop arranging "cutesie" photo opportunities and schedule only "substantive forums" at which he could talk issues to live audiences. He also ordered longtime Aide Mike Berman to take tighter control of advance work. The result: crowds turned out last week and microphones worked, as at times they had not during earlier Mondale appearances.

The candidate has put away the charts of Reagan deficits that showed up badly on TV and adopted a sharper speaking style. He often denounces Reagan for "official cruelty" in cutting Government social programs. In his U.S.C. speech, he recalled that Reagan had opposed the 1963 test-ban treaty, and declared: "If Mr. Reagan had had his way, our children would be drinking milk with strontium 90." This line has its dangers: it sometimes sounds slightly whiny, and it veers perilously close to the kind of ad hominem attack on a highly popular President that could backfire. Mondale has also flubbed his remarks; at a rally in Birmingham, he said "Mr. America" instead of "Mr. Reagan." On the other hand, Mondale has begun to make an issue of the heckling, rebuking both the protesters ("We will be heard!" he shouts) and their hero, Reagan. Says Mondale: "If I thought anybody was doing this to him on my behalf, I'd stop it." Crowds are warming to the Democrat's tough line. In a Seattle appearance during which he repeatedly taunted Reagan for failing to say what he would do about arms control, deficits, education and other issues during a second term, Mondale prompted a union audience to chant after every sentence, "Where's the plan?"

Mondale's aides are counting heavily on the two TV debates with Reagan, which were firmly scheduled last week, to give their champion an opportunity to cut into the President's lead (see box). They claim to see evidence in private surveys that Mondale is starting to lure wavering Democrats back to his cause. At the moment, published national polls show the exact opposite, but it would not be surprising if Mondale's poll standings improve a bit, if only because they are scraping the rock-bottom minimum level of support that past election results suggest can be expected by any major-party candidate.

Pondering all these hints, New York Times Columnist William Safire, a Reagan supporter and former Nixon speechwriter, suggested last week that Mondale might yet put on a stretch drive reminiscent of Silky Sullivan, a horse that ran a quarter-century ago and was famous for close finishes in races that appeared hopelessly lost. Safire even provided a script of sorts. Key elements:

Mondale hecklers offend the voters' sense of fairness; the size of Reagan's lead triggers "a perverse feeling in people"; and "media that profit from heightened interest in a contest" play up "the first reports of narrowing gaps in the polls," helping to make it a closer race.

Could be, but all this is speculative. Even in the Mondale camp, some aides joke about updating their resumes. Others would like to devote $3 million in campaign funds to clearing Mondale's debts from last spring's primary battles. This to the horror of national Democratic fund raisers, who view that plan as equivalent to throwing in the towel against Reagan.

The most optimistic of Mondale's advisers concede that time is running short to start a Silky Sullivan finish. "We think we're seeing movement that won't show up for a while in the national polls," says one. "But you need ice water in your veins for the next couple of weeks." Robert Strauss, the Democrats' Mr. Fixit, who heads a council of party elders advising Mondale, insists, "It's the seventh-inning stretch, not the top of the ninth."

Nonetheless, he also focuses on the next two weeks as the period during which Mondale must win back enough disaffected Democrats to produce some perceptible improvement in his national-poll standings. Says Strauss: "They have to come back through the door for him.

If that doesn't happen, obviously he's through."

--By George J. Church. Reported by Jack E. White with Mondale

With reporting by Jack E. White, Mondale