Jump Shots and Free Throws

By Laurence I. Barrett/Washington

Michael Dukakis, an intellectual prisoner of the Massachusetts statehouse, thinks of defense policy as "one if by land, two if by sea." Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt has such difficulty with decisions that he chose plaid when asked to select a color for his campaign. Tennessee Senator Albert Gore, struggling to become the old Confederacy's new champion for 1988, chose "Southern" as his foreign language when attending a posh Washington prep school.

Verses from a Republican hymnal? No, just a few of the burns inflicted by Democrats on one another last week at a dinner sponsored by Independent Action, a liberal political-action committee. The original idea was engagingly ironic. The seven Democratic presidential candidates would feast on the foibles of New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, the popular recalcitrant whose internal clock says 1988 is not his time. The Seven Dwarfs take on the big guy. But the celebrity roast became a multilateral immolation, as if each candidate wanted to keep his rivals short.

Humor is an important, yet seldom scrutinized political tool. Achieving the right mix of barbs and self-deprecation can be tricky, but devastatingly effective. So all seven contenders gamely lighted matches for the roast, the first time in the campaign they have been on the same stage.

Delaware Senator Joe Biden came across as the boldest in poking at the others, but he tempered his remarks with deft jokes on himself. "I'm officially 6 ft. 8 in.," said the candidate accused of lacking substance. Pause. "Unfortunately I'm standing on my record." Even the departed Gary Hart was not spared. Instead of the Seven Dwarfs as a designation for the field, Biden noted, the seven deadly sins might be better. "I've got six of them covered -- greed, envy, anger, avarice, gluttony and sloth." Pause. "We've got an opening for lust."

Jesse Jackson meted out few one-liners and aimed none at himself. "It took me too long," he noted with a touch of seriousness, "to be taken seriously." He rejected outright any leveling metaphor -- especially dwarfs. "I'm Rudolph," he said. "These are the six reindeer." Then he spun a parable about Bradley's "fight against racial stereotyping." Said Jackson: "We all know the Bill Bradley story -- how the young white man from the right side of the tracks dreamed of one day becoming a professional basketball player."

Dukakis, precise and methodical, fired small-caliber slugs at minor targets, such as the lack of charisma he and Bradley share. "The fact of the matter is that I've been coming on charismatic the last month or two," said Dukakis. "I've learned everything I know from Bill Bradley." Bruce Babbitt demonstrated his yen for subtle complexity by playing off Jimmy Carter, with whom he is sometimes compared, and Gephardt, whom he must beat in Iowa. Like Carter, he deadpanned, he discusses issues with his children. Babbitt quoted his nine-year-old son as saying, "Dad, you've really got to do something about colorization of classic films." The father had to confess that Gephardt beat him to it -- a jab at his rival's habit of riding trendy issues.

Despite his fabled lack of stage presence, Bradley skillfully used blank stares and long pauses to poke fun at his own slowness of tongue. "Being called boring by Bruce Babbitt," he quipped, "is like being called forgetful by Ronald Reagan." And he noted that Jackson has long been a "man of the cloth." Pause. "Cashmere." He caused them a twinge when he ruminated on the best way to choose a nominee. Smoked-filled rooms? Regional primaries? "Personally," said Bradley, "I favor a jump shot from the top of the key." Given his stature on the sidelines, even a joke about getting in the game added a nervous edge to the laughter.