A Letter From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

TIME Senior Writer Walter Shapiro, who wrote this week's Nation story on the 1988 presidential campaign, brings more than a soupcon of seasoning to his duties as a political observer. Indeed, as a graduate student in history at the University of Michigan in 1972, Shapiro made up his mind to run for Congress himself. "I grew up reading that anyone could do it," Shapiro recalls. "So I decided to test what it would be like to run as someone who had a three-speed bike instead of a Volvo." He campaigned daily for six months, wearing out his only suit, and finished a close second in a primary field of six. The loss only whetted his appetite for the quadrennial U.S. political rites.

Once again in 1976 he hit the campaign trail, joining the Carter camp as a speech writer. Shapiro signed on as press secretary to Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall in the new Administration and eventually became a presidential speech writer. Since he left Government in 1979, however, Shapiro has confined his political activity to voting. "When you see Government from the other side," he says, "you get a sense of why it is wonderful to do it once in your life. Doing it twice becomes a horribly bad habit."

Not so with watching political battles. The 1988 presidential campaign is Shapiro's third as a journalist. He wrote about politics for the Washington Post from 1979 to 1983, covered the presidential jockeying for Newsweek from 1983 until 1986 and now does so for TIME, which he joined last March. Shapiro enjoys observing the aspirants and savors the unexpected, such as Gary Hart's departure from the race. "That's the wonderful thing about politics," says Shapiro. "You never know."

National Political Correspondent Laurence I. Barrett, who analyzed the findings of this week's TIME poll on the candidates, crossed paths with Shapiro in Houston during the Democratic candidates' debate there in July. This early in the campaign, however, Shapiro and Barrett prefer to complement rather than duplicate each other's work. Being on the hustings always satisfies both the journalist and the graduate student in Shapiro. "It's a great opportunity to write about grand themes and also to be a bit irreverent," he says. "After all, if you can't be irreverent about the people running for office, whom can you be irreverent about?"