The Unreal Campaign

By WALTER SHAPIRO

We interrupt this magazine for an important political bulletin. The bellwether Cognoscenti Caucus is now over, and the results are pouring into Election Central. In a few moments we will find out the winner of the coveted "Big Mo" Award. But first, some background.

The Cognoscenti Caucus is not for everyone. It is limited to pollsters, party activists, key fund raisers and the national press corps, whose job it is to winnow the unwieldy field and set the expectations that the candidates must meet in Iowa and New Hampshire next February. They are the elite audience the candidates have been trying to impress in living rooms from Muscatine to Manchester.

And the winner is . . . No, there must be some mistake. It can't be right. There are no big winners or losers in either party. Expectations have been dashed! It's an entirely new, or rather an entirely old, ball game!

Vice President George Bush has survived the Iran-contra hearings. Senator Bob Dole has yet to make his big breakthrough. Congressman Jack Kemp is still scrambling for daylight on the far right of the field. Among the Democrats, the race remains as wide open as a frontier town on a Saturday night. Senator Joseph Biden was supposed to speak to a new generation, but then so was new- formula Coke. Congressman Richard Gephardt tried to trade on protectionism, only to see that issue sink like the dollar. Governor Michael Dukakis made inroads by warbling about his "Massachusetts miracle," but that chirpy refrain badly needs a second verse. One small surprise is that Senator Paul Simon is holding his own, bow tie and all, despite (or perhaps because of) his genuine, unapologetic liberal views.

There you have it from Election Central: the Republicans treading water, and the Democrats still searching for marketable themes. We now return to our regularly scheduled article.

There is, of course, no formal Cognoscenti Caucus. But Labor Day is a rough benchmark, as the candidates move from backers' auditions to full-fledged Broadway tryouts. The cast in both parties seems set; only Democratic Congresswoman Pat Schroeder of Colorado is waiting in the wings actively considering a late entry. The candidates (eight Democrats, with Schroeder, and six Republicans) have had months to master their lines, crafting glib answers to almost every conceivable question and perfecting a sincere this-is-who-I-am stump speech. The early-bird voters in Iowa and New Hampshire for the most part have been attentive, recognizing that this is the first campaign in two decades without an incumbent President dominating the race. It is also the first since 1952 where the outcome in both parties is so unpredictable at this stage. By historical standards, even Vice President Bush is a relatively weak favorite.

Yet there is something else that makes this campaign seem somewhat unreal, so eerily formless and wide open: for the first time in decades, there are few cutting issues or themes or ideologies for the candidates to ride in their quest to break out of the pack. No candidate has been able to tap a generational yearning for "new ideas," the way Gary Hart did four years ago. No candidate has been able to gain traction through such themes as radically reversing the role of Big Government, as Ronald Reagan did eight years ago, or appealing to anti-Washington populism, as Jimmy Carter did before that. There is no Viet Nam War, no polarizing social or civil rights crusades that can divide the candidates and shape the debate. Although there are issues ranging from the Robert Bork nomination to the contras to Star Wars that distinguish the two parties, they do little to distinguish those battling within them.

With the stock market setting new records, inflation quiescent and unemployment dropping below 6%, pressing economic problems like the deficit and the trade imbalance remain abstract to most voters. Chastened by the experience of Walter Mondale, most Democrats (save for Swim-Against-the-Tide Bruce Babbitt) are reluctant to propose higher taxes. An example of the painless-dentistry approach to the budget is Dukakis' suspect claim that up to $110 billion can be raised by stronger enforcement of existing tax laws.

Republicans are even more tongue-tied on the deficit. They are roughly divided into two camps: the Hand Wringers, who are outspoken on stressing the problem and somewhat reluctant to offer solutions (Dole and Alexander Haig), and the Supply-Siders, who ignore it completely (Kemp and Pete du Pont). Characteristically, Bush is somewhere in the middle. Recently, the Vice President timidly allowed, "If all the domestic spending has been cut that can be cut, then and only then would ((I)) consider the other alternative." That alternative, too frightening to whisper aloud, is higher taxes.

It is a truism of presidential politics that unless the nation is at war or a candidate is courting the egghead vote, stressing foreign policy is not the road to the White House. But 1988, at first blush, may be an exception. Perhaps it is because this is the one arena where the candidates are not frightened of Reagan's shadow. The voters seem interested as well, peppering the candidates with detailed questions on everything from glasnost to the gulf.

The problem is that it is hard to differentiate the contenders by their answers: both Democrats, with their emphasis on peace, and Republicans, with & their stress on strength, are courting two diametrically opposed activist camps. On the Republican side, only Haig, a former Secretary of State, is making a major issue of Reagan's international bumbling; although Dole has occasionally raised an eyebrow about such things as America's ill-defined policy in the Persian Gulf, his debate with Daniel Ortega last week showed that he still shares the desire of other G.O.P. contenders to be on the right side of the Reagan Doctrine. With Georgia Senator Sam Nunn's decision to skip the race, foreign policy differences may emerge on the Democratic side. Senator Albert Gore and perhaps Biden, who has recently been emphasizing foreign policy rather than generational themes, could shift toward the center on national-security issues in quest of Nunn's Southern constituency. But liberal activists in Iowa and New Hampshire will keep them from straying too far from peaceful pronouncements.

With few issues or ideologies to ride, the candidates have tried to get ahead by stressing their personal styles and strengths. In place of vision and transcendent themes, they are offering themselves to the voters. Yet there is a persistent feeling, particularly among Democrats, that for all their technical mastery of the issues, the candidates lack the stature and vision to be presidential. The clearest symptom of this credibility gap is the White Knight syndrome: a lovelorn fixation among many voters on avowed non- candidates, ranging from Mario Cuomo and Sam Nunn on the Democratic side to Howard Baker among Republicans. A TIME poll conducted last week found that 41% of probable Democratic voters would like Hart to revive his scandal-scarred candidacy. That wistful notion does not seem likely; advisers to Hart say he will appear on ABC's Nightline this week to douse the speculation.

What accounts for this sense of unreality that hovers over what should be developing into a hotly contested campaign? Ronald Reagan is one answer. Even now, as he drifts wounded toward his last year in office, Reagan still defines the contours of the word presidential. As Harvard Political Economist Robert Reich puts it, "The public has become used to Reagan's charm and grace. No candidate on either side comes close to matching that." In truth, Jesse Jackson can conjure up something akin to Reagan's personal magnetism, but despite his poll standings, the preacher-politician's bid remains largely symbolic. The rest of the candidate chorus can only hope that the voters will learn to prefer competence to chemistry, and sound policy to stage presence.

For the moment, this has led to a contest of backgrounds and biographies. Bush, for example, is fond of claiming, "I've got the most unique resume of any candidate in either party," one of his ways of trying to overcome the wimp issue and show he has grit. In addition, most members of the class of '88 are playing that time-honored game (pioneered by William Henry Harrison in 1840) of searching for the log cabin that can convey their just-folks humble heritage. The self-made rhetoric all blurs together as Dukakis talks of his immigrant parents, Dole recalls "my father ran a cream-and-egg station," and Gephardt always mentions that he is the son of a milkman. Although they are the well-born disadvantaged in such a contest, du Pont harks back to his "scraggly" French immigrant forefathers (who arrived in 1799), and Bush points out that he left the comforts of Connecticut as a young man to make it on his own as a Texas wildcatter.

To earn the stature that now eludes them, the candidates will have to offer the voters themes and ideas rather than merely their personalities. Some are moving tentatively in that direction. Downplaying protectionism, Gephardt is now stressing neopopulist rhetoric that pits the heartland against the Eastern elites, symbolized by Archrival Dukakis. But for the moment, Biden is the Democrat in the spotlight, as he tries to demonstrate leadership in the battle against Bork. He can make his name as a defender of Democratic values, but he risks displaying an inappropriately intemperate style.

On the Republican side, both Bush and Dole, never known as visionaries, are still cautiously waiting to reveal their policy positions. The challenge for Bush is particularly acute: he must forge a mild Declaration of Independence from the President without risking his claim as rightful heir. And as outsiders in a two-man race, Kemp and du Pont can afford to be outspoken as they vie for the allegiance of the conservative faithful.

In the months ahead, some contenders are certain to emphasize their electability rather than issues. But it would be a mistake to conclude that presidential stature can be automatically achieved by winning a few primaries. That merely prompts the voters to listen. The real trick is having something to say.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett/Washington