The Democrats An Indelicate Balance

By Richard Stengel

The first principle of vice-presidential selection is to find a fellow who can win his own state (the bigger, the better) and not hurt you elsewhere. Safe, practical politics. Michael Dukakis has often said his first principle in selecting a running mate was more exalted: to find the person, apart from himself of course, who would make a first-rate President. A noble, if slightly disingenuous sentiment.

But in choosing Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen to share space on his campaign button, Dukakis took a deeply calculated risk, an atypical gamble. Bentsen is not a shoo-in to win Texas, George Bush's adopted state. He could hurt the ticket by being perceived as an affront to the blacks and progressives who backed Jesse Jackson and by sullying the PAC-free sheen of the squeaky-clean Dukakis. And though he is greatly respected in the corridors of the Capitol, Bentsen does not top the list when people daydream about the ideal President of the United States.

For Dukakis, who has been likened to a walking pocket calculator, the choice was shrewd. If Bentsen wins Texas, Dukakis may win the whole enchilada; since Texas became a state in 1845, no Democrat has won without it. Bush will now have to spend time and money defending the South. And, with this once safe electoral base threatened, Bush cannot afford to shrug off a loss in California.

In measuring the odds, however, Dukakis did not adequately consider one very large and unpredictable variable: Jesse Jackson. The gray and proper Bentsen would not exactly excite the 7 million who voted for the "rainbow coalition." That was understood. But then the sorry-I-missed-you phone call hit Jesse where he is most vulnerable: his sense of pride, his rightful insistence that he has earned respect. The missed connection permitted him to play to his greatest strength: attracting the media eye. For days after the announcement, Jackson's parade of grievances and implied reprisals shifted the soft-spoken Bentsen off the front pages.

The Texas Tory and the Brookline Bantam make a sitcom-like odd couple. Bentsen is more Bush's twin than Dukakis'. Bentsen supports the contras; Dukakis reviles them. Dukakis mocks the policies of Reaganomics; Bentsen backed them. Bentsen boosts new missiles; Dukakis denigrates them.

The choice of Bentsen was something of a surprise; so too the generally laudatory reaction. He carries some campaign liabilities: his age and general lack of zip, as well as a silky style that makes it hard for Middle-Class Mike to depict Silver-Spoon George as a country-club elitist. Bentsen's willingness to wallow in contributions from those with business before his Finance Committee makes it tougher for Dukakis to exploit the Reagan Administration's "sleaze factor."

But Dukakis, as Bentsen pointed out, "wasn't looking for a clone of Mike Dukakis." He was looking for someone who would give the ticket balance, and by choosing one of the most probusiness, prodefense Southerners around, he got it. "It makes our problems much more difficult," says Republican John Connally, a former Texas Governor. Bentsen helps shield Dukakis from the liberal label Bush is trying to pin on him and makes the ticket more appealing to the Bubba vote: conservative whites who defected to Ronald Reagan.

Dukakis' search for a running mate seemed to last as long as a Herman Wouk mini-series. On the night of the California primary, June 7, Dukakis' discreet alter ego, Paul Brountas, handed him a black binder containing, among other things, the late Washington Post Publisher Philip Graham's 1960 memo urging Jack Kennedy to select Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. It made an impression.

Brountas carried out the search much the way Dukakis would have: methodically and unimaginatively. He visited 50 leaders in Congress and saw that an additional 200 people were sounded out. After three weeks, Brountas and Dukakis trimmed the field to seven semifinalists: Senators Albert Gore, John Glenn, Bob Graham (Philip's younger half brother) and Lloyd Bentsen; Representatives Richard Gephardt and Lee Hamilton; and Jackson. Each man was asked to fill in the answers to 50 questions regarding family and finance. By last Monday, the list was down to four: Glenn, Gore, Bentsen and Hamilton. Jackson was eliminated as too dicey.

That night, after a dinner of leftover Italian food, Dukakis fetched his push lawn mower and went outside to cut the grass and clear his mind. Brountas arrived at Dukakis' home about 10:15, and the two of them were joined at the family's round maple kitchen table by Kitty Dukakis, Campaign Manager Susan Estrich and Director of Operations Jack Corrigan.

Over iced tea, coffee and cookies, they ran through the finalists. All had flaws. Glenn? Not enough of a manager. Gore? Hadn't shown enough maturity. Hamilton? Little known and a weak campaigner. Bentsen? The kitchen cabinet discussed his ties to Big Business and oil interests. Had everything been adequately probed, Dukakis asked? Brountas said Bentsen looked him straight in the eye and answered every tough question. In choosing the Texan, Dukakis also saw himself recapitulating the canny political act of the only other presidential candidate born in Brookline.

After making up his mind, Dukakis wanted to act on it. He tried twice that night to reach Bentsen in Washington, but the Senator had turned off the ring on his phone to keep from being awakened by reporters. Dukakis called again at 6:30 the next morning and popped the question. Bentsen turned off his electric razor and said yes. Dukakis decided he would go to his Boston statehouse office before informing anyone else. Thus it was not until after 8:20 that he rang Jackson, who by then was on his way to an airport to fly to Washington. The day before, Jackson had specifically told Brountas that he would be leaving for the airport at 8 a.m. and that he did not want to read who the nominee was in a newspaper.

When Jackson learned of the Bentsen selection from a reporter, he was uncharacteristically silent. This one act seemed to him to symbolize all his complaints about the campaign: that Dukakis had never really considered him for Vice President, that he had never genuinely been consulted or included in the process. At a press conference a few hours later, Jackson began to get even. "I'm too controlled, too mature to be angry," said the clearly angry Jackson. He then suggested that he might allow his name to be placed in nomination for the vice presidency. "The floor is wide open," he said.

In the next few days, Jackson, the maestro of mixed signals, seemed to lurch between wrath and reconciliation. Bentsen, he said, "represents the Establishment. I represent enthusiasm and energy." In a speech to the N.A.A.C.P. annual convention in Washington, a revved-up Jackson brought the audience to its feet when he cried, "One thing that I know. I may or I may not be on the ticket, but I am qualified. Qualified! Qualified!"

Dukakis went to the N.A.A.C.P. convention, Bentsen in tow, the day after Jackson's defiant speech. Dukakis' uninspiring talk, praising his own record on minority hiring in Massachusetts and barely acknowledging Jackson, did not go down well. "I would not say to Governor Dukakis' people," noted N.A.A.C.P. Leader Benjamin Hooks, "to sit there and think the black vote is in your party."

Dukakis could have spared himself some angst by calling Jackson before 8 a.m. Tuesday. Even allowing for breakfast and a shower, he had the time. Was his failure to do so deliberately designed to show his frustration with what he perceived as Jackson's perpetual grandstanding? More likely it was that the Dukakis inner circle did not want to give the image of kowtowing to Jackson. But Jackson, as Mario Cuomo points out, "is not like the other defeated candidates. Nobody has an influence with 7 million voters like his influence with his people. Why must Dukakis treat him differently? Dukakis doesn't have to -- unless he wants to win. Without Jackson's vote, there is no victory."

On Thursday Jackson began a three-day Chicago-to-Atlanta buscapade recalling the Freedom Rides of the '60s. The trip was a vintage Jackson media event; there were six press buses, the largest media contingent he has had in the campaign. As the buses wound their way south, they picked up delegates and evening-news airtime. Jackson also got some of what he craved: by week's end Brountas had called him to apologize for not informing Dukakis about the early departure for the airport. Jackson spoke with Dukakis, and they talked several times over the next few days in an effort to make peace. Estrich and Ron Brown, Jackson's savvy convention manager, who are old friends, planned a series of meetings in Atlanta. Said Brown: "The positive thing is that there's a lot of communication now."

What they need to settle on is a solution that will satisfy Jackson. He maintains that he wants precisely what he has wanted all along -- a place at the table, a chance to be truly involved in shaping a new Administration, the same right to be consulted that white leaders with far less of a constituency are accorded.

Whether by oversight or design, the cost of the late call proved far greater than any possible anticipated benefit. It stirred up Jackson and his forces at a time when Dukakis should be preparing to preside over a Democratic love feast in Atlanta. It also seemed to undermine Dukakis' reputation for efficiency and suggest that before the campaign is over, he may have a rendezvous with his own arrogance. If selecting Bentsen, as Dukakis said, is the "first presidential act I will ever do," he had better quickly learn a more presidential way to handle such delicate tasks.

With reporting by Robert Ajemian/Boston, Michael Duffy with Jackson and Michael Riley with Dukakis