8/30/00 2:55 p.m.
Competence Over Ideology?
The lessons of the Dukakis campaign.

Robert A. George is an editorial page writer
for the New York Post------------------------------------RAGGEDmail@aol.com

here's a reason they call these the "dog days" of August. Even the Sunday talk shows are forced to resort to real dogs as guests. On CNN's Late Edition, Wolf Blitzer was forced to go through two, count 'em two, segments with Michael Dukakis.

No offense meant to the honored former governor of Massachusetts. I mean, he may have been a horrible candidate, but he was a decent man. Of course, after Dukakis, Democrats determined that decency didn't win presidential elections. Massachusetts ceded to Arkansas and the rest, as they say, is history.

Anyway, Dukakis has popped up. It makes a certain kind of sense. Even though the man is as boring as ever, the "comparison cycle" has gotten around to him. The 1988 election is the one compared most often to the current contest: The awkwardly communicating vice president of a "popular" two-term president has been trailing for a good part of the campaign season a successful state governor. This scenario suggests Al Gore is George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush is Michael Dukakis. But, generally, nearly everyone who has bothered to compare '88 to '00 has always said, "Well, George W. Bush is no Michael Dukakis."

And, as earlier NRO columns noted, comparisons to 1988 don't all help Gore. Larry Kudlow noted that Gore's acceptance speech seemed like a throwback to Carter-Dukakis days. This column noted that Lieberman's "punching the air" habit was reminiscent of the diminutive former presidential candidate.

However, Bush's missteps last week must force one to ask seriously, is the curse of Dukakis starting to invade Austin? (Remember, former Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen was Dukakis's running mate.) No, it's not simply Bush's verbal miscues. His father was notorious for committing grammatical flubs, and it didn't stop him from winning the presidency. However, there must be a concern that the Bush effort might have a structural problem that mirrors Dukakis's.

Dukakis ran on the slogan, "competence not ideology." He attempted to distance himself from the dirty word "liberal" and promote himself as someone who could get things done. George W. runs on the slogan "compassionate conservatism," implicitly running from the implications of "pure" conservatism. He promotes himself as "a uniter, not a divider," who will work in a bipartisan manner to address the "squandered opportunities" of the Clinton-Gore era. Bush is presenting himself as non-ideological. Critics of Al Gore have been surprised that he has, remarkably, responded in an explicitly ideological manner. Gore isn't calling himself a liberal, but he's doing everything but, by acting as a populist defender against the "powerful interests."

The question is, does the public want "competence" or "ideology"? What we can learn from the Dukakis campaign is that a candidate can be done in as much by image as by substance. There were serious substantial problems with the candidate in both policy and message. However, it was image which turned out to be ultimately fatal.

Since his convention speech, Al Gore seems to have excelled by offering a little bit of both, while Bush has stalled by appearing satisfied with downplaying the ideology. He may be right in doing this, but in minimizing the ideology, he is allowing Gore to shape the specifics of the debate.

Seemingly outflanked over the issues, Bush may end up with his basic competency also questioned — exactly the position Dukakis found himself in a dozen years ago.

Over the last couple of weeks, this columnist went to two dinners (no, those weren't his only dinners — he's not that light an eater). At the first, a forty-something real-estate executive — a good Republican — skeptically asked why Bush was pushing a big tax cut. "Now's the time the country should be paying down the debt," he said. Last week, a thirty-something financial analyst for a securities firm made a similar statement: "We're swimming in money. We don't need a tax cut." Now, admittedly, New York Republicans are not the most reliably conservative. Yet both of these gentlemen are going to vote for Bush in November.

However, their similar views on what's at the heart of Bush's platform — and central to Republican orthodoxy — suggests a serious danger signal. If many of the party's own supporters are wary of the "big tax cut" message, how will that message resonate with swing voters? John McCain got around this problem in the primary by offering a smaller tax cut and placing greater emphasis on retiring the debt. However, at this late date, it's almost impossible for Bush to pull back on this particular tax cut. Of course, in terms of message, it would not be a bad idea to recognize that the debt issue remains out there and shouldn't be ignored.

But, at the nexus of competence and ideology, Bush has to avoid more syntax nightmares of the kind he suffered last week. This is the most dangerous territory. Yes, some of it is hereditary, but it also strikes at Bush's most vulnerable area. It's not merely that, when he stumbles over budget numbers between "billions" and "trillions," he runs the risk of appearing not to have the grasp of details necessary to a president. Worse is that the other central part of Bush's platform is education. No candidate can afford to have a key part of the campaign debate become grist for ridicule.

The obvious parallel from 1988 is Dukakis in the tank. For some reason, Dukakis's advisers thought that such a photo would accentuate the candidate's readiness to be commander in chief. Instead, it emphasized that, even as the Cold War was winding down, Democrats still couldn't be trusted to run the military. Game over.

On the merits, Bush's education message is dynamic and forward-thinking. But if he appears to have a regular difficulty with the basics of the English language — and the media will only be too happy to expose such incidents — this undermines his entire image. It calls into question his readiness to discuss any issue — and education especially. With the "honor and integrity" issue seemingly blunted by Gore's pick of Lieberman, Bush would be in serious danger of having a large amount of his political armory neutralized.

With two months to go in what will likely be one of the closest elections in recent memory, Bush's campaign is hardly code-red critical. But he can't ignore some serious warning signs. He doesn't want to be Wolf Blitzer's guest in the dog days of August 2012.