For the Record

That collective sigh of relief you heard last week came from the Democratic Party at Michael Dukakis’s narrow (7 per cent) win over Jesse Jackson in Colorado and his smashing win in Wisconsin (20 per cent). But shock waves from Michigan, where Jack son trounced Dukakis a week earlier, persist. The words used by Democratic bigwigs in Washington to describe the party’s post-Michigan situation, the New York Times reported, included “crisis, disarray, disaster, consternation, mess, and wacky.” . . . “Party strategists and liberal pundits from Ben Wattenberg to the New York Times’s Anthony Lewis,” reported political analyst Kevin Phillips, “have been setting up the range-finders and preparing the explanations.” Phillips added: “Wattenberg is emerging as the Paul Revere of the Stop Jackson movement.” . . . Dukakis was not the only loser in Michigan. The media, which, according to the Lichters’ Media Monitor, had given Jackson “the best press of any candidate—81 per cent positive—” in the weeks between New Hampshire and Illinois, were getting flak for a kind of inverted racism in their pussyfoot handling of Jackson. In a Washington Post story “Media Scrutiny of Jackson Begins,” one network correspondent is quoted: “It’s absolutely clear to me that if Jesse were a white man, he’d probably be getting kicked around rather royally by the press.” Added Wattenberg: “I don’t think that most American journalists know how to deal with a story on the far political Left of the spectrum.” . . . Even so, professional Democratic pols find it hard to crank up much enthusiasm for Michael Dukakis. In endorsing Dukakis a couple of weeks back, Sen. Bill Bradley commented: “It has been said of Michael Dukakis that he is dull, a charge with which I am not unfamiliar. But governance is not an amusement park. It is hard work.” . . . Harrison Hickman, pollster, says Dukakis has two problems: “People have little awareness of him. And there is a lack of burning issues on Dukakis’s agenda.” . . . And a newsman who knows him well, Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle, remarks: “The Governor of Massachusetts has been running in the middle of the road for so long that he now resembles a human median strip.”

All major polls taken post-Michigan, pre-Wisconsin (ABC/Washington Post, CBS/NYT, Gallup/Newsweek, Time/ Yankelovich, Harris) show George Bush beating Jackson by between 23 and 26 points. Kevin Phillips says exit polls show so many white Democrats would not vote for Jackson that “Jesse Jackson would run at George McGovern levels or worse.” . . . Various Bush-Dukakis trial heats point to much closer race. … In the opinion of Ed Koch, George Bush will be the next President unless he “puts both feet in his mouth” or the Democrats nominate Mario Cuomo. . . . Democrats worry that Bush now has Donilon’s Law working for him. Donilon was a Walter Mondale campaign aide, and his Law holds that the longer it takes a party’s candidate to lock up the nomination, the lower the party’s chances in November. . . . To keep Bush on straight and narrow, the American Conservative Union has set up a Committee to Save the Reagan Platform headed by former Bob Dole campaign aide, and former head of the Office of Personnel Management, Don Devine. Group will monitor any move to dilute conservative program by Bush advisors. The problem with moving toward the center, which is always the temptation when running against leftist candidates, says Paul Weyrich, “is that you end up not having the passion and enthusiasm of the people of the Right, and you may lose because those people won’t get out and vote.” . . . Incidentally, Media Monitor reports that CBS coverage of Bush’s candidacy was evenly balanced until the Bush-Dan Rather dust-up. Since then it’s gone downhill. They rate CBS coverage now as 73 per cent negative.

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Presidential Election

That collective sigh of relief you heard last week came from the Democratic Party at Michael Dukakis’s narrow (7 per cent) win over Jesse Jackson in Colorado and his smashing win in Wisconsin (20 per cent). But shock waves from Michigan, where Jack son trounced Dukakis a week earlier, persist. The words used by Democratic bigwigs in Washington to describe the party’s post-Michigan situation, the New York Times reported, included “crisis, disarray, disaster, consternation, mess, and wacky.” . . . “Party strategists and liberal pundits from Ben Wattenberg to the New York Times’s Anthony Lewis,” reported political analyst Kevin Phillips, “have been setting up the range-finders and preparing the explanations.” Phillips added: “Wattenberg is emerging as the Paul Revere of the Stop Jackson movement.” . . . Dukakis was not the only loser in Michigan. The media, which, according to the Lichters’ Media Monitor, had given Jackson “the best press of any candidate—81 per cent positive—” in the weeks between New Hampshire and Illinois, were getting flak for a kind of inverted racism in their pussyfoot handling of Jackson. In a Washington Post story “Media Scrutiny of Jackson Begins,” one network correspondent is quoted: “It’s absolutely clear to me that if Jesse were a white man, he’d probably be getting kicked around rather royally by the press.” Added Wattenberg: “I don’t think that most American journalists know how to deal with a story on the far political Left of the spectrum.” . . . Even so, professional Democratic pols find it hard to crank up much enthusiasm for Michael Dukakis. In endorsing Dukakis a couple of weeks back, Sen. Bill Bradley commented: “It has been said of Michael Dukakis that he is dull, a charge with which I am not unfamiliar. But governance is not an amusement park. It is hard work.” . . . Harrison Hickman, pollster, says Dukakis has two problems: “People have little awareness of him. And there is a lack of burning issues on Dukakis’s agenda.” . . . And a newsman who knows him well, Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle, remarks: “The Governor of Massachusetts has been running in the middle of the road for so long that he now resembles a human median strip.”

All major polls taken post-Michigan, pre-Wisconsin (ABC/Washington Post, CBS/NYT, Gallup/Newsweek, Time/ Yankelovich, Harris) show George Bush beating Jackson by between 23 and 26 points. Kevin Phillips says exit polls show so many white Democrats would not vote for Jackson that “Jesse Jackson would run at George McGovern levels or worse.” . . . Various Bush-Dukakis trial heats point to much closer race. … In the opinion of Ed Koch, George Bush will be the next President unless he “puts both feet in his mouth” or the Democrats nominate Mario Cuomo. . . . Democrats worry that Bush now has Donilon’s Law working for him. Donilon was a Walter Mondale campaign aide, and his Law holds that the longer it takes a party’s candidate to lock up the nomination, the lower the party’s chances in November. . . . To keep Bush on straight and narrow, the American Conservative Union has set up a Committee to Save the Reagan Platform headed by former Bob Dole campaign aide, and former head of the Office of Personnel Management, Don Devine. Group will monitor any move to dilute conservative program by Bush advisors. The problem with moving toward the center, which is always the temptation when running against leftist candidates, says Paul Weyrich, “is that you end up not having the passion and enthusiasm of the people of the Right, and you may lose because those people won’t get out and vote.” . . . Incidentally, Media Monitor reports that CBS coverage of Bush’s candidacy was evenly balanced until the Bush-Dan Rather dust-up. Since then it’s gone downhill. They rate CBS coverage now as 73 per cent negative.