For the Record

The only suspense in the presidential joyride at the moment is whom George Bush will pick for Vice President to offset Michael Dukakis’s choice of Lloyd Bentsen. According to the usually well-informed Evans & Novak, a behind-closed-doors meeting of top strategists called by Bush campaign manager Lee Atwater three days after Bentsen was picked voted eight to two for Jack Kemp over Robert Dole because Kemp “could add an image of youth and vigor to the ticket.” But, as a veteran GOP congressman told E&N, “I think George knows that Jack could really help him in the campaign but would drive him mad as Vice President.” . . . Columnist James Jackson Kilpatrick thinks Bush should keep his choice secret until New Orleans and then name Nancy Landon Kassebaum, who is young (56), a Midwesterner (Kansas), and, of course, a woman. . . . Atlanta left sour aftertaste in mouths of some commentators and Democratic leaders. David Brinkley was moved to ask during first three days, when Jesse Jackson dominated the procedures, whether white males were finished as a force in the Democratic Party. . . . Former DNC Chairman Robert Strauss told R. W. Apple, the New York Times’s chief Washington correspondent: “There are a lot of white men out there we’re trying to reach. I watched those pictures on the tube and I worried that maybe Middle America got the feeling we weren’t interested.” . . . Claiborne Darden Jr., the Atlanta pollster, says Dukakis will be vulnerable if George Bush can “make this an issues election . . . and hammer at issues like taxes [Democrats are for them, no matter what their platform says], crime [Dukakis is perceived as soft on first-degree murderers], and Soviet meddling in Central America [where the situation could blow up before November].” … A Christian Science Monitor survey of delegates in Atlanta confirms that they are to the left of the Democratic Party at large: 64 per cent believe taxes must be raised to reduce the deficit; 67 per cent favor bigger government providing more services. . . . Mary McGrory found Michael Dukakis’s acclaimed acceptance speech “the biggest Greek surprise since the Trojan horse.” . . . Billy Bulger, president of the Massachusetts Senate, remarked when Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas finally wound up his Dukakis nominating speech, “I was a young man when he began to talk.”

You may not see this on the front page of your favorite daily or on the evening news, but independent counsel Lawrence Walsh says his 18-month investigation of Irangate has produced no evidence that President Ronald Reagan or Vice President Bush knew of the diversion of Iran arms-sales profits to the Contras. . . . Faith Whittlesey has resigned as Ambassador to Switzerland and returned to Washington to help out in Bush campaign. Mrs. Whittlesey was particularly effective in her penultimate job, as White House Director of Public Liaison, in building grassroots support for Reagan’s Central America policies. . . . White House press spokesman Marlin Fitzwater gave tart response to re-porters who asked about Teddy Kennedy’s “Where was George?” speech: “George was cutting taxes, not raising them,” he said. “George was defending America, not tearing it down.” . . . Faint praise department: When Margaret Thatcher was asked about Michael Dukakis earlier this summer, she replied that she didn’t know him but had read a great deal about him, and added: “I know there are some things I read about myself that are not always accurate.”

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The only suspense in the presidential joyride at the moment is whom George Bush will pick for Vice President to offset Michael Dukakis’s choice of Lloyd Bentsen. According to the usually well-informed Evans & Novak, a behind-closed-doors meeting of top strategists called by Bush campaign manager Lee Atwater three days after Bentsen was picked voted eight to two for Jack Kemp over Robert Dole because Kemp “could add an image of youth and vigor to the ticket.” But, as a veteran GOP congressman told E&N, “I think George knows that Jack could really help him in the campaign but would drive him mad as Vice President.” . . . Columnist James Jackson Kilpatrick thinks Bush should keep his choice secret until New Orleans and then name Nancy Landon Kassebaum, who is young (56), a Midwesterner (Kansas), and, of course, a woman. . . . Atlanta left sour aftertaste in mouths of some commentators and Democratic leaders. David Brinkley was moved to ask during first three days, when Jesse Jackson dominated the procedures, whether white males were finished as a force in the Democratic Party. . . . Former DNC Chairman Robert Strauss told R. W. Apple, the New York Times’s chief Washington correspondent: “There are a lot of white men out there we’re trying to reach. I watched those pictures on the tube and I worried that maybe Middle America got the feeling we weren’t interested.” . . . Claiborne Darden Jr., the Atlanta pollster, says Dukakis will be vulnerable if George Bush can “make this an issues election . . . and hammer at issues like taxes [Democrats are for them, no matter what their platform says], crime [Dukakis is perceived as soft on first-degree murderers], and Soviet meddling in Central America [where the situation could blow up before November].” … A Christian Science Monitor survey of delegates in Atlanta confirms that they are to the left of the Democratic Party at large: 64 per cent believe taxes must be raised to reduce the deficit; 67 per cent favor bigger government providing more services. . . . Mary McGrory found Michael Dukakis’s acclaimed acceptance speech “the biggest Greek surprise since the Trojan horse.” . . . Billy Bulger, president of the Massachusetts Senate, remarked when Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas finally wound up his Dukakis nominating speech, “I was a young man when he began to talk.”

You may not see this on the front page of your favorite daily or on the evening news, but independent counsel Lawrence Walsh says his 18-month investigation of Irangate has produced no evidence that President Ronald Reagan or Vice President Bush knew of the diversion of Iran arms-sales profits to the Contras. . . . Faith Whittlesey has resigned as Ambassador to Switzerland and returned to Washington to help out in Bush campaign. Mrs. Whittlesey was particularly effective in her penultimate job, as White House Director of Public Liaison, in building grassroots support for Reagan’s Central America policies. . . . White House press spokesman Marlin Fitzwater gave tart response to re-porters who asked about Teddy Kennedy’s “Where was George?” speech: “George was cutting taxes, not raising them,” he said. “George was defending America, not tearing it down.” . . . Faint praise department: When Margaret Thatcher was asked about Michael Dukakis earlier this summer, she replied that she didn’t know him but had read a great deal about him, and added: “I know there are some things I read about myself that are not always accurate.”