FOR THE RECORD

It’s beginning to look like a steamroller. Christian Science Monitor rung in top political analysts last week: Claibourne Darden: “it’s over.” George Bush, “bar an incredible blunder, has it locked up.” . . Thomas E. Cronin (author of Government by the People) believes Bush could win 54 to 46, with 330 to 340 electoral votes. . . Horace Busby: “The fat lady has begun to sing.” . . . Richard Nixon: Michael Dukakis is supposed to be surrounded by Ivy League geniuses: “It took a genius,” he says, “to blow the 18-point lead he had after the Democratic convention.” . . . Post second-debate poll (NBC/ Wall Street Journal) gives Bush 17-point lead, 55 to 38 per cent. . . Significantly, Los Angeles Times poll that has consistently shown Dukakis ahead of Bush in California now gives Bush slender three-point lead. … In Maryland, with its 5-to-2 registration edge for Democrats, Baltimore Sun shows Bush 48 per cent, Dukakis 44. . . . James Baker at Bush headquarters now considering paying more attention to New York State, which had been conceded to Dukakis as result of recent polls. Molly Yard of NOW (National Organization for Women) has been driven to sexist remarks by disappearance of gender gap. Women who now support Bush, she says, are doing so because “they aren’t paying attention.” . . . Bush campaign manager Lee Atwater is taking nothing for granted. At post-debate meeting he told staff: “I don’t want complacency. I don’t want any-one acting smug. No one pull any punches. Keep the heat on. I want everyone to run like we’re ten points behind.”

Mounting Dukakis problems: the South, and more particularly, Texas. Professor Walter Dean Burnham, of University of Texas, says a supporter of gun control, like Dukakis, “doesn’t stand a lot of a chance with yellow-dog Democrats who like to put their guns on the pickup roof and go quail hunting.” Burnham says Texans are in happy position of being able to vote against Dukakis-Bentsen and still have Bentsen as their senator. . . . Molly Ivins, political columnist of Dallas Times Herald, comments: “Dukakis is an unbelievable stick. There’s just no way he can stir up Texas voters at all. Lloyd Bentsen usually looks like he’s embalmed and now he looks like the liveliest of the four nominees.” . . . Those ads about the packaged Bush have backfired reverberantly. Democratic media expert David Garth finds them “plain goddamn silly. To say that Bush is a package candidate—and we’re telling you this in a cute packaged commercial that you have to see three times to understand?” . . . Bush ad-man Roger Ailes loved them: “I think those commercials only make sense to 25 limousine liberals sitting around the Upper West Side eating quiche and drinking white wine.” . . . “Michael Dukakis should file a malpractice suit against his ad agency,” said Richard Nixon. . . . The black v. Jewish problem in the Democratic Party was brought into the open in Chicago by Gordon Zachs, a Republican speaking to a Jewish audience. “You may not like the way I put it, but I’m going to call it the way I see it. In Atlanta, the Democrats traded theblacks for the Jews. And [they] made a conscious decision, not altogether wrong, that . . . they could ignore us and we wouldn’t have the guts to cross the river and vote Republican.” … Some endorsements aren’t helping much. Siberian Express, newspaper of Montana state prison convicts, says Dukakis’s election is vital because “the U.S. Supreme Court is now on the verge of becoming entirely molded by archly conservative philosophies.”

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Presidential Election

It’s beginning to look like a steamroller. Christian Science Monitor rung in top political analysts last week: Claibourne Darden: “it’s over.” George Bush, “bar an incredible blunder, has it locked up.” . . Thomas E. Cronin (author of Government by the People) believes Bush could win 54 to 46, with 330 to 340 electoral votes. . . Horace Busby: “The fat lady has begun to sing.” . . . Richard Nixon: Michael Dukakis is supposed to be surrounded by Ivy League geniuses: “It took a genius,” he says, “to blow the 18-point lead he had after the Democratic convention.” . . . Post second-debate poll (NBC/ Wall Street Journal) gives Bush 17-point lead, 55 to 38 per cent. . . Significantly, Los Angeles Times poll that has consistently shown Dukakis ahead of Bush in California now gives Bush slender three-point lead. … In Maryland, with its 5-to-2 registration edge for Democrats, Baltimore Sun shows Bush 48 per cent, Dukakis 44. . . . James Baker at Bush headquarters now considering paying more attention to New York State, which had been conceded to Dukakis as result of recent polls. Molly Yard of NOW (National Organization for Women) has been driven to sexist remarks by disappearance of gender gap. Women who now support Bush, she says, are doing so because “they aren’t paying attention.” . . . Bush campaign manager Lee Atwater is taking nothing for granted. At post-debate meeting he told staff: “I don’t want complacency. I don’t want any-one acting smug. No one pull any punches. Keep the heat on. I want everyone to run like we’re ten points behind.”

Mounting Dukakis problems: the South, and more particularly, Texas. Professor Walter Dean Burnham, of University of Texas, says a supporter of gun control, like Dukakis, “doesn’t stand a lot of a chance with yellow-dog Democrats who like to put their guns on the pickup roof and go quail hunting.” Burnham says Texans are in happy position of being able to vote against Dukakis-Bentsen and still have Bentsen as their senator. . . . Molly Ivins, political columnist of Dallas Times Herald, comments: “Dukakis is an unbelievable stick. There’s just no way he can stir up Texas voters at all. Lloyd Bentsen usually looks like he’s embalmed and now he looks like the liveliest of the four nominees.” . . . Those ads about the packaged Bush have backfired reverberantly. Democratic media expert David Garth finds them “plain goddamn silly. To say that Bush is a package candidate—and we’re telling you this in a cute packaged commercial that you have to see three times to understand?” . . . Bush ad-man Roger Ailes loved them: “I think those commercials only make sense to 25 limousine liberals sitting around the Upper West Side eating quiche and drinking white wine.” . . . “Michael Dukakis should file a malpractice suit against his ad agency,” said Richard Nixon. . . . The black v. Jewish problem in the Democratic Party was brought into the open in Chicago by Gordon Zachs, a Republican speaking to a Jewish audience. “You may not like the way I put it, but I’m going to call it the way I see it. In Atlanta, the Democrats traded theblacks for the Jews. And [they] made a conscious decision, not altogether wrong, that . . . they could ignore us and we wouldn’t have the guts to cross the river and vote Republican.” … Some endorsements aren’t helping much. Siberian Express, newspaper of Montana state prison convicts, says Dukakis’s election is vital because “the U.S. Supreme Court is now on the verge of becoming entirely molded by archly conservative philosophies.”