For the Record

■ Withdrawal of Al Gore from presidential race, on the heels of Jay Rockefeller, on the heels of Richard Gephardt, had left Democratic strategists catatonic—even before Soviet Union blew apart. Says former DNC Chairman John White: “I’d like to see some of our major figures [Lloyd Bentsen, Mario Cuomo] just gut up and do it.” But he adds, “The driven guys with fire in the belly, like Hubert Humphrey and Lyndon [Johnson] are gone.” . . . “It’s hard to think of a Democrat, running or not,” says U. of Rochester political scientist Larry Bartels, “who could even make a good shot at a credible campaign in this [post-Soviet-coup] atmosphere.” . . . Democratic leaders are conscious that five strikeouts in last six times at bat have damaged party. (The only Democratic President voters age 18 to 25 have known is Jimmy Carter.) Democratic pollster Celinda Lake notes that political habits formed in youth can linger a very long time.

■ Unexpectedly shaky is continued Democratic hold on black vote. Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder, whose entry into presidential lists is expected momentarily, is campaigning as fiscal and racial moderate. Some of his stands, as reported in recent Christian Science Monitor story: He favors the line-item veto. He finds spending cuts and elimination of layers of bureaucracy preferable to higher taxes. On helping blacks: “Why should an agenda for blacks be different from the agenda for the American people?” On black English: “It’s a cop-out. . . . Blacks learn like everyone else and should be taught like everyone else.” . . . His candidacy will be a far cry from Jesse Jackson’s last time around. And it’s uncertain whether Jackson will be a candidate in ’92. Thomas Edsall of ‘Washington Post reports that Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition is in a state of disrepair, with many local branches out of business. . . . Clarence Thomas’s nomination is having unexpected reverberations in black community. Black columnist William Raspberry of Washington Post says: “I hear [Thomas] saying with Wilder that blacks are foolish to wait for whites to deliver us, that we must return to the old values that worked for us in harsher times than these.” . . . And in a column titled “Why Are They Surprised at Thomas’s Conservatism?” in radical Guardian, Earl Ofari Hutchinson comments: “Like them or not, Thomas’s views form a hitherto hidden part of the black experience. . . . The truth is that conservative values and goals have been deeply embedded in African-American life for generations. The problem is that most white Americans never recognized this. Instead they created a myth of black liberalism.” What is most astonishing is that the argument was made in a journal in far left field.

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■ Withdrawal of Al Gore from presidential race, on the heels of Jay Rockefeller, on the heels of Richard Gephardt, had left Democratic strategists catatonic—even before Soviet Union blew apart. Says former DNC Chairman John White: “I’d like to see some of our major figures [Lloyd Bentsen, Mario Cuomo] just gut up and do it.” But he adds, “The driven guys with fire in the belly, like Hubert Humphrey and Lyndon [Johnson] are gone.” . . . “It’s hard to think of a Democrat, running or not,” says U. of Rochester political scientist Larry Bartels, “who could even make a good shot at a credible campaign in this [post-Soviet-coup] atmosphere.” . . . Democratic leaders are conscious that five strikeouts in last six times at bat have damaged party. (The only Democratic President voters age 18 to 25 have known is Jimmy Carter.) Democratic pollster Celinda Lake notes that political habits formed in youth can linger a very long time.

■ Unexpectedly shaky is continued Democratic hold on black vote. Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder, whose entry into presidential lists is expected momentarily, is campaigning as fiscal and racial moderate. Some of his stands, as reported in recent Christian Science Monitor story: He favors the line-item veto. He finds spending cuts and elimination of layers of bureaucracy preferable to higher taxes. On helping blacks: “Why should an agenda for blacks be different from the agenda for the American people?” On black English: “It’s a cop-out. . . . Blacks learn like everyone else and should be taught like everyone else.” . . . His candidacy will be a far cry from Jesse Jackson’s last time around. And it’s uncertain whether Jackson will be a candidate in ’92. Thomas Edsall of ‘Washington Post reports that Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition is in a state of disrepair, with many local branches out of business. . . . Clarence Thomas’s nomination is having unexpected reverberations in black community. Black columnist William Raspberry of Washington Post says: “I hear [Thomas] saying with Wilder that blacks are foolish to wait for whites to deliver us, that we must return to the old values that worked for us in harsher times than these.” . . . And in a column titled “Why Are They Surprised at Thomas’s Conservatism?” in radical Guardian, Earl Ofari Hutchinson comments: “Like them or not, Thomas’s views form a hitherto hidden part of the black experience. . . . The truth is that conservative values and goals have been deeply embedded in African-American life for generations. The problem is that most white Americans never recognized this. Instead they created a myth of black liberalism.” What is most astonishing is that the argument was made in a journal in far left field.