TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/election/84elect/84elect.004

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                                                                                July 16, 1984

NATION

Aiming for a Good Show


The Democrats hope to make love not war when they convene in San
Francisco


     It should be a heady, optimistic time for Walter Mondale.
The bitter and exhausting primary campaign is a fading memory,
and his coronation as Democratic presidential nominee is at hand.
It is his golden chance to get the drive against Ronald Reagan
off to a rousing start by performing crisply some of the normally
pleasant rituals of leadership: selecting a running mate, pulling
the party together for the fall campaign, writing the script for
the convention that next week will surely hand him the nomination
he has so long sought.

     Yet somehow the preconvention period has turned into a time
of pressure and worry in the Mondale camp. There is pressure from
feminists to choose a woman as his vice-presidential candidate,
which threatens to put him in a damned-if-he-does-and-damned-if-
he-doesn't dilemma. And there is tension over the still uncertain
prospects of striking a deal with Jesse Jackson that would avoid
both a disruptive convention battle and any appearance that
Mondale had surrendered principle for the sake of party peace.

     Worst of all, perhaps, the latest polls show Mondale badly
losing ground with the voters while attempting to steer between
these minefields. Gallup now finds the former Vice President
running 19 points behind Reagan, a gap more than twice as wide as
the one that existed a month ago, when Mondale became the all but
official Democratic nominee. A New York Times/CBS News pol puts
the current Reagan lead at 15 points. Surveys this early in the
campaign are no reliable guide to the outcome in November, but
senior Democratic leaders are concerned. The polls, says one,
"mean that since the end of the primaries to today, Walter
Mondale has only turned off more people."

     There were signs, though, that the approach of the
convention was beginning to concentrate Democrats' minds on the
campaign against Reagan rather than on their internal quarrels.
Twenty-three female Democratic leaders visited Mondale in
Minnesota and down-played the threat the National Organization of
Women had made the weekend before to stage a floor fight for a
woman vice-presidential candidate. NOW's president, Judy
Goldsmith, stressed that nomination of a woman from the floor
would be "a last resort." Mondale soothingly commented: "I
understand . . . that's politics."

     Jackson met with Mondale in Kansas City, where both had gone
to address the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, and at a press conference afterward the two
leaders were no more than stiffly correct. Jackson sounded
ambiguously conciliatory. He spoke both of "matters yet
unresolved" and of "a time to cooperate." He pledged "a lively
convention" but added, "Every debate does not mean division." The
Mondale camp's hopeful interpretation: While Jackson's forces
will wage floor fights in support of four amendments to the party
platform, there is a strong chance that the battles will be
conducted without great heat and that Jackson will urge his
legions of black followers to vote for the ticket in November.

     None of this means that Mondale's problems in organizing the
convention are necessarily over. He still risks giving the
appearance of having caved in to feminist pressure if he chooses
a woman vice-presidential candidate, or of grievously
disappointing many of his female followers if he does not. Until
the convention is over, Mondale's backers will be nervous about
what the mercurial Jackson might do; even if Jackson does climb
aboard the Mondale bandwagon, he might turn out to be more of a
liability than an asset on the campaign trail.

     The Democrats were working feverishly to make sure they put
on a ringing rather than a raucous show once the convention opens
in San Francisco next Monday night. For the first time in three
decades they will not be assured gavel-to-gavel coverage on
network TV. All three networks are abandoning their traditional
formats for a mixture of live action and taped highlights in
segments of varying length. On some nights, portions of the
proceedings on one network may be competing against entertainment
programming on another. Similar arrangements will be in effect
for the Republican Convention in Dallas in August. The networks'
reasoning is simple: gavel-to-gavel coverage is very expensive,
and the number of viewers it attracts, in the words of NBC Anchor
Tom Brokaw, "has been diminishing and diminishing."

     Mondale's forces have tentatively lined up a parade of some
of the party's best speakers to stir up interest. Monday night,
after the opening ceremonies, New York Governor Mario Cuomo will
deliver they keynote address. Cuomo has a reputation for
thoughtful as well as polished oratory; he is a New Deal liberal
who appeals to old-fashioned family values.

     Tuesday come the platform debates, five in all. Jackson's
forces will offer minority planks calling for the U.S. to adopt a
"no first use" policy on nuclear weapons, cut defense spending
sharply, commit itself to enforce affirmative-action goals in the
hiring of minorities, and end the second, or runoff, primaries
used in ten states when no candidate wins a majority of the vote.
(Jackson argues that runoffs are discriminatory because blacks
have a better chance of winning a plurality in a multicandidate
field than outpolling a white in a head-to-head race.) Gary Hart,
who commands roughly 1,250 of the 3,933 delegates and is still
under consideration for the second spot on the ticket, will push
a plan advocating that the nation seek remedies other than the
use of military force to resolve international conflicts; he will
specifically mention the Persian Gulf. That will renew a primary
debate in which Mondale successfully argued that the use of
force, while never desirable, is sometimes unavoidable.

     Convention planners are allowing roughly an hour for the
debate and vote on each of the five minority planks, which are
all virtually certain to be defeated. The planners' hope is to
get all the controversy settled in an atmosphere of reasonable
civility before Jackson mounts the podium on Tuesday night to
deliver what is certain to be a rousing and rhythmic speech. The
occasion will serve s a rare prime-time showcase for the free-
verse Jacksonian oratory that stirred predominantly black
audiences to near frenzy during the primary campaign.

     On Wednesday night, the featured speaker is Edward Kennedy,
who may place Mondale's name in nomination. The Massachusetts
Senator is an inconsistent orator, but he can soar when the
spirit moves him. Indeed, one of Mondale's minor problems is that
his own acceptance speech Thursday night might sound a bit tame
after the performances of Cuomo, Jackson and Kennedy. Mondale may
ask a woman to introduce him, especially if he has chosen a male
running mate and needs a show of solidarity from the women who
will constitute slightly fewer than half of all the convention
delegates.

     Some of the most intriguing TV pictures, however, are likely
to be flashed from outside the fortress-like George R. Moscone
Convention Center. (Named for the major who was shot and killed
by former supervisor and White in 1978.) Street demonstrations
are an unofficial part of any national convention, and in San
Francisco every kind of group form Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority
to advocates of legalized marijuana seems to be planning a rally
of some sort.

     The big parades are scheduled for Sunday, when most
delegates and reporters are arriving. Police expect 100,000
homosexuals to join a march from the Castro Street gay
neighborhood to the Moscone Center, and an equal number of labor
demonstrators to parade along Market Street to an AFL-CIO rally.
Fortunately, the routes of the two groups will not cross. Police
have set aside four acres of a parking lot across the street from
the main entrance to the center, and 25 groups, ranging from the
Marijuana Initiative to anti-Reagan rock musicians, have filed to
use it more or less continuously. Even the Ku Klux Klan is said
to be planning a demonstration.

     Security will be tight for the roughly 5,300 delegates and
alternates (who will be heavily outnumbered by the 12,000 print
and TV journalists expected to attend). Delegates will be
escorted by the California Highway Patrol from San Francisco
International Airport to their hotels, and they will be hauled to
the Moscone Center aboard buses. Inside the mostly underground
and mostly windowless center, the delegates will be under
watchful eyes too. Taking no chances on a surprise insurrection,
the Mondale forces plan to put a staggering total of 600 to 700
whips on the floor, each relaying the word from Mondale
headquarters to a handful of delegates.

     Mondale's backers are counting on the convention hoopla,
which will be led by hundreds of delegates from organized labor,
to give their boss a badly needed boost in the opinion polls.
Says one Democratic national Committee official: "We have a real
opportunity to bring Mondale within five points of Reagan after
the convention." That may be wishful thinking, but a well-managed
convention could convey the take-charge image that Mondale has
failed to project so far.

     Since late June, Mondale's principal activity has been
interviewing a parade of possible running mates invited to his
$200,000, Frank Lloyd Wrightstyle home at the end of a winding
private drive off Thrush Lane in suburban North Oaks, Minn. The
meetings, now totaling seven, have settled into a routine. The
smiling candidate arrives, with spouse, by motorcade; Mondale
crosses the brick bridge, spanning a small hollow that separates
the house from its surroundings, to greet them and escort them
inside; after about two hours, the participants re-emerge for a
meeting with the press at which Mondale says very nearly the same
thing about each interviewee. Samples from last week: New York
Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro has done a "superb job" as head
of the convention's platform committee; San Antonio Mayor Henry
Cisneros would make "a superb Vice President." Friday's talk with
Kentucky Governor Martha Layne Collins was "useful and wide-
ranging" -- just like all six previous interviews.

     To many voters and some party leaders, the succession of
interviews seems less a display of thoughtful leadership than, to
use Jackson's words, "a p.r. parade." The charge is that Mondale
has been too obviously wooing party blocs: women (Ferraro,
Collins and San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein); blacks (Mayors
Thomas Bradley of Los Angeles and Wilson Goode of Philadelphia);
Hispanics (Cisneros). Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas was the lone
white male. While some of those visiting North Oaks are
legitimate contenders, political pros cannot believe that others,
such as Cisneros and Collins, have enough experience or clout
outside their own constituencies to be under serious
consideration. Mondale heightened these misgivings by saying that
he might pick someone who had not come to North Oaks. Keynoter
Cuomo, meeting Mondale last week in Brookline, Mass., for a fund-
raising affair, pleaded with the about-to-be nominee to end the
parade and "make an early commitment." This might make Mondale
seem decisive, but it also could dissipate the convention's
remaining drama. Mondale is trying to arrange more interviews for
this week, though a leading prospective invitee to North Oaks,
Arkansas Senator Dale Bumpers, is putting on what Mondale aides
view as a Hamlet-like show of indecision about whether or not to
come.

     The V.P. procession has had one highly uncomfortable result
for Mondale: he and his advisers badly miscalculated how much
feminist pressure he would inspire with his overtures to
prospective women candidates. Not only did NOW threaten a floor
fight, Goldsmith went so far as to talk of winning one. The
realization spread that a pitched battle over Mondale's running
mate would create a disastrous impression of a presidential
candidate incapable of controlling his own party. The 23 women
who journeyed to Minnesota to meet Mondale last Wednesday assured
him they intended no such thing. They said their demand was that
Mondale choose someone dedicated to feminist principles, not
necessarily a woman. Mondale's aides nonetheless do not rule out
the possibility that a woman may be nominated from the floor if
the candidate does not choose one himself. Says one: "If it
happens, it's a diversion, and we don't need any more
diversions."

     Mondale's advisers are not yet totally convinced that a
woman on the ticket would be a plus. Georgia Democratic Chairman
Bert Lance, for one, thinks a woman might hurt Mondale in the
South and in blue-collar areas of the Midwest. But if Mondale
chooses a man, he risks dimming the enthusiasm of some of his
strongest followers, whose hopes have been raised very high. No
one expects feminist leaders to sit out a campaign against
Reagan, who is anathema to them. But one Mondale strategist
concedes there is a question about "the number of phone calls
that will be made, how many hours will be put in at the lower
levels." Mondale could also lose the chance of winning a new
constituency of women who are not political activists but might
vote for him if he were willing to take the unprecedented step of
putting a woman a heartbeat away from the White House.

     One ironic effect of the feminist enthusiasm may have been
to diminish the vice-presidential chances of Congresswoman
Ferraro, once thought to be leading the female half of the
procession. Before meeting with Mondale, she had said she might
tallow her name to be offered from the floor as a symbolic
gesture. After that session, she asserted that she would not be
part of any challenge to his vice-presidential choice, but her
edgy, tightlipped demeanor indicated her earlier statement had
done her cause no good. The consensus among Mondale watchers was
that Feinstein had impressed him much more, though she has the
political liabilities of being Jewish and married three times
(she was divorced from her first husband; her second died). Among
the men invited to North Oaks, Mayor Bradley of Los Angeles
seemed to score best. Of those who did not go to North Oaks,
Cuomo might be at the top of Mondale's list if he could be talked
out of his 1982 pledge to serve a full term in the New York
Governor's mansion. Cuomo shows no signs of wavering.

    Then, of course, there is Gary Hart, who matched Mondale
almost vote for vote, though far from delegate for delegate, in
the primaries and caucuses. The Colorado Senator last week came
about as close as he could to saying he would take No. 2 without
formally abandoning his campaign for No. 1. Asked at a press
conference in Chicago what he thought of a Mondale-Hart ticket,
he replied, "I like the combination, but I would prefer the
reverse order." One reason Hart might take V.P. is that he has a
$3 million campaign debt. Says one adviser: "If he doesn't get on
the ticket, he won't get any help from the party on that debt. It
would take him at least a year to clear it. Then he would have to
raise a couple million more to run for the Senate again in 1986,
then $25 million more to run for President in '88 -- all from the
same people."

     Hart's vice-presidential chances, however, could hardly have
been helped by an article in Vanity Fair magazine quoting him as
saying that Marilyn Youngbird, an Indian woman described as a
"radiant divorcee," was his "spiritual adviser." The article,
written by Gail Sheehy, an experienced magazine journalist (New
York) and author (Passages), said that Hart and Youngbird had
attended an Indian ceremony that was, in Youngbird's words,
"sensual . . . they brushed the front and back of our bodies with
eagle feathers." Sheehy added that the Senator had accepted
Youngbird's assurance that he had been chosen by supernatural
forces to "save nature from destruction." Hart denied that
Youngbird was any kind of guru and said the ceremony had been an
innocuous dedication of a park. On top of that flap, Hart was
quoted in the Denver Post as calling Mondale's interviews in
North Oaks "something very close to pandering." His lame comment:
"I don't recall the context."

     The eagle-feather episode was merely a minor diversion in
comparison with what one Mondale strategist says "is still the
No. 1 problem around the convention": Jackson's role. Mondale
Campaign Manager Robert Beckel detected a cooperative mood during
a three-hour private dinner over ribs with Jackson in Kansas City
Monday night, and after the two candidates met for two hours the
next day, they sounded warily friendly. Jackson handed Mondale a
list of black and Hispanic women, who, he said, should be
considered as potential Vice Presidents. More substantive,
Jackson pledged that "together we will prevail in November" and
even conceded that runoff primaries do not invariably
discriminate against black office seekers. That indicated that
Jackson might accept defeat gracefully on his minority planks and
concentrate his incandescent oratory at the convention, and
during the campaign, against Reagan.

     Some Jackson supporters continue to talk a hard line about
what Mondale must do to win their man's enthusiastic backing.
They say Jackson will demand that Mondale appoint key members of
Jackson's staff to top campaign posts, grant Jackson considerable
influence over how the party spends its voter-registration funds,
and give him a voice in appointments to the party commission that
will study changes in the rules for selecting Democratic
convention delegates in 1988. Above all, they say, Mondale must
make a public concession of some kind to Jackson adviser:
"Mondale better realize that in November, 50% of Jews are going
to vote Republican anyway." (In 1980, only 39% did so, and in
1976 only 34%.)

     Speaking to the N.A.A.C.P. last week, Mondale called
Jackson's campaign "a victory for all Americans." But he also
insisted to reporters that his private talk with Jackson in
Kansas City was a "discussion" and "not a negotiation,"
indicating that he wants to preserve some distance while still
enlisting Jackson's support-a delicate task indeed. For all
Jackson's unquestionable success at pulling black voters to the
polls, he turns off many white voters, and presumably some blacks
too, by inappropriate effusions like his praise for Fidel Castro
and the Nicaraguan Sandinistas on his Latin American tour two
weeks ago. Reagan last week foreshadowed the likely Republican
attack on such ventures by asserting in a TV interview: "There is
a law, the Logan Act, with regard to unauthorized personnel going
to other countries and in effect negotiating with foreign
governments." (Enacted in 1799 after a U.S. doctor, George Logan,
went to Paris to urge French officials to seek better relations
with the U.S. Only one person, Kentucky Farmer Francis Flournoy,
has ever been indicted under the act. He was charged in 1803 with
violating the law by advocating that a new nation allied with
France be created in the American west. The Louisiana Purchase
rendered the issue obsolete, and Flournoy was never brought to
trial.) Noting that Jackson had airily talked of following up his
success in winning release of some cuban prisoners by journeying
to the Soviet Union to talk about freedom for Dissident Physicist
Adrei Sakharov, the President said such a trip could complicate
"things that might be going on in quiet diplomacy channels."

     In the end, the avowed hope of Mondale aides for a "boring"
convention is unlikely to be fulfilled. Some suspense, certainly
over Jackson's role, is likely to linger until the opening bell
sounds, and probably beyond that point. Democrats being
Democrats, there will almost surely be enough spirited debate, if
not acrimonious division, to make interesting theater.

     It will take far more than a socko show in prime time,
however, to give Mondale much chance against Reagan in November.
Somehow he must simultaneously keep the support of his Jewish
backers, attract the votes of blacks, particularly the younger
ones who have been moved to register by Jackson, and appeal to
women who think it is time that one of the parties put a female
on the ticket. Even if he can perform that intricate balancing
act, he faces the unenviable task of campaigning at a time of
dropping unemployment, low inflation and no urgent foreign
crisis, against a President who has proved remarkably adroit at
claiming credit for all the visible successes and avoiding blame
for any of the policy failures. Even to shorten the odds, Mondale
must pull together in a united effort all the multiple
constituencies and showy personalities of his fractious party.
That is fitting enough. Such an effort, exercised in the nation
as a whole, goes by the name of presidential leadership.

-- George J. Church. Reported by Sam Allis/Washington and William
Stewart with Mondale.

----------------------------------------------------------------
July 16, 1984
NATION
A Party in Search of Itself

Still tethered to the past, the heirs of F.D.R. are groping for
the future


     The band will strike up Happy Days Are Here Again, the party
leaders will claps hands in the traditional victory salute.
Banners will wave, rhetoric will flow. When the Democrats meet
next week in San Francisco to nominate a ticket for the 1984
election, they will strive mightily to stage a tableau of unity
and shared purpose.

     The hoopla will be a facade. Even if Walter Mondale manages
to smooth over his rifts with Jesse Jackson and the feisty
women's movement, even if he somehow upsets Ronald Reagan in the
fall, deep divisions will remain within the party. The Democrats
are groping for a fresh identity and a modern agenda. They are
badly split between old New Dealers, as embodied by Mondale, and
a large and restless group of "new generation" Democrats,
championed vocally if so far unsuccessfully by Gary Hart. The
party is in the midst of a prolonged mid-life crisis, no longer
able to rely on the formulas of the past, not yet able to
articulate a clear vision of the future.

     The party's collective confusion is on display from the
campaign stump to Congress. Mondale preaches compassion, Hart
calls for "new ideas." Old liberals like Tip O'Neill support
massive jobs bills, while young reformers vote to freeze spending
on all domestic programs. Southern Democrats seek to contain
Communism in Central America, while northern Democrats look at El
Salvador and see Viet Nam. No center holds. "The party is
floundering because it lacks a vision of where it is going," says
Duke University Political Scientist James David Barber. "Where
there is no vision, the parties perish."

     For almost half a century, the Democratic Party derived its
power from what it could give away. It was the party of
benevolent Government, offering help for the disadvantaged and
services for everyone. "In the postwar era," observes Harvard
Political Economist Robert Reich, "it was possible to dispense
(Government largesse) and pump (the economy) at the same time."
but in the '70s and '80s, the demand for Government goodies began
to outstrip the growth of the economy. Lyndon Johnson, and by
extension the Democratic Party, was wrong: the U.S. was not "an
endless cornucopia."

     With this rude awakening, the Government bureaucracy came to
be seen as inflated and wasteful. The Viet Nam War made the U.S.
seem weak abroad. Then Watergate soiled the presidency. The
public began to lose faith in Government -- and in the Democrats'
activism.

     At the same time, paradoxically, the Democrats fell victim
to their accumulated success. "The New Deal and Great Society
programs worked a lot better than people think," says Democratic
Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas. "A lot of people left poverty
and joined the middle class. We lost a lot of traditional
coalition democrats in the process." Says former Senator Adlai
Stevenson III of Illinois: "We cannot win any more with just the
old core constituencies. There aren't enough of them. They've
moved on."

     The party, to be sure, is far from moribund. Some 43% of all
voters still call themselves Democrats, only 30% Republicans and
27% Independents. The Democrats have a majority in the house and
hold 35 of 50 governorships. But to recapture the presidency and
to control the national debate, the party will have to appeal to
the middle class, particularly the so-called Yuppies, the baby-
boom generation. This requires a more hardheaded approach to
economic problems, which in turn risks alienating the party's
traditional supporters. "Defining the role of Government is the
central philosophical dilemma Democrats have to confront," says
Tennessee Congressman Albert Gore.

     Historically, Democrats won by embracing disparate and even
warring factions. The New Deal coalition included urban ethnics,
Southern Protestants, dirt farmers, Jewish intellectuals,
illiterate coal miners, poor blacks and virulent racists.
Improbably, they rallied behind a Groton-and Harvard-educated
polio victim with a patrician accent.

     What Franklin D. Roosevelt was able to offer was hope: hope
of an end to the breadlines and dust bowls of the Great
Depression, hope of prosperity for all. This prosperity would not
come the old Republican way, by letting the free market create
wealth that might then trickle down to the lower classes. It
would come instead by using Government to create jobs. Through a
host of alphabet agencies -- the NRA, the CCC, the WPA -- the New
Deal pumped money into the economy, artificially creating demand
for goods and services. It took World War II to really spur
production and cure the Depression, but by then F.D.R. had won a
victory of the spirit. His programs attacked not only poverty but
helplessness. The poor and dispossessed began to feel that
Government was their protector.

     L.B.J.'s Great Society gave the welfare state a mighty push.
In the 1960s, benefit checks began to flow out of Washington in a
stream that soon became a torrent: a nationwide food-stamp
program, rent supplements for the poor, scholarships for college
students, federal grants for the arts, Medicare, Medicaid, higher
pensions for federal employees and veterans, subsidized low-
income housing, aid to handicapped children. Despite Johnson's
intention to help the helpless, middle -- and even upper-income
groups climbed aboard.

     As interest groups proliferated, they jostled each other at
the federal trough. Blacks, women, the handicapped, the elderly,
all demanded more of "their share." The established groups,
particularly labor, tried to pull up the social ladder behind
them, protecting high wages and benefits. The $12-an-hour white
construction worker bitterly resented welfare "handouts" to
unmarried black mothers. He feared affirmative-action quotas that
threatened his job security. He worried about taxes, crime and
mortgage rates. He believed that Government largesse was eroding
America's self-reliance, American independence. These were
middle-class concerns -- Republican concerns.

     A demographic sea change was under way, and the Republicans
exploited it. They tailored their campaign techniques to voters
who were more affluent and mobile than those in the past.
Television allowed candidates to reach into the home, bypassing
cumbersome and outdated political machines. The message had to be
short and simple, conveyed in a 30-second spot. In 1980 the
Republicans were able to out-spend the Democrats $152 million to
$98 million, and their television ads were particularly
effective. One of the meanest showed a Tip O'Neill look-alike
driving a long black Lincoln Continental that ran out of gas.

     Ronald Reagan, as a result, was able to steal a march into
Democratic territory. He won away urban ethnics from their
Democratic ward leaders, white Protestants from the once solidly
Democratic South, and even union workers disaffected from their
labor bosses. In 1980 fully 43% of union workers and 26% of
registered Democrats voted Republican.

     Reagan's most effective pitch was simply to run against
Government. "Government is not the solution to our problem," he
would tell voters. "Government is the problem." remarkably,
Reagan is still able to make this case, even though he now runs
the Government.

     He also managed to lay claim to the issue of patriotism,
radiating a sunny assurance about America's future even as Jimmy
Carter brooded about the malaise that, as he saw it, was gripping
the country. "We let them have the high ground," concedes
Democratic Congressman James Shannon of Massachusetts. "The
Republicans became the flag wavers, the protectors of American
values." The G.O.P. succeeded in casting itself as the party of
optimism. The Democrats, once the party of the future, became the
party of pessimism and stagnation.

     Mondale, to his political detriment, is the consummate
symbol of Democratic traditionalism. To a large extent, he
retains his faith in the efficacy of Government. He often
approaches great national issues not with overarching vision, but
like a train conductor punching tickets. On education, he heeded
the teachers' union opposition to merit pay, and promised instead
more pay for all teachers. On foreign trade, he rejected warnings
of a trade war and endorsed a protectionist bill backed by the
autoworkers' union that would save their jobs but raise prices of
consumers. The huge federal deficit -- Reagan's federal deficit --
has limited Mondale's generosity somewhat, but Mondale has been
unwilling to suggest major cuts in entitlement programs.

     Mondale's aides argue that their man cannot win by trying to
sound like a Republican in Democrat's clothes, preaching belt
tightening and less Government. They point out that anti-
Government feelings are not as clear-cut as public opinion polls
seem to suggest. While many Americans are against Government in
principle -- a 1983 survey showed that a majority believe
Government to be "the biggest threat to the country" -- few are
willing to give up what it bestows on them. Says Chicago Political
Consultant Don Rose: "Everybody is against Government, but all
are in favor of what Government does."

     The key to victory, Mondale's advisers believe, lies largely
in energizing the party's traditional base: the poor, the
elderly, union members, minorities. The Mondale camp points to
the 11 million black and Hispanic voters and the millions more
who are not registered. Blacks have traditionally been loyal
Democrats, but Jesse Jackson has touched a strong streak of
restiveness. These groups may not vote for Reagan, but they may
not vote at all if the Democrats ignore their needs. If the party
can meet its goal of registering 3 million blacks and Hispanics,
Mondale's aides say, "Populist Fritz" can win in the fall -- as
long as there is not a correspondingly large white backlash.

     Mondale's interest-group politics makes many nontraditional
Democrats cringe. "A winning party has to have a vision and a
message," says Gerald Rafshoon, former media adviser to Jimmy
Carter. "Mondale's message is Hubert Humphrey." The emerging
neoliberal wing of the party believes that the days of Big
Government are over. Says Senator Christopher Dodd of
Connecticut: "Ronald Reagan has convinced people that the
Democrats think Government is 'the' solution. The new Democrats
operate on the assumption that Government is 'a' solution."

     Pragmatism is the cornerstone of the new movement. While
many of its disciples dislike being pigeonholed as neoliberals,
they share a conviction that Government programs must be
carefully reviewed to weed out those that do not work. Says
Charles Peters, editor of the Washington Monthly and one of
neoliberalism's gurus: "Liberals have automatically defended
Government without scrutinizing whether it actually delivers the
mail or builds a good tank."

     The cool rationalism of such an approach is well suited to
its purveyors. Those who articulate it best -- like Congressmen
Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Timothy Wirth of Colorado and
Senators Bill Bradley of New Jersey and Dodd of Connecticut --
tend to share a generational outlook. They are the post-Viet Nam
generation, liberal but nondogmatic. They are products of the
television age: their regional accents have been smoothed and
diluted, their dress is subdued, their ambition is high. They
eschew the flamboyant rhetoric of old pols like Senate Minority
Leader Robert Byrd and House Majority Leader James Wright of
Texas, preferring a more measured and sometimes sardonic tone.
They even look alike, which is to say telegenic. Says Hart, their
most conspicuous spokesman: "Everyone in my generation is good on
television. If we weren't, we wouldn't have won."

     For all their obvious intelligence, however, it is not
always easy to know just what neoliberals stand for. Pragmatism
is a sound approach to governance, but it is not a clarion call.
Challenged to offer specific "new ideas," Hart would drone on
about individual training accounts for workers or the need for
smaller aircraft carriers. His high-tech notions were often
imaginative, but they benumbed voters.

     "Our problem is that we do not have a single, bumpersticker
solution. We're working through some pretty complicated notions,"
says Wirth. The arduous effort to sum up Government's proper role
can produce mush. "Government should be in where it should be and
out where it shouldn't be," earnestly intones Adlai Stevenson
III. Simple ideas may make for simplistic, even foolhardy
policies, but they help win elections. Reagan, for example, is
able to summarize Reaganism in four words: less Government, more
defense.

     Neoliberalism has a detached, bloodless quality. As the New
Republic columnist TRB notes, "'Neoliberal' can mean 'not very
liberal.' 'Rethinking' can be a code word for 'reneging.'" The
old New Dealers look at the young Turks and fear for the party's
soul. Says Paul Simon, a five-term Congressman from Illinois:
"The Democrats have to continue to be a party of heart and
compassion. If we neglect that, we have lost our reason for
existence."

     The new-generation Democrats say they are mindful of the
party's historic role. They do not want to rip any more holes in
the "safety net" for the poor. They want to spend billions on
education and on rebuilding the nation's decaying roads, bridges
and dams.

     But how do they aim to do that and still reduce the nation's
almost $200 billion-a-year deficits? The neoliberal answer is
economic growth -- quite a shift from the gloomy "limits to
growth" notions purveyed by the Club of Rome in the early 1970s
and eagerly endorsed by many liberals. "We have spent the past 50
years worrying about the distribution of golden eggs," says
Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, a leading neoliberal
thinker. "It is now time to worry about the health of the goose."
Economic growth, of course, is the same answer Reagan offered
when asked how he planned to reduce taxes, balance the budget and
build up the military, all at once. Reagan's solution was supply-
side economics.

     The Democrats have no strategy that can be reduced to such a
catchy phrase. Indeed, it remains uncertain whether they have a
plan that will work any better. And even if they did, they would
face a formidable public relations problem. "People don't believe
the Democrats know how to run the economy," admits Tsongas.
"We've got to break out of that."

     There is a general rubric for what the Democrats envision,
though they shy from using it in public. It is called "industrial
policy." Neoliberal economic thinkers such as Lester Thurow,
economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
and Investment Banker Felix Rohatyn argue that Government should
help economic winners and let losers fend for themselves. The
government would stimulate, with tax breaks and loans, what the
U.S. economy does best-- design computers and provide services.
Heavy industry would be largely left to developing countries,
where labor is cheap. But even when dressed up in jargon
("sunrise" and "sunset" industries), industrial policy sounds
brutally Darwinian to regions already in deep twilight, like the
Ohio River valley. It also sounds like central planning. Like,
say, France. Like, er, socialism.

     This is not at all a message that the new Democrats want to
send. They want to espouse less Government, not more. Protests
Neoliberal Wirth: "The fact is, we already have an industrial
policy. we already spend $300 billion in subsidies to industry,
but it's a crazy quilt of patchwork policies. The Republicans say
get rid of it. We say that's absurd. We say don't get rid of it,
rationalize it."

     A sound industrial policy, the Democratic thinker hasten to
add, would not impose Government's will on business, merely offer
assistance. Cooperation is a word frequently heard these days in
Democratic think tanks. The model is Japan. In Japan, business,
government and even labor all seem to work together for the
common good, instead of sparring constantly as they do in the
U.S.

     But this model is less than a perfect one for the U.S.
Japan's success may have more to do with the homogeneity and work
ethic of Japanese society than with the wisdom of its Ministry of
International Trade and Industry. (Actually, the Japanese and the
neoliberals seem to be going in circles: lately, delegations of
Japanese businessmen have been poking around Silicon Valley,
trying to learn about good old-fashioned American
entrepreneurialism. And competition among factories in Japan is
often fierce.) Somehow the Japanese vision of happy workers,
loyally singing company songs as they program their robots, is
hard to imagine in a Detroit auto plant.

     Gary Hart likes to say that if he is elected President, he
will assemble management, labor and finance leaders of "key"
industries such as steel and autos at the White House, where they
will jawbone out a deal under Government guidance. Labor would
make concessions in wage demands in return for job guarantees,
business would promise to reinvest in new equipment in exchange
for Government-backed loan,s and so forth. It is an interesting
idea, until one recalls the exhausting battles that invariably
surround a single corporate bailout, such as that of Lockheed or
Chrysler Corp. Moreover, an industrial recovery and reinvestment
bill could easily become a hopeless pork barrel by the time
lobbyists and horse-trading Congressmen finish with it. Such
outcomes trouble many new-generation Democrats. "I am not sure
American respond well to economic plans with a capital P," says
Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.

     One increasingly popular Democratic idea would reform, in a
massive way; the complexities and inequities of the tax code. The
Bradley-Gephardt tax reform bill would eliminate all but the most
basic deductions (home mortgages, charity, payments to retirement
plans) and offer instead reduced yet still graduated tax rates of
14% to 30%. "It would allow Democrats to argue for economic
growth through lower tax rates and fairness through closing
loopholes, and it would raise an additional $25 billion to $30
billion over three years," declares Senator Bradley.

     The catch-22 of Bradley-Gephardt is that it completely
undercuts the Democrats' chief vehicle of industrial policy. Most
Democratic thinkers want to use tax incentives and penalties as
Government's lever to transform the economy. It is more efficient
to fine-tune the economy through the tax code than by subsidies
to specific industries. This inevitably leads to a more
complicated tax structure, not a simpler one. Asked to reconcile
the apparent contradiction, Massachusetts Congressman Shannon
shrugged, "You can't."

     The Democrats need a persuasive economic program soon if
they are to win over the baby-boom generation. Already, 43% of
the voting-age population was born between 1946 and 1964. By
rallying behind Hart in the primaries, younger voters, especially
the better-educated, better-off Yuppies, served notice that they
are ready to exercise their political clout. Says Republican
Consultant Eddie Mahe: "Whoever finds the key to that group is a
long way down the road to dominating the political scene for the
next 30 to 40 years."

     Hart's pollster, Patrick Caddell, ominously warns that
Mondale's old-fashioned politics may drive the group into the
Republican camp. "The Democrats are engaged in a march of folly,"
he says. "They are ignoring the key demographic battleground."
Though the Democrats have traditionally been the party of youth,
says Caddell, "we are losing them -- perhaps for good."

     Mondale's pollster, Peter Hart, is predictably less
apocalyptic. While he concedes that "younger voters are
expressing Republican sentiments as never before," he insists
that they remain on the fence. Their economic beliefs, he says,
are "closer to the Republicans'." But they are closer to the
Democrats in their social attitudes -- generally pro-choice on
abortion, pro-Equal Rights Amendment and pro-environment. Says a
Democratic insider: "Yuppies give off emanations of 'screw the
poor,' but they can't permanently fit in a party that also
contains the Moral Majority. They just can't."

     The Democrats' positions on foreign policy and defense also
appeal to younger voters. Most do not want to weaken U.S.
defense, but neither do they want to give carte blanche to the
Pentagon's wish list of new weapons systems. Mondale's defense
approach -- about 5% real growth this year, compared with 13%
originally proposed by Reagan, and no funds for the MX missile
and B-1 bomber -- seems sound to them.

     Many Democrats share the skepticism of the post-Viet Nam
generation about U.S. intervention abroad. Reagan's willingness
to commit U.S. troops and his past bellicosity toward the Soviet
Union have created opportunities for the Democrats. Women,
particularly, are worried about the "war-peace" issue; Democrats
expect to profit from the gender gap. By pressing hard for a
resumption of arms-control talks, Democrats stand to win the
substantial nuclear-freeze vote. "Reagan has gone off so far on
the right that he has ceded the center," says Democratic
Congressman Leon Panetta of California. "He draws Democrats
together to develop a more rational policy."

     Perhaps, but the elements of that "rational policy" remain
murky. The Democrats can sometimes agree on what not to do: do
not overthrown the government of Nicaragua, do not call the
Soviets "an evil empire," do not leave troops in Lebanon. But
there is less agreement on what to do about the Soviet threat or
the Middle East or Central America. Old scars of the bitter
battles between Democratic hawks and doves of the Viet Nam era
remain. Advocates of a nuclear freeze, for example, are impatient
with the old Democratic foreign policy Establishment, which
advocates a more sensible, step-by-step approach to arms control.
The Democratic approach to foreign affairs these days is more a
response to specific events than a policy.

     This is true in a general sense as well. The Democrats seem
unable to hit common themes that could rally their diverse
constituencies behind a single standard. Perhaps that is because
they do not have a commanding figure to synthesize and shape the
varied ideas germinating within their ranks. Indeed, the party's
search for itself is also a search for a unifying leader.

     America's watershed elections have revolved around
charismatic figures. In 1832 Andrew Jackson made the Democrats a
true "people's party." In 1932, it was Franklin D. Roosevelt and
the New Deal. Unless the Democrats find a way to head it off,
1980 may be similarly remembered for launching the Reagan
Revolution.

     F.D.R.'s strength was that he was able to adapt and change
his policies to fit the times. He initially pushed for a balanced
budget; his conversion to Keynesian economics came only later,
during his second term. But even while casting about for a
solution, Roosevelt used his "fireside Chats" to reach across
class and regional lines, to make people identify with larger
aims and give them a sense of nation. Television, of course, is
an even more powerful medium, as Reagan has shown. Sadly for the
Democrats, Mondale is diminished by the tube, not enhanced.

     For all their talk of growth, realistic Democrats know that
sacrifices will have to be made to bring the federal deficit
under control. Specifically, middle-class entitlement will have
to be cut. "Since the Democratic Party built up these systems,"
says Colorado Governor Richard Lamn, "it should take the lead in
reforming them." While few are ready to say it in public, many
neoliberals believe that some kind of means test should be
applied to Social Security to cut out the well-to-do. Says
Panetta: "We cannot just play pork-barrel politics with the
nation. We are going to have to tell some people that they can't
have all they want. Talking about sacrifice is not something
politicians like to do, but I think the country is prepared for
that kind of leadership."

     Up to now, demanding sacrifice has not been Mondale's style.
Quite the contrary. Historian and Democratic Activist Arthur
Schelsinger Jr. says that Mondale is a practitioner of the
Minnesota school of politics: "Don't disappoint anyone in the
audience in front of you." Mondale could, of course, shift his
tack before November. Indeed, to run credibly against Reagan on
the deficit issue, he will have to show that he can say no,
preferably to a union. It is hard to imagine Mondale changing in
any dramatic way. "What you see is what you get," he likes to
tell voters. Still, Mondale proved himself a resilient, clever
campaigner against Hart; he may yet show some vision.

     To many Democrats, the party's best hope is its next
generation of leaders. "The entire stable of potential candidates
for 1988 comes from the new Democratic group of politicians,"
says Tsongas. Overall, they are impressive and attractive. So
far, they have shown a willingness to buck special-interest
groups -- though the political price they have had to pay is much
less than it would be in a presidential race. Bradley, Dodd and
Joseph Biden of Delaware lead the new-generation Democrats in the
Senate. In the House, Gore, Gephardt, Panetta and Wirth all hold
promise as national politicians. Many young Democratic Governors
have already had to face up to budget deficits. A number of them,
including Dukakis, Lamm, Bruce Babbitt of Arizona, Richard
Celeste of Ohio, James Hunt of North Carolina and Robert Graham
of Florida, could make the step up onto the national stage.
Governor Mario Cuomo of New York has the ability to stand for
values now claimed by the Republicans: family, neighborhood and
love of country. Like the others, he has yet to articulate a
succinct vision for the future, but he has been able to make
Government sound like the common man's friend, indeed his
indispensable ally.

     Unlike in Europe, where campaigns are driven by polemics,
American presidential elections usually turn on personality and
performance in office. Right now President Reagan is riding high.
The economy, especially, is going his way: last week the
unemployment rate dropped four-tenths of a point, to 7.1%. Still,
a world debt crisis, a foreign misadventure or a health problem
could retire him to his ranch. "If there is enough
dissatisfaction with the 'ins,' you don't need a vision," says
Political Scientist Norman Ornstein of Catholic University. "You
just need to be there to pick up the pieces."

     Yet even if Walter Mondale did win, it would probably be the
last hurrah for oldstyle liberalism. In a given election,
American voters are apt to worry less about ideas than results.
But to retain lasting influence, the party will have to frame a
new set of governing principles, a coherent plan to meet changing
times. The Democrats must find not only a voice but a new
identity.

-- By Evan Thomas. Reported by Sam Allis/Washington, Richard
Hornik/Boston and Christopher Ogden/Chicago.