campaign. In some respects, even the fact there are no pressing issues today, in some
respects the candidates look fairly similar despite the efforts of Bush and Dukakis to
separate themselves on some issues. In the media, the way newspapers and television have
been interpreting the poll results for them is that it is over. How many weeks have we
been hearing now about the Republican electoral college lock and what now has this nasty mudslinging
name-calling race enters the home stretch? Both candidates have a new strategy to win
the hearts and minds of Main Street America, the battle of the network nice guys. Bush
calling for a gentler, kinder America and Dukakis playing the populist underdog proud
to stand up as a liberal. Other political analysts say television is hardly to blame
for voter apathy. In fact, lower voter turnout at the polls has been the trend since John
Kennedy's victory in 1960. And when all is said and done, people actually do vote on
the issues. If George Bush appears to be ahead in the polls right now, they say the lesson
in history is that no incumbent party has ever lost a race for the White House on a
program of peace and prosperity. For IONN Magazine in New York, I'm Barry Cunningham.
While many voters have endorsed Michael Dukakis, it is called the 1988 campaign sour, superficial,
misleading. And the Washington Post shocked many this week when it said it wasn't endorsing
either candidate, claiming that neither was fit for the job. Joining us for a pre-election
look at this unusual campaign, we're delighted to have with us Norman Ornstein. Dr. Ornstein
is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Listed
in Who's Who in America, Mr. Ornstein has authored many books, including The American
Elections of 1982. In Washington, we have two correspondents who have been on the political
front lines. Eleanor Clift is a political correspondent for Newsweek Magazine, and she's
been covering the Dukakis campaign. Alessandra Stanley is a political correspondent for Time
Magazine, who has been covering the Bush campaign. Norman, it seems to be a sad commentary when
the newspaper like the Washington Post says that this election, this campaign is a national
disappointment and abstains from endorsing either candidate. How do you account for it?
Well, I'm a little disappointed at the Post. I think it's the obligation for a newspaper
to come up with a choice to inform its voters, even if it doesn't like the candidates. And
even if many of us have believed for a long time that this campaign was the evil of two
lessers, that's probably not a good way out. But it's quite clear that the American people
generally go along with that notion. They don't like either candidate. They decided
probably a few weeks ago that George Bush barely passed that threshold where he was
an acceptable choice. They had not decided that Michael Dukakis is, and that's been the
upshot of this race for several weeks now. The Post is more or less echoing the sentiments
of the electorate. Yeah, and almost every editorial out there is, we'll hold our nose
and support this guy or the other guy. Turning to Washington, Alessandra and Eleanor, you've
been on the front lines. Why is George Bush winning? Whatever happened to the Dukakis
lead? And is it that the Republicans are better at packaging and the Bush team is more experienced,
as Newsweek argues? Or is it because Bush is more likable than Dukakis, the nice man
versus the ice man, as a time essay suggests? Eleanor? Well, I think all of the above. I
think that George Bush defined Michael Dukakis as a far out liberal before Dukakis left his
living room in Brookline. And I think after eight years of Ronald Reagan and sort of a
love affair with this president who seemed like Clint Eastwood in the White House, that
we had, we wanted to like this next president, we the electorate. And I think for the first
time, likability and passion became campaign issues. And in the absence of any overriding
other issues, the election seems to really be turning on these kinds of issues, plus
the value, the emotionally charged value issues, the Pledge of Allegiance, the prison furlough,
things that really are not presidential level issues, but that hit the hot buttons in the
American electorate. Alessandra? No, I agree, actually. But I think we also have to remember
that one of the reasons that nobody really seems to like these candidates very much is
that we know them a little too well. I mean, if it's true that familiarity breeds contempt,
we've been watching all these candidates very, very close up for almost two years now. And
these people have been pilloried in analyst profiles in my magazine and in the Eleanor's
and on television for every flaw, political, ideological, personal, even the most idiomatic
and small touches. So I think it's very hard for people to look at these people as men
of stature. But I think the process adds to that contempt. It's not just these two individuals.
Let's pursue that. You say you think the electorate has gotten to know them too well. Is that
true or is it that the electorate has got to know them through the commercials each candidate
has been running? Let's look at that and the political process when INN Magazine continues.
To me, investing is a lifelong proposition. Whether you're 25 or 55, whatever your individual
goals are.
To cure out the candidates, have we seen the real image or is that image only what we've
seen in the limited span of the 30-second sound bites and the commercials each is running
out of the other?
Well, I think Alisenter has a very good point. We've watched these candidates for a long
time through a drawn out primary process. Well, the goal is with a lot of candidates
to win or the other guy out. And so we've blasted these candidates. Bob Dole started
it with George Bush in Iowa. Others started it with Michael Dukakis early. By the time
they do get to the general election campaign, we've seen all the warts. And then the general
election campaign these days, especially with no incumbent running, is going to be more
negative and we have a public predisposed to believe negative things because they think
all politicians are bad. Having said that though, I think these guys do have flaws that
are deeper than we've seen in other politicians. Other politicians, if they were candidates,
would be out there. We would see their flaws too, whether it be Mario Cuomo or Bob Dole.
George Bush's choice of Dan Quayle shook the American people. It clearly continues to shake
them. He did that. Commercials didn't do that. The performance of the candidates in
the debates, including Michael Dukakis in the second debate, shook people about whether
he was a leader and a fighter. Commercials have reinforced things, but flaws and doubts
that we see about these candidates to some degree are real.
Flaws are there, yet George Bush is still in the lead.
Well somebody's going to be in the lead here. And it was clear from the beginning when we
did have peace and prosperity that there would be a benefit of the doubt given to the incumbent
party. The fact that it stayed relatively close, given the nature of the times, given
the fact that Bush did not have to struggle to win that nomination the way many people
thought he would, is some testament to the uneasiness that people have. And of course
all of our surveys suggest that even though a majority has favored Bush for a long time,
half of that vote or more is soft. There are people who would move very quickly if they
thought they had a better alternative. They don't.
Now Alessandra, George Bush, through his aggressiveness on the campaign trail and the negative advertising,
has succeeded in changing that wimp image he had. You have observed firsthand the metamorphosis?
Sure, and actually it's been quite extraordinary when you try to remember what it was like
in the fall of 87, a year ago, when he was a figure of ridicule. He has come back and
it has been through a couple of things. It's certainly been through the negative advertising
and tearing down Michael Dukakis. At the same time, he's, with the help of Roger Ells, his
media advisor, of course, and his speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, he's done a very good job of
taking his personality defects, the awkwardness, the gawkiness, and trying to turn it into
an advantage, sort of trying to create a Gary Cooper and high noon persona that probably
hasn't convinced all the people, but has certainly gotten him over the rough spots. He is no
longer the figure of ridicule. Unfortunately, his running mate Dan Quayle is.
Ellar, you've been watching Michael Dukakis. He's accused of being cold and passionless,
and he hasn't really succeeded in fighting back his image crisis. Where has he gone wrong?
What are the problems there that you've observed?
Well, I think a large chunk of Michael Dukakis' campaign strategy was that George Bush would
self-destruct, and I think he entered the fall campaign thinking the Vice President
would make the enormous gaffe out there on the campaign trail, and he, Michael Dukakis,
could just coast through the election the way he did through the primaries. Well, obviously,
that didn't happen, and I think he also completely misread these emotional issues. He thought
they didn't matter. His impulse was to just turn the other cheek, and a smear or a charge
that's unanswered becomes a truth, and in the last few days, he's begun fighting back,
but it sure looks like too little too late.
We hear from so many voters, Norman, that is this the best that we have to offer? Has
the system failed us? What has gone wrong here?
Well, I think we have to give serious thought to the nature of our nominating process. It's
too long in one sense. It goes on for years. It's too short in another. We compress the
actual decision-making into a very limited period of time. We went around people before
we really carefully thought it through, and we also emphasize skills that work through
primaries that don't work particularly well in general election campaigns and skills that
work in getting nominated and elected that aren't particularly good in governing. I'm
not sure what we can do. Every time we reform, we seem to make it worse, and it's also clear,
getting back to a point that Alessandra made earlier, that if some of these people who
we now view as being very positive had come forward and run, we wouldn't view them quite
so positively. We think they're wonderful when they have the lack of burning ambition,
but once they announce, we treat them differently. There are, however, better people out there,
I think, and some of them, in fact, did run and didn't make it through, which has something
to do with the nature of the process. We've got to seriously think that through, and my
guess is that while George Bush has tried to portray himself as Gary Cooper, he's looked
a little bit more like Ralph Bellamy in some of those two-ball comedies. If it turns out
to be that way in governing, we are going to see some serious thinking, although some
of it may turn out to be more of a bloodbath in the not-way party.
Wouldn't it be better off going back to the days of those smoke-filled rooms when the
political power brokers would pick the candidates?
If I had my brothers, we would increase the number of superdelegates of party and elected
officials who play a serious role here, up to at least 25 or 30 percent. But the trend
after Michael Dukakis made a deal with Jesse Jackson at the Democratic convention is to
move it back down again, to give more of a role to the issue activists out there. That's
not moving in the right direction.
Alessandra Eleanor, is the media to blame for this so-called no-issue campaign? Have
we not asked the right questions?
Well, I think we're too much hostages to the photo op, and we've let the candidates set
the tone, instead of going off on our own and really probing the issues. But I'd like
to go back to something Norman Alessandra said. We bemoan the defaults of the Democratic
candidate, primarily, this sense that George Bush was the weakest candidate in a long time
and that he could have been overtaken. But I think we should mention Ronald Reagan, and
he leaves office as the most popular president in a long time. George Bush is his direct
and immediate heir, and it really is, by a lot of measures, the logical thing for the
electorate to do to stick with the party that has brought relative peace and tranquility.
So I see this, we're entering actually the ninth year of the Reagan administration with
George Bush.
Want to pick up on that Norman?
Well, with the junior partner. Certainly, that is a logical extension. We didn't do
that in 1960 when we had the logical successor to Dwight Eisenhower with a more energetic
Democratic campaign. And I think this one could have turned out differently, it would
have been close, but it could have turned out very differently had there been a more
energetic Democratic campaign.
How does the quail factor enter into this election?
There's no doubt in my mind it's kept this election closer than it would otherwise be.
It has been the most serious flaw in the Bush campaign and candidacy. But as Eleanor says,
and it's no doubt true, we have a public out there that has appreciated the peace and prosperity
that we have. Far more than a majority believe that we are in good times and are likely to
continue them, and they see it as safer to pick George Bush to do those things, but with
some very great misgivings.
You should put in a word for Dan Quayle. While he may be a drag on the ticket now, perversely,
he was of great help to George Bush for a while there. He let George Bush look like
the strong dominant figure protecting, standing by his man on the ticket. And there was a
bit of a media backlash there for sort of overkill on Quayle.
Okay, let's hold on that thought for a moment and we'll continue this discussion of Campaign
1988, the final chapter, as INN Magazine continues. Stay with us.
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Eleanor and Alessandra, recently the candidates seem to have been distancing themselves from
the reporters traveling with them, but you've been with them for quite a while. Have you
managed to get a sense of the men beneath the bubble, maybe to give us an insight into
these people that we have not seen?
Well, the insight on Michael Dukakis is about a quarter of an inch deep. I remember one
television cameraman said that looking at Michael Dukakis through the lens, he was still
waiting for the second expression. The most revealing of himself I've seen Dukakis was
the weekend after the second debate, which was obviously the low point in his campaign,
and he was fighting a sore throat. He came back and talked to the press on every leg
of the trip, insisting that there was still three weeks left at that point, and he could
still come back. And he defended his answer about the question of his wife being raped
and murdered, saying that he didn't regret his answer, he didn't regret the question.
Yet his wife came back and she was just fuming about it and thought it was outrageous. And
she has no problem showing emotion. And he, in private, is the same as he is in public.
He's totally one-dimensional.
What about Vice President Bush, Alessandra?
I think we have to add an extra dimension. It is true that Bush can be quite charming,
especially one-on-one or with a group, but I'm always struck actually by how thin-skinned
he really is. I mean, he's been saying now for months that he doesn't care about criticism
anymore, he's learned to overcome it, he'll never get ulcers again. But in fact, even
after the debate, when he's in private and he's just talking sort of on background with
the reporters or just kidding around, he really gets very angry about people who criticize
him and he talks about the liberal media and the establishment. He rails against the same
people that conservatives dislike, but conservatives do it about issues, about the Panama Canal
or abortion or whatever. With George Bush, it's always quite personal, they attack me.
And that's what fuels his right-wing anger. And it's interesting to watch. It's something
we're going to be seeing, I'm sure, much more if he does get into the White House.
Mr. Norman, they've been following the candidates and they've watched them up close. You've
watched what the reporters have transmitted through the media. What is your perception?
This seems to be an election based a lot on perceptions.
Well, it's certainly based a lot on perceptions. Frankly, I think one of the more disturbing
elements here is that both candidates have discovered that the way to run a campaign
in the modern era is to insulate yourself from the press as much as possible. If you
learn what the hot buttons are for television especially, you can get by without having
a lot of day-to-day contact. And if you do have a lot of day-to-day contact, as Mike
Dukakis discovered early on when he was holding press conferences and Bush was not, you'll
get creamed.
Add to that George Bush's unhappiness with the press, which is clearly there. He is extremely
thin-skinned. And my guess is we're in for another presidency which is very much stage
managed. Very few press conferences, a lot of helicopter sounds in the president saying
you can't hear what the reporters are asking. A lot of stage management and partly what
makes that disturbing is that no matter how much we see reporters anguishing over it,
they go along because it fits their needs.
Okay Norman, let's when we return, let's take a look and try and probe what might be expected
on Tuesday when INN Magazine continues. Don't go away.
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Keep going.
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a sigh of relief.
Norman, do you see any permanent damage as a result of all the negative campaigning?
We're going to continue to see negative campaigning for a long time. We're going to see more effective
counters to it the next time around. This is not added to, however, the ability of the
next president to get anything done. We're not going to see a mandate here. We're not
going to see an active presidency for a whole set of reasons. Dragging the campaign down
to this level is only one of them.
If George Bush wins on Tuesday, having resorted to the negative approach, what might that
tell us about a Bush presidency?
George Bush has not provided the concrete issue positions on sweeping issues that would
present a mandate. He's not going to have any pull on the ticket, and he's going to leave
a bitter taste in the mouths of Democrats in Congress. He's got a lot of work to do.
From your first-hand observations, Eleanor and Alessandra, what do you anticipate will
be happening on Tuesday?
Well, I expect it to be probably a mini-Bush blowout, but I think the Democratic Congress
will remain safely Democratic, and I think they're actually savoring the opportunity
to face a Bush administration because they think he's less ideological and more moderate
than Ronald Reagan, and he's easier to roll.
Alessandra?
I do think we're all going to wake up on Wednesday morning with a dreadful spiritual hangover.
I think we'll feel depressed by the election and depressed by what lies ahead, which is
one reason that Wall Street keeps predicting that James Baker will be chief of staff because
there's this desperate hope that things will get done anyway, or that the deficit will
be addressed, but I think the main thing will be depression the day after.
Despite all the negative advertising and campaigning, the issues in the end have finally come through,
have they not?
Well, they have come through to a degree, but the big ones have been basically passed
by by the candidates, the deficit especially. There is no big thing there for the President
to grab onto when we first start in 1989.
Well, thank you all so much. Our guest, Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, and in Washington, Eleanor Clift, political
correspondent for Newsweek, who's been covering the Dukakis campaign, and Alessandra Stanley,
political correspondent for Time, who's been covering the Bush campaign.
Next week, we'll look at the outcome of the election and how the new President will take
over the reins of power. Our guest will be former Attorney General Edwin Meese, who headed
President Reagan's transition team back in 1980.
Until next week, for INN Magazine, I'm Marvin Scott.