Entitled ”The Packaging of George Bush,” the television ad portrays a group of rumpled men cynically plotting the next move for the Republican presidential nominee`s campaign. At the end, the ad reads: ”They`d like to sell you a package. Wouldn`t you rather choose a president?”
The advertisement, shown on network TV this week, marks the newest twist in a 1988 contest that seems so far to have focused on the Pledge of Allegiance, a Panamanian dictator and a furlough program for convicts.
Now the candidates` ”handlers,” as they are called, are becoming an issue, with Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee, attacking Bush`s strategists in the ad for trying to manipulate voters much as advertisers attempt to influence consumers.
The commercials follow a spate of news stories comparing the candidates`
top advisers, with Bush`s tough, experienced team receiving higher praise than Dukakis` more inexperienced strategists. But another group of stories focused on several Bush campaign officials who helped plan strategy for President Reagan in 1984.
Based on ”Landslide,” a new book about Reagan`s presidency, the stories reported that the GOP advisers sat around and joked about machinations aimed more at selling a candidate than setting an agenda for governing.
In the Bush campaign, where handlers are widely thought to be invaluable, one campaign official questions how important they really are.
”I think a lot of handlers convince people they are more important than they are,” he said. ”Where they make a difference is around the edges.”
But he also said Bush was able to catch Dukakis in the polls and set the campaign agenda because the campaign`s top strategists have ”the discipline of experience” that helps them ”control the message.”
”There is no doubt that the biggest difference is experience,” said Thomas Griscom, former White House communications director for Reagan. ”And the Republicans have been both winners and losers, which is important because you learn where the pitfalls are.”
More Top Picks Best Counter Depth Refrigerators
The chairman of the Bush campaign is James Baker, former White House chief of staff, former treasury secretary, veteran of three other presidential campaigns-including Reagan`s in 1984-darling of Congress and the Washington press corps and, perhaps most important, friend of the candidate for 30 years. ”Baker has a relationship with Bush,” Griscom said. ”He knows how to say `no.` He also knows how to make things happen.”
”Baker has pulled the campaign together,” said Pete Teeley, Bush`s former spokesman and a longtime associate, who left the campaign before Baker arrived. ”It`s critically important that he has a grasp of organization needed to win a general election.”
Some revisionists wonder if Baker isn`t receiving too much credit, but even his detractors among Republican conservatives admit he is a skilled politician. For instance, when Bush stumbled during the presidential debate over whether women should be punished for having illegal abortions, Baker reacted by clarifying the vice president`s position the next morning.
Baker`s closest counterpart in the Dukakis campaign is John Sasso, recently returned from the political purgatory to which he was sent for providing an ”attack video” to reporters that helped knock Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware from the Democratic presidential race last year. Although his title is vice chairman, Sasso, who is like a brother to Dukakis, is running the campaign.
A shrewd veteran of Massachusetts politics, Sasso crafted the strategy that brought Dukakis back from political death in 1982, when he won the governor`s office that he had lost in 1978. Sasso also ran Geraldine Ferraro`s vice presidential campaign in 1984, receiving a baptism by fire in national politics when an uproar erupted over the candidate`s family finances.
Dukakis won the Democratic nomination by following a plan laid out by Sasso. But then the candidate faltered, seeming to lose direction. As soon as Sasso returned, the campaign toughened up, going on the attack with the one-liners beloved by television news producers and reacting quickly to challenges such as a Bush foray to Boston to claim a police union endorsement. The other top Bush advisers also are veterans of presidential campaigns going back to 1968. Since then, the Republicans have lost only once, in 1976, and Gerald Ford almost won that election after coming from 30 points behind with Baker running his campaign.
Bush`s senior strategists include pollster Robert Teeter, who has been involved at a high level in four other national general elections; Roger Ailes, the media man who has been in two other campaigns; and Lee Atwater, the manager who has helped run two earlier presidential races.
Ailes is credited with helping Bush transform his speaking style from high-pitched and arm-waving to the more relaxed and comfortable presence the vice president exhibited at the Republican National Convention and has used on the stump.
Ailes also is known as a master of negative campaigning and has used his skills to try to define Dukakis as a liberal who does not share the values of mainstream America.
Atwater, a specialist in Southern politics, is known as a ”street fighter,” though, as Teeley said, ”everybody`s a street fighter in this business.”
Another top strategist for the Republicans is Stuart Spencer, though he has spent most of the campaign dealing with vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle. A veteran of three other national campaigns, Spencer is a longtime adviser to Reagan.
Top Dukakis campaign officials are Susan Estrich, who retains the title of campaign manager that she was given when she replaced Sasso last year, and Paul Brountas, the campaign chairman, Dukakis` old friend and former classmate. Both have worked in one national campaign before.
Estrich is a Harvard law professor considered good on issues. Though campaign workers claim she is more than capable, her major problem is that Dukakis doesn`t listen to her.
When the campaign was in the doldrums, Estrich was pushing Dukakis to attack Bush, but he became stubborn and insisted he would campaign on more abstract issues, as he did during the primaries. Sasso`s return changed that, Dukakis started hitting back and his poll numbers climbed.
Other key strategists for Dukakis are Kirk O`Donnell, a top aide to former House Speaker Thomas ”Tip” O`Neill; Jack Corrigan, political director, whose reputation is built on campaign street smarts; and Thomas Kiley of the Boston polling firm Marttila and Kiley.