The Presidential Campaign

Earlier Bush bids still echoing

For both sides, the 1988 and 1992 campaigns of the president's father have lessons to be learned and warnings to be heeded.

WASHINGTON - Republican highlight reels never show much footage from the Bush-Quayle campaign of 1992, when the economy was sour and President George Bush seemed so out of touch that he was mystified by a supermarket scanner.

And the last attempt by a Massachusetts Democrat to win the White House, back in 1988, has become a case study in how to lose an election, as Gov. Michael Dukakis was portrayed as a weak and wishy-washy liberal.

With barely two months before the presidential election of 2004, the campaigns of Republican President Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry are haunted by past campaigns involving the president's father, George Bush.

But while the current Bush camp is obsessed with avoiding the elder's mistakes, addressing them almost point by point, the Kerry campaign seems oblivious to some of the biggest lessons of Dukakis.

Back in 1992, the Bush campaign was disorganized, sluggish and slow to respond to the ailing economy. Democrats successfully portrayed Bush as American aristocracy, out of touch with the concerns of ordinary folk.

Today, we see different images of his son, George W. Bush. He clears brush at his Texas ranch. He shares a meal with New York firefighters. He frets over world affairs at the dinner table.

"There's no question (chief political adviser) Karl Rove and his whole team have gone to school on the errors of Bush I," said Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo.

Back in 1988, the Dukakis campaign was slow to respond to attacks on his character and leadership, and unable to define what he stood for. Bush happily did it for him. His comfortable lead evaporated.

Now critics say Kerry has fallen into the same trap, ignoring Republican attacks on his service in Vietnam for too long, constantly defending his statements and positions, and failing to articulate his vision for America. Recent polls show Bush leading Kerry for the first time.

"He's a more vigorous version of Dukakis, and that's not enough," said Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University. "On the big things, he's falling into the Dukakis mold, particularly his inability to define his vision, and to be bold and innovative and take the campaign to the opponent."

When the Bush-Quayle campaign concluded the Republican's 1992 convention in Houston, the economy was anemic.

The country was crawling out of a recession, but oil prices were high and hiring was still stagnant. Many voters thought Bush was indifferent. By contrast, Democrat Bill Clinton's campaign taped a sign to a wall at headquarters, a reminder to stay focused: "It's the economy, stupid."

Dan Bartlett, a top White House aide today, said the first President Bush became complacent because advisers told him the economy was rebounding. Bartlett said one lesson of 1992 is, "Don't listen to the economists, listen to the people."

The current President Bush is doing just that. The economy is a centerpiece of his campaign, and Bartlett said he is "more sensitive to economic concerns because of '92." He visits factories and repeats the mantra that his tax cuts are helping the economy.

"The president always goes out of his way to acknowledge the economic difficulties that people have faced," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report in Washington. "He emphasizes his empathy and his sympathy."

The president's campaign is better organized than his father's, with a clear chain of command the elder Bush lacked and a message that never wanders: John Kerry is a flip-flopper. President Bush is resolute. The nation is safer under him than Kerry.

This year's Republican National Convention may have been held in glitzy New York City, but its message was all about the heartland.

A lineup of country music bands, gospel singers and moderate speakers was designed to sell the president as an ordinary guy. Home movies showed him clowning with his daughters, and first lady Laura Bush described how she met her husband at a backyard barbecue - personal touches missing from the Bush campaign of 1992. She also told how her husband fretted over whether to attack Iraq.

"I remember some very quiet nights at the dinner table," she said. "George was weighing grim scenarios and ominous intelligence about potentially even more devastating attacks."

When the the 1988 Democratic National Convention concluded in Atlanta, Dukakis and Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen enjoyed an 18-point lead over Vice President Bush. The Reagan administration had been sullied by the Iran-Contra scandal, and the federal deficit and debt had ballooned. Dukakis was seen as moderate, pragmatic and probusiness.

But Bush barnstormed the country as Dukakis mooned about in Boston, ostensibly tending to state business. Bush blasted him as a Northeastern liberal, exploiting Dukakis' support for gun control and opposition to capital punishment at a time when violent crime was a major national concern.

Dukakis hardly fought back, telling frustrated aides he preferred the high road. In one debate, Dukakis played into Bush's hands when asked if he would change his stance on the death penalty if his own mother were raped and murdered. Dukakis answered simply, unemotionally, "No."

"The theory behind the Dukakis campaign was, it was their election to lose, and if they didn't make a mistake, if they didn't say anything risky or bold, they would win," Lichtman said. "That has been the theory behind the Kerry campaign."

Kerry, like Democrats in general, has certainly learned from the 1988 fiasco. He has worked to combat the Republican line that liberals are wimps, emphasizing his military service in Vietnam and occasionally dragging photographers along on hunting trips. He skis well and windsurfs.

But like Dukakis, Kerry appears deaf to the power of the sound bite, and unable to boil his positions down to incisive nuggets. Like Dukakis at this point in 1988, Kerry already missed his best chance for outlining a bold plan for the nation, at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, analysts say.

Instead, he spent the convention showcasing his Navy service in Vietnam. Polls show most Americans still don't know what he stands for.

As with Dukakis, a Bush threatens to define him. And like Dukakis, Kerry has failed to comprehend the effectiveness of Republican attacks, or to counter them quickly.

"The most important lesson that came from Dukakis that we addressed in '92, and that Kerry needs to address now, is that you can't let the opponent define the race on his terms," said Al From, president of the Democratic Leadership Council, a coalition of moderate Democrats. "But it's not just responding to the charges, it's saying the right thing."

Most famously, Dukakis was stung badly by a Bush ad about Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who slashed a man and raped a woman while on weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison. The ad suggested Dukakis was soft on criminals, and would let brutal killers prowl the street. Dukakis did not respond immediately, wrongly believing voters wouldn't listen to such an obviously vicious and inaccurate attack.

Kerry, meanwhile, has been plagued by TV ads, sponsored by a small group of Navy veterans with Republican ties, that question his patriotism and contend he overstated his service as a swift boat skipper in Vietnam, particularly during an ambush in which he earned the Silver Star for bravery.

Military records and eyewitness accounts confirm Kerry's version, and Kerry apparently believed his actions would speak for themselves. He was wrong. Now the ads are credited with with helping Bush surge in the polls, especially on the question of who would make the better commander in chief.

"When someone impugns your character, there's an absolute mandate that you have to go back at them," said Steve Jarding, a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and former senior adviser to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

"Character is something you don't have to explain to people. It's not a 12-part Medicare policy.... If you don't respond to that with a fair amount of indignation, if nothing else, those attacks tend to stick."

Ultimately, of course, this is 2004, not 1988. The war in Iraq and the war on terrorism have changed the dynamics. The economy faces new challenges. Kerry, too, is tougher than Dukakis, say analysts and Democratic leaders who know them both. He's a better campaigner, and last week he made some personnel changes aimed at sharpening his campaign's teeth.

Ironically, he hired John Sasso, a top Dukakis aide who was exiled from the campaign in 1988 for something that was decried then as a dirty trick, but would be accepted these days: He fed the press proof that one of Dukakis' opponents in the Democratic primary had plagiarized a speech by a British politician.

Sasso, who is described as tough, eventually rejoined the Dukakis campaign, but by then it was too late. Kerry also has hired two veterans of the Clinton wars, media consultant Joe Lockhart and strategist Paul Begala.

"President Clinton's character was being impugned almost continually by the Republicans, and almost continually these guys were back in their faces," Jarding said. He said they seem certain to add more punch to Kerry's counterpunch, and perhaps push him to take the offensive, for a change.

Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report.