POLITICS ’88 : Both Parties Closely Watching How Bentsen Goes Over in Dixie

As the Democrats prepare to convene in the South, the Republican Party’s strongest base in recent presidential elections, Michael S. Dukakis has given the GOP something to think about by choosing moderate Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate.

But the strategic advantage at this point is still confined to Texas, where a new poll found that Dukakis has pulled even with Vice President George Bush after picking Bentsen.

A survey by CBS of 500 registered voters found that 48% supported Dukakis to 44% for Bush, who considers Texas his home state. With a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points, that makes it a dead heat. Polls taken before the Bentsen selection found Dukakis trailing Bush by as much as 10 points.

“This is a Texas strategy, not a Southern strategy,” said Republican consultant Eddie Mahe Jr. “But clearly, on some issues such as gun control, Bentsen’s positions will make folks in the South more comfortable with Dukakis.”

Democratic state Sen. James E. Ezell Jr. of North Carolina said: “Lloyd Bentsen isn’t really known in our part of the country. Michael Dukakis has got to do a lot to capture the South, but I think he helped himself when he picked Bentsen.”

Votes as a Bloc

With 170 electoral votes in 15 Southern and border states, the region is even more tantalizing in the presidential game than other parts of the country because of its tendency to vote as a bloc.

“The South is a state of mind, I guess you would say,” said Ezell. “It’s more together than most sections of the country.”

And in recent years it has been mostly together for Republican presidential candidates. Only once since 1964 has a majority of the South gone for a Democrat, and that was when a Southerner, Jimmy Carter, was the nominee in 1976.

One Democratic expert on the South believes the Bentsen move could erase the unease that many white Southerners were expected to feel with Dukakis, a Massachusetts governor whose liberal positions on such issues as abortion, the death penalty and defense are at odds with Southern attitudes.

“The key in the South is to reach local sheriffs and county officials because a lot of local folk look to them for guidance,” said Al From, executive director of the Democratic Leadership Council, a group of moderate Democrats.

Noting that the South routinely elects Democrats at the state and local level, From said: “What you need is somebody who makes them comfortable, and Lloyd Bentsen will make them comfortable. What Dukakis has done with Bentsen is make it more likely that local Democratic officials will work for the whole ticket from top to bottom.”

As for Texas, with 29 electoral votes--the biggest prize in the region--it has shown its independence from the South before. It went for liberal Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey in 1968 while Richard M. Nixon was winning most of the rest of the region.

Political Machine

The same thing could happen this time because, although Texas is Bush’s adopted state, Bentsen has one of the most formidable political machines in the country.

“I’d rather run against motherhood than Lloyd Bentsen in Texas,” Arkansas Sen. Dale Bumpers said the other day in Texarkana.

William Carrick, who ran Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt’s presidential campaign, said: “In my years of politics I have never seen an organization like the one Lloyd and Bill Hobby (Texas lieutenant governor) have put together. They have somebody working for them in every county in Texas.”

What the Bentsen organization does is identify likely or potential Democratic voters through the use of computers and then make sure they get the message Bentsen wants them to get. Around election day the voters are contacted again and urged to vote.

These same voters get a lot of attention from Bentsen’s Senate office.

“Lloyd Bentsen is king of the hill down here when it comes to providing constituent services,” said Austin political consultant George Christian, who worked for President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Bentsen, who has been unbeatable in Texas since he whipped Bush in the 1970 Senate race, inherited the political organization of former President Johnson and former Texas Gov. John B. Connally.

“Lloyd took the moderates and conservative Democrats and fleshed them out with blacks and Hispanics and liberals,” said Christian.

The conservatives are Tory Democrats, a special Texas breed.

“They are strong on defense and very pro-business, but more liberal on civil rights than some other parts of the South and more willing to use government as a tool to solve problems,” said Carrick.

It is the Bentsen profile exactly. Unlike Dukakis, the senator supports the MX missile, has voted for military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels and supported the 1981 Reagan tax cuts, which primarily benefited businesses. At the same time, Bentsen has a good record on major civil rights legislation and favors requiring businesses to give workers notice before they shut down plants.

Under Texas law, Bentsen will also run for reelection to the Senate even as he campaigns for the vice presidency. Moreover, he has raised $6 million for the Senate race, and using it to simply put the Bentsen name before the public is bound to help the Democratic presidential ticket in what has emerged as the key battleground state for 1988.

‘Left to Right’

“Lloyd’s support is left to right in the Senate race,” said Christian. “I think there is a sizable minority of Republicans who will vote for Lloyd in the Senate race and for Bush in the presidential. But I also think Dukakis’ putting Lloyd on the ticket has made the Bush campaign very apprehensive despite what they are saying.”

Some Republican consultants discount the value of the Bentsen political organization in a presidential race, arguing that what voters see on television in such a high-profile race will be the determining factor.

But Carrick believes an organization like Bentsen’s is important in big, diverse states where several campaign themes may be required.

“There are so many different situations in Texas,” Carrick said. “You’ve got blacks and Hispanics and liberals in the cities and you’ve got rural Hispanics in the Rio Grande Valley. You’ve also got white middle-class people in the city suburbs and you’ve got rural whites in East and West Texas.

“The voter contact done by Bentsen’s organization could make a difference in a close race.”

The key, Carrick believes, is what happens to the “presidentially stimulated voters. The turnout in Texas for a governor’s race is about 50% of registered voters. But in a presidential race it blips up to 68%.”

Will these extra voters go for Bentsen or Bush?

Mahe, who is admittedly partisan, believes the answer is Bush.

“George Bush,” said Mahe, “is going to say to Texans: ‘The choice is me in the Oval Office or Lloyd Bentsen going to funerals of foreign dignitaries.’ ”

That will be the question in the rest of the South, according to University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, who says: “People don’t vote for vice president. They vote for President. Michael Dukakis has to persuade Southerners himself.”

Many Southerners are probably like Charleston, S.C., lawyer Dawes Cooke Jr.--they want more information.

Wants Debate

“I still have haven’t made up my mind between Bush and Dukakis,” said Cooke, an independent who voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984. “I want to see them go at each other in a debate.”

“The main value of the Bentsen choice to me is that it wasn’t Jesse Jackson,” Cooke said.

For the South and for Texas, Jackson could be as important as Bentsen in the months ahead.

As Jackson threatens to debate Bentsen’s selection at next week’s Democratic convention in Atlanta, Christian says, “Dukakis could gain a lot of stature in our part of the country by standing firm against Jackson. If he does that he will look like he is in charge.”

Sabato said: “I think the Dukakis people are anxious for Jackson to challenge them on national television so they can be shown holding Jackson in check.

“A lot of voters have not been paying much attention this summer, so that is why what happens at the convention is so important. In the South, all eyes will be on Dukakis at that convention.”