Attacks Help Put Bush in Lead : Poll Finds Dukakis Hurt by Charges of Liberalism

WASHINGTON — Vice President George Bush has seriously undermined Gov. Michael S. Dukakis’ image among voters by labeling him a liberal who is soft on defense and by repeatedly attacking him on emotional issues involving crime and the American flag, according to a Times Mirror Co. national poll.

The poll, conducted for Times Mirror by the Gallup Organization, showed Bush holding a 50%-44% lead in the presidential race. Taking into account the survey’s margin of error of 3 percentage points, it is conceivable that the race was actually tied.

Nonetheless, it was clear from the poll that the Bush attack has taken its toll. Dukakis is now more widely viewed as a liberal than former Vice President Walter F. Mondale was in 1984, when he was the Democratic presidential nominee, the survey shows.

At the same time, Gallup President Andrew Kohut said, an analysis of the polling results indicates that Bush is still vulnerable to charges that he has not told the truth about the Iran-Contra scandal and that he consorted with Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega.

The poll showed that only one-third of the voters believe that Bush’s running mate, Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana, is qualified to assume the presidency. Kohut called doubts about Quayle’s qualifications--an issue increasingly raised by the Dukakis campaign--Bush’s “Achilles’ heel” and said it could ultimately undermine the vice president’s campaign.

Support for both candidates remains relatively soft--only about 38% of voters who said they have decided on a candidate said they feel strongly about their decision. Fifty-two percent felt strongly about their decisions in a similar poll during the presidential campaign four years ago.

Overall, however, the poll, conducted among 2,100 registered voters from Sept. 9 to 13, indicated that Bush has decisively won the first round of the campaign since the traditional Labor Day kickoff. He has maintained his momentum since wiping out a substantial Dukakis lead five weeks ago at the Republican convention.

Kohut concluded that, if Bush emerges from his first debate with Dukakis in Winston-Salem, N. C., this Sunday without any serious questions being raised about his leadership abilities, the vice president will be in “good shape” and will be “very hard to beat.”

Bush has pounded away at Dukakis on two chief issues: the governor’s veto of a Massachusetts bill requiring teachers to lead students in the Pledge of Allegiance and his support for a state program that permits weekend furloughs for state prisoners.

The “most damning” charge against the Dukakis campaign, Kohut said, involves the prison furlough issue, although 47% of the voters also said that they were less likely to vote for the governor because he vetoed the Pledge of Allegiance legislation. Dukakis based his veto on a legal opinion that the bill was unconstitutional.

Some political strategists had suggested that Bush’s sustained attacks might backfire and cause more voters to have an unfavorable view of Bush. However, while Dukakis’ favorability ratings have steadily declined, Bush’s have markedly improved and, for the first time, Dukakis has higher unfavorable ratings than Bush does.

Bush was rated favorably by 59% of the voters and unfavorably by 37%, compared to Dukakis’ favorable rating of 51% and unfavorable rating of 42%.

Forty-six percent of the voters consider Dukakis a liberal, compared with 31% who described him as a liberal in June. By contrast, Mondale was considered liberal by 39% of voters polled by Gallup in September, 1984.

Moreover, 35% of the voters consider themselves “much more conservative” than Dukakis, compared with 22% who felt that way in June.

The vice president has picked up most of his additional support since the Republican convention from Republicans who had been drifting toward Dukakis. But he has made few new inroads in Dukakis’ Democratic strength and, indeed, his repeated attacks have solidified Dukakis’ hold on certain Democratic voters.

Bush’s resurgence can also be linked to renewed confidence in the economy and improved favorability ratings for President Reagan--up from 56% in May to 61%. Half the voters said they currently are satisfied with the way things are going in the country and only 45% said they were dissatisfied. Four months ago, 55% were dissatisfied with the nation’s direction.

Kohut said the Times Mirror poll shows that Dukakis can still make “persuasive arguments” about Bush’s role in the Iran-Contra scandal and especially about the vice president’s contacts with Noriega, who has been indicted in the United States on drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges.

Despite Bush’s gains, the race remains relatively close, according to Kohut and Norman J. Ornstein, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, both of whom briefed reporters Thursday on the Times Mirror poll.

They said polls show neither candidate has an advantage in some key aspects of their public image. Both candidates have about equally large groups of people who like or do not like them; most supporters of both candidates are not strong supporters, and about equal numbers for each candidate say they might switch to his opponent.

Ornstein, predicting that the two scheduled presidential debates will be “critical,” pointed out that there are no dominant issues in the campaign and said voters still know relatively little about the two candidates or their programs.

Both candidates have had to struggle to get their messages across, he added; and, when they have had broad forums, such as their party conventions, they have managed to change voters’ perceptions.

The Winston-Salem debate on Sunday thus offers a major opportunity for changing voters’ perceptions, and strategists say it could either shift the momentum back to Dukakis or help Bush solidify his apparent lead.

Ornstein suggested that negative campaigning may be reaching a point of no return and said a major challenge facing both candidates now is to find a way to neutralize their own negative factors instead of seeking ways to reinforce the other candidate’s negatives.