TRAIL MIX

Occasional morsels from Campaign 2000

What election?

Many American voters are not convinced it makes a big difference who is elected president, are not paying close attention to the campaigns, and are not that worried about the nation’s condition, a voter survey says.

Fewer than half of voters, 46%, said they have thought about the presidential race a lot, while almost as many said they had thought about it only a little. Such were the findings of a June poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

The number of people who said it does not make much difference who is elected president has grown significantly in the last eight years, from 18% to 30%. Four in 10 young adults say it makes no difference.

“The people who say it doesn’t matter who gets elected are the ones who know nothing about the candidates,” said Thomas E. Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution who reviewed the poll.

Mann noted the heavy voter involvement of older adults who came of age during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time. He bemoans “the passing of the FDR generation, the civic generation . . . They are passing out of the electorate.”

To the victor . . .

If New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman doesn’t get picked as George W. Bush’s running mate, she’s already got a fairly decent consolation prize.

At a Republican Party reception in Newark last Thursday, Bush took the stage and presented Whitman her reward for winning their bet on the Stanley Cup, which pitted the New Jersey Devils against the Dallas Stars. The Devils won, so the Texas governor paid up: He offered her a rack of barbecue ribs.

George and George

How does George W. Bush treat those responsible for his father’s defeat in 1992? That question popped into mind Friday afternoon when Bush boarded his campaign jet in New York and found George Stephanopoulos, the former advisor to President Clinton, sitting among the traveling press corps.

Bush asked Stephanopoulos--who was flying to Austin to do ABC’s “This Week” show at the governor’s residence--whether he enjoyed jogging. Then the GOP nominee-to-be recounted how he took up running as “part of my therapy” for his father’s loss.

But after taking off, Bush invited Stephanopoulos, now a political commentator for ABC, to the front of the plane for a private interview.

By the numbers

36.7 million--Dollars businessman Jon S. Corzine spent in his campaign to win New Jersey’s Democratic nomination for Senate.

34 million--Amount, in dollars, that was Corzine’s own money.

108 million--Dollars raised by the Democratic National Committee from Jan. 1, 1999, to June 30.

140 million--Dollars raised by the Republican National Committee in the same time span.

1864--Year of the first $1-million presidential campaign. The candidate with the big bankroll: Abraham Lincoln.

Quote file

“If anything, it will keep people from falling asleep as they watch the drab debate the dreary.”

--Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader on how the fall presidential debates would be livened up if he and Pat Buchanan, the would-be Reform Party nominee, are allowed to participate.

From Times staff and wire reports