Candidates Must Show Strength There : With Nunn Out of Race, South Is Main ‘Ballgame’

WASHINGTON — Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn’s decision not to enter the 1988 Democratic presidential campaign has dramatically raised the stakes in the South’s Super Tuesday primary next March, especially for the two candidates who have so far mounted the strongest bids for the nomination--Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis and Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt.

Having a widely known and respected Southern candidate like Nunn on the ballot would have obscured the question of whether any of the other candidates could show the strength among Southern voters that is almost mandatory if Democrats are to regain the White House in 1988.

But, with Nunn out of the way, “the South has become the principal ballgame,” Gephardt campaign manager William Carrick said of the March 8 megaprimary in 14 Southern and border states.

Thus, last week, Dukakis’ schedulers tacked extra Southern time and stops onto a previously planned trip to the Super Tuesday state of North Carolina for a televised debate on education. Gephardt, even as he vacationed on the beaches of the same state, took time to ring up dozens of former Nunn backers, asking their support.

Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr., the only Southerner in the race, fired off a special mailing to 6,000 party and elected officials all over Dixie. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, whose black supporters give him the most solid Southern base of any of the Democratic candidates, abruptly announced that he would disclose his inten tions about seeking the presidency today, and aides said they were confident the answer would be a resounding “yes.”

None of the seven Democratic candidates bracing for the Super Tuesday challenge have yet developed the sort of mass support traditionally associated with front-runners, such as Walter F. Mondale in the 1984 Democratic campaign or Vice President George Bush in the current Republican competition.

Nor have any of the seven made more than a beginning at building a campaign apparatus in the South, the huge early battleground that is critical to the struggle for the Democratic nomination.

But Dukakis, with his success at fund raising and strong television presence, is generally considered the leader of the pack, and Gephardt, with his intensive organizing efforts and his attention-getting promise to toughen U.S. trade policies, is viewed as his closest challenger.

‘Best Southern Strategy’

Dukakis leads handsomely in New Hampshire, site of the first presidential primary and conveniently next door to his own state; he has also shown a capacity to organize in Iowa. For his part, Gephardt appears to hold a narrow but still significant edge in Iowa, where the Democratic nomination process begins next February. And, as Tom Donilon, senior adviser to Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential campaign, points out: “The best Southern strategy is to win Iowa and New Hampshire.”

Even if Dukakis and Gephardt can hold their leads in these critical early states, they still face a towering task on Super Tuesday because of the tremendous demands on time and money imposed by the far-flung contests that day. And some believe that, for Dukakis, the burden is even greater because he hails from Massachusetts, the stereotypical citadel of Democratic liberalism.

The question Dukakis’ candidacy will have to answer on Super Tuesday, Gephardt’s man Carrick said, is: “Can a Northern liberal go South?” Gephardt hopes to force the battle along just such ideological and geographical lines to take advantage of his border state proximity and his reputation as a centrist.

‘Different Set of Assumptions’

But Dukakis’ own strategists have no intention of waging their Southern campaign along such lines if they can help it. In the 1988 campaign, says Paul Tully, Dukakis’ national political director, “there is a lot of evidence that voters, whether they are Southern or Northern, operate on a different set of assumptions than left or right, liberal or conservative.”

The political debate, he points out, no longer centers on such polarizing controversies as the Vietnam War or civil rights.

‘What Have They Done?’

Instead of these issues, Dukakis’ advisers assert that what counts most with today’s voters is what Tully calls “candidate-centered” differences--qualities of strength, leadership and judgment. The key questions voters ask about candidates, Tully maintains, are: “What are they made of; what have they done?”

The Dukakis camp relies on the New England governor’s being able to answer such questions convincingly in the South because of his skills on television, honed as moderator of the public television program “The Advocates” and demonstrated in the early debates of this campaign.

But some Democratic professionals predict that Dukakis’ strategists will hedge their bets in the South by concentrating on one or two states there. Among the likely targets: North Carolina, which has become a center for hi-tech research and development similar to Massachusetts, and Texas, where the governor’s fluency in Spanish is expected to help with Latino voters.

Meanwhile, the Dukakis campaign is expected to put plenty of effort into some of the non-Southern states that also pick convention delegates on March 8. These include Rhode Island, Washington and Idaho--not to mention Dukakis’ native Massachusetts.

“If Dukakis can win in the North and West, along with one or two Southern states, he can claim to be a national candidate,” said the political director of one potent Democratic constituency organization who preferred not to be identified.

Whatever Dukakis’ ultimate strategy, advisers to Gephardt believe that the issues the Missouri congressman has chosen to stress--crop production controls and easier credit for farmers, an oil import fee to help avoid another energy crisis and more legislative muscle to retaliate against unfair trade practices--go over well in the South.

‘Pretty Good Situation’

And Gephardt pollster Ed Reilly says focus group studies--in-depth interviews with panels of voters--suggest that Southerners are comfortable with the St. Louis congressman’s border-state style. “The data and the issue positions and the fact that he is willing to say he is a moderate puts us in a pretty good situation there,” Reilly says.

In the end, though, Reilly agrees with Tully’s point that a Dukakis-Gephardt contest might well hinge on a contrast between the personal traits of the two candidates, although he believes that here, too, Gephardt will prevail. “Voters are going to ask: ‘Which of these two guys is talking to my personal experience and values?’ ” said Reilly, who contends that Gephardt will be more successful at finding this common ground.

Whereas Gephardt and Dukakis get attention in the South because of what they have accomplished in the North, aides to Gore view Dixie as their exclusive home base, arguing that Jesse Jackson, although he was born in South Carolina, has since shifted his operations to Illinois.

‘Different Candidate’

Geography aside, Gore’s manager, Fred Martin, says that, with Nunn no longer seeming to wait in the wings, Gore is free to establish himself as “the different candidate,” principally by laying claim to Nunn’s mantle as an expert on arms control and national defense. And Martin says he is planning shortly to announce a list of former Nunn backers and potential backers who have pledged allegiance to Gore.

Gore gained national attention by his aggressive questioning of front-runner Dukakis in the recent televised debate in Des Moines. And at least one seasoned politician in the opposition party--former President Richard M. Nixon--thinks that the senator has considerable potential. In a recent memo to an aide on the 1988 campaign, Nixon referred to Gore as “the most attractive” contender in the Democratic field.

But Gore’s rivals suggest that he will be unable to exploit his potential in his home region on Super Tuesday unless he can achieve a respectable finish in the earlier contests up North. Martin argues that the many Southern results should count for more than the few Northern returns because they are more relevant to general election results.

‘More Typical’

“The Southern Democratic primary voter is more typical of the average general election voter than the Northern Democratic primary voter,” he says.

By no means are the other Democratic candidates--Biden, Illinois Sen. Paul Simon and former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt--prepared to concede the South. But, at the moment, their prospects below the Mason-Dixon Line hinge on Dukakis’ and Gephardt’s faltering in New Hampshire and Iowa and their own ability to gain support in those states.

Of these three, Biden has been most active in Dixie, raising money and gaining endorsements from key elected officials. By month’s end, Biden press secretary Larry Rasky says, Biden will have steering committees established in every Southern state.

Yet Biden’s efforts in the South, as elsewhere, are being hindered by his role as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman in the forthcoming confirmation hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork.

Lack of Interest Seen

Some Republicans contend that, with Nunn on the sidelines, all the Democrats in the race will prove too liberal to stir the interest of most Southerners. In the view of Marty Connors, secretary of the Southern Republican Exchange, an organization of state and local GOP officials, the Democratic turnout in Dixie on Super Tuesday will consist mainly of blacks and such white liberal groups as feminists and union members.

Under those circumstances, Connors calculates, Jackson would garner roughly 30% of the vote. Assuming that three white candidates survive the early contests to compete in the South, one of them would have to defeat the other two by a whopping margin to finish ahead of Jackson in the overall count and stop him from becoming the big Democratic winner on Super Tuesday.