Big question in U.S. politics is who will be Mondale’s running mate

Press, 19 May 1984, Page 24

Big question in U.S. politics is who will be Mondale’s running mate

NZPA staff correspondent Washington The former Vice-Presi-dent, Walter Mondale, looks unbeatable for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and attention is now swinging to the Vice-Presi-dential running mate he will pick at the party’s convention in San Francisco in July.

The Colorado senator, Gary Hart, his chief rival, says he is temperamentally unsuited to the No. 2 slot, and the debate between the two has often been bitter and personally abusive. President Reagan’s nomination as the Republican Party's candidate at its convention in Dallas, Texas, in August, will be a “coronation” with no pretender to his throne. The belief now is that Mr Reagan would beat either Mr Mondale or Mr Hart in November, but two months is a long time in American politics and upsets have happened before.

So have alliances between candidates fighting acrimoniously for their party’s nomination — that happened, for example, when Mr Reagan nominated his defeated rival, George Bush, a former Houston congressman and Republican Party national chairman, as his running mate in 1980. Mr Bush, a loyal Vice-Presi-dent, has spent a certain amount of time since then swallowing the barbs he threw at Mr Reagan during that campaign.

Other considerations are present too, among them the prospects for the 1988 Presidential elections.

Mr Hart, still a young man in Presidential terms, may well decide, after emerging from “Gary Who?” to national prominence during this campaign, that it would be wiser to dissociate himself this year from a likely loser and wait

to swing on the backlash that almost inevitably follows eight years of Presidential power by one party. By that time, some calculate, Mr Mondale will be discredited and regarded as a two-time loser (he was Jimmy Carter’s Vice-Presi-dent, and his running mate again in 1980.) Mr Hart, meanwhile, is refusing to concede, in spite of the huge delegate count that Mr Mondale is piling up as he sweeps through the major primaries and caucuses.

This year, as distinct from previous election campaigns, delegates pledged to a particular candidate are technically free to change their minds and vote their conscience at the San Francisco convention.

Mr Mondale and Mr Hart represent distinct constituencies within the Democratic Party — Mr Mondale the blue collar workers, blacks, Hispanics and the poor and disadvantaged generally, Mr Hart the middle ground and middle class, those who see salvation in restructuring of industry, allowing old, inefficient “smoke-stack” industries to die and make room for high-technology industries, innovative foreign and defence policies, and “new ideas” generally. Mr Mondale, to many, represents safety, a continuation of the status quo, protection of jobs and a wall against imports that might threaten those jobs; Mr Hart, to others, represents the future, and they see in him almost a reincarnation of John F. Kennedy and the bold and youthful spirit he embodied. Mr Hart’s argument is that he believes the Democratic Party should nominate the candidate it believes most likely to be able to beat Mr Reagan, himself, rather than the one who

gains the most delegate votes.

The polls support his argument, to a point, at this stage they are saying Mr Reagan would beat Mr Hart by a lesser margin than he would beat Mr Mondale. One of the main problems in the United States (an ironic one in a country which takes such pride in the fact that it is a democracy is persuading voters to turn out for elections.

Only about 50 per cent, often' less, of potential voters bother to do so, far fewer than in New Zealand. Because Mr Mondale and Mr Hart attract such different Democratic voters, the argument — from no less a person than the former (Republican) President, Richard Nixon — is that a Mondale-Hart ticket is the one that makes the most sense.

Polls of voters leaving the booths in North Carolina showed that 50 per cent of the Democratic voters who voted for Mr Mondale in the primary said they would not vote for Mr Hart in a Presidential election if he led the Democratic ticket and 50 per cent of those who chose Mr Hart said that they would not vote for Mr Mondale if he were the nominee, Mr Nixon said. “That shows the two must get together,” he said. ‘So will the two get together?

“If Johnson and Kennedy could get together (the two fought for the 1960 Democratic nomination, ending with John Kennedy winning and naming Lyndon Johnson as his Vice-Presidential nominee), I think they too (Messrs Mondale and Hart) can get together. And that would be a strong ticket.” said Mr Nixon. A new element in this campaign is the emergence of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and his “rainbow coalition.”

That phrase is meant to indicate support from all ethnic groups, but in fact the rainbow is mainly a black one. with most Hispanic support going to Mr Mondale and few whites voting for the Baptist preacher, in spite of the fact that he is the most charismatic of the three and a man with genuinely interesting and well thoughtout ideas on foreign and domestic policy. He also pulled off the principal public relations coup of the campaign, travelling to Syria and persuading President Hafez Assad to release a captured United States Navy airman, something President Reagan was unable to do. a move which reduced Mr Jackson's opponents to congratulations and grumbles about interference in diplomatic channels.

The prospect of Mr Jackson being chosen as VicePresidential nominee by either Mr Mondale or Mr Hart appears remote at this stage, but with two months to go before the nomination no analysts are prepared to rule either out absolutely.

The 19605, under Mr Kennedy and more particularly under Mr Johnson, saw an explosion of mostly peaceful activism by blacks, supported by many whites, a movement which fuelled Mr Johnson’s "great society” legislation designed to destroy racial barriers and put “affirmative action” stepping stones in place. The perception in the black community now though is that the" Reagan Administration has abandoned those programmes, failing to enforce a multiplicity of laws and weakening others.

Black Americans have had a low incidence of voting in national elections up till this year, partly, in some states, a result of

pressure from employers, but mostly, according to surveys, because of a feeling that their vote would not count much anyway.

Since the 1980 Presidential elections, however, a number of big cities have elected black mayors, a result of campaign workers politicising the local black community.

Voters must be registered for federal elections and everywhere that Mr Jackson "goes he demands that blacks go and register. The response has been such in many states it no longer makes sense to project figures from the last Presidential or local election.

Some analysts maintain that the newly registered black voters will vote in the Presidential election but ignore the local elections which often serve as a springboard to state and national office.

Mr Jackson, meanwhile, seems less interested in high office — the Vice Presidency, or the head of a Government department would force him to make compromises — than in raising consciousness.

His voter-registration drive has resulted in tens of thousands of blacks coming forward to vote for the first time, and the underlying significance of these elections may be the number of blacks "elected to state, county, and city jobs.

To give Mr Nixon the last word, he says that “I think it is going to be a closer election than many of the optimists, for example in the campaign committee on the Reagan side, believe.

“I believe that Reagan will win. I think he will win because he is a better candidate,” said Mr Nixon.