July 21, 1988

Democrats Trying to Win

Democrats are serious about winning this year - for the first time in two decades. The evidence is a neither-nor platform of generalities.

Heretofore, the Democrat blueprint for government consisted of a long list of expensive promises to a broad spectrum of special interests. The platform of 1984 contained 40,000 words, a fair sized novel. This week's offering was held to 4,000 words of pablum - it says nothing, but offends no one.

This is the stuff of victory. Elections are decided by moderate voters, and this year they are reasonably satisfied with the status quo - the claims of Democrat hopefuls notwithstanding. Thus, the nation must be portrayed as inept and hopeless. In fact, the platform title is, "The Restoration of Competence and the Revival of Hope."

The task will not be easy because the nation is at peace. Prospects for stability elsewhere have vastly improved with the Reagan-Gorbachev treaty banning intermediaterange nuclear weapons. Iran is talking peace for the first time in 10 years.

The nation also is perking along in the sixth. year of unprecedented expansion. Unemploy ment is at a peacetime low of 5.6 percent. The only dark cloud on the horizon is the national debt of $2.3 trillion, but that is a congressional creation little noticed by the electorate.

By avoiding specific issues, the Democrat platform does not alarm middle-class blue-collar workers who pay the bulk of taxes. This segment of Americans appears to be the special target this year.

Thus, the game-plan this year consists of middle-of-the-mad phrases such as, "A foreign policy that is neither gun-shy nor trigger-happy," and, "We can neither police the world nor retreat from it." Who can argue with such forgettable rhetoric?

The Democrat platform is the handiwork of Michael Dukakis and National Party Chairman Paul Kirk. It gives liberals short shrift for there is no direct reference to tax increases, abortion, welfare, apartheid, civil rights or any of the other causes so dear to their hearts.

Rev. Jesse Jackson did his best Tuesday night to fill the void with every special-interest appeal invented. It was pure demagoguery, but a stemwinder. Blacks and guilty liberals wept. Dukakis supporters sat on their hands.

The address is the high-water mark of Jackson's quest for the presidency. He will be coddled in the Democrat party because he received seven million votes in the primary. However, he has not learned that politics is the art of the possible. His proposals would bankrupt the country - literally.

Dukakis is gambling that he can bring his party to the center without losing the liberal vote. It is good strategy. Where else can they go?

Tip O'Neill, former House speaker and the leading liberal in Congress, endorses the skimpy platform. "We really got too far off to the left, to be perfectly truthful, and I was one of those who were out there," he says. "For years, the old liberal wing of the party tried to control the party lock, stock and barrel, and because of that we lost an awful lot of people."

Just so.

Republicans have their work cut out for them this year.

Author: Lindsey Williams