The presidential contenders have assigned much of the day-to-day campaigning chores to their running mates, Republican Robert Dole and Democrat Walter Mondale. Accompanying Dole last week was TIME Correspondent Dean Fischer, who filed this story. It is followed by TIME Correspondent John Stacks' report on the Mondale campaign.
Waving Confederate flags, emitting Rebel yells, and sipping beer from paper cups, spectators at the big raceway in Darlington, S.C., waited with genial impatience last week for the start of the Southern 500, a classic stock-car event. They barely noticed the tall, lean man whose...