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There is, however, something in the Democratic soul that resists running the kind of disciplined -- and, yes, cynical -- campaign that the Republicans have been perfecting since 1968. Part of the explanation may be cultural: most of the current generation of Democratic handlers were originally attracted to politics by ideological causes like Viet Nam and civil rights. Their Republican counterparts, nurtured by a well-funded party and now used to White House power, seem to place a higher emotional premium on the sheer act of winning. Republicans have certainly mastered the art of postconvention unity, while most Democrats who backed a losing contender in the primaries routinely go into a sidelines sulk.
Given the history of Democratic feuds, Sasso has been determined to run a campaign of inclusion. Jesse Jackson has at last been accorded the respect he craves, and Dukakis has reached out to party leaders ranging from Cuomo to Georgia Senator Sam Nunn. But Sasso has also recast the upper levels of the campaign staff to make room for Democratic strategists who have weathered the cold winds of prior fall campaigns. Their track records are not nearly so glittering as those of Baker's lieutenants, but then the Democrats have lost four of the past five presidential elections.
Among the veterans Sasso has brought in is Ted Sorensen, who wrote some of John Kennedy's most famous lines. Two weeks ago, Sasso arranged a meeting with Sorensen to discuss an important speech. They wandered over to Fenway Park in the middle of a crucial series with the Yankees. Over hot dogs and beer, the two men reviewed the text of a neopopulist economic address -- delivered complete with some Dukakis stylistic improvements in the Camelot Hotel in Little Rock last Monday.
Despite Dukakis' tinkering, the Sorensen draft retained much of its energy, including a class-conscious denunciation of "those who were born to great wealth." The candidate even got off one of his new breed of one-liners: "The next President will inherit a sea of Republican red ink that not even Moses could part." But the inherent tension between Sorensen's soaring prose and the candidate's down-to-earth style captures an enduring dilemma of modern democracy: Does the political process unduly reward artifice and spurn the genuine article?
There is something admirable about Dukakis' stiff-necked resistance this summer to the demands of political packaging. Yet his implicit I-am-what-I-am declaration of principle would have been more appealing had he used this period to better express the beliefs and dreams that spark his ambition. Instead, he sought political safety in repeating the cautious catchphrases that carried him through the primaries. Still, there is something unsettling about the ease with which Bush seems to accommodate the demands of his handlers. Even in the 1980 primaries, when Bush was free from the encumbrance of all ties to Ronald Reagan, he ran a scripted campaign full of burbling boasts that he was "up for the '80s."