IN 1980, WHEN HE HELPED RONALD REAGAN SNATCH the White House from Jimmy Carter, Jim Baker summed up his view of presidential politics in two words -- "reasonable doubt." As an attorney -- and he was one of the best when he practiced law for a living -- Baker has always been charmed by courtroom analogies. "At the presidential level," he explained, "the stakes are so high, and are seen as so high by the voters, that the trick is to cause people to view your opponent as somehow 'guilty,' as being unfit for the top. Especially if you're the incumbent, if you create just a reasonable doubt about the challenger, he's convicted."
Fast-forward 12 years, and Baker's strategy is on full display. That it has so far failed miserably says nothing about the final outcome, and Ross Perot offers one last chance for success. Consider the state of play till now and what the nation will probably see this month -- on television, on the stump and especially in the debates. To date, none of the attacks on Bill Clinton's character have stuck. Voters' fears about the economy have outlasted the mud. "We have absolutely no credibility on domestic matters," concedes a Bush aide, "and Clinton is seen as Reagan, as a guy who knows where he wants to go even if all the details don't compute exactly. That's why he's leading; that's why we're headed for exile."
Given that, the G.O.P. game plan is easily understood: create a reasonable doubt about Clinton's domestic prescriptions and hope that he is eventually perceived as having no more of a clue than Bush. Then, perhaps, the election can turn on character, on a determination that Clinton is too flawed a personality to serve as a moral role model.
The first step in this process is already visible. In his speeches and in his television ads, the President is relentlessly hitting Clinton as a "tax and spend" liberal of the old school. A top Clinton adviser says the charge is resonating "mildly" and admits it "doesn't much matter" that Bush's ads shamelessly distort the Democrat's proposals. (The latest Republican commercial predicts disastrous tax increases for several average Americans, dubious calculations that senior adviser Charles Black lamely defends as legitimate because the spot claims "only" that such horrors "could" occur, not that they necessarily will.) Bush's team professes delight with Clinton's reflexive counterpunch -- a series of ads that slam the President's fiscal record. "We're already dead meat on the economy," says a Republican operative. "He can't put us in the hole any deeper. He hasn't closed his sale. He's still new in the public's mind. He should be taking the high road, putting out his vision, fleshing out the hope people think he offers. Attacking us wastes his money and detracts from his positive message."