Pat Is Back

"He is a friend and adviser, a very talented man, very intelligent, very creative, possibly a genius." The high praise came from Gary Hart. The object of his admiration: Pat Caddell, 33, the former whiz-kid pollster who has become a key figure in the Hart campaign since coming aboard as "an informal adviser" in January.

For Caddell, joining Hart is a homecoming. When Hart was managing George McGovern's campaign in 1972, he asked Caddell, then a precocious Harvard senior majoring in government, to do the candidate's polling.

Caddell went on to become a trusted adviser for Jimmy Carter. Sometimes his advice went badly awry. It was Caddell who urged President Carter to deliver his controversial 1979 "malaise" speech, which suggested that the nation was gripped by despair and self-doubt.

Vice President Mondale had vociferously objected to the speech, arguing that it was both wrongheaded and politically unwise. Confident that voters responded well to negative campaigns, Caddell in 1980 urged Carter to keep attacking Ronald Reagan as a racist and warmonger. The strategy backfired.

Strong-willed and often abrasive, Caddell last year shopped around for a candidate to run in the Democratic primaries. He sounded out Senators Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Joseph Biden of Delaware, but none were willing.

Last November he devised a poll that asked Iowa voters to choose between "hypothetical" candidates. One was dedicated to traditional politics and special interests; the other, young and imaginative, stressed new ideas and called for a new generation of leadership. Caddell professed surprise at how many people chose the Hart-like candidate in his loaded formulation. Again, Mondale and his aides were outraged.

Caddell also circulated a 150-page memo among leading Democrats, arguing that the party could beat Reagan by stressing the new-generation themes that are the core of the Hart campaign.

Hart was leery at first about Caddell, since the aggressive pollster tends to dominate a campaign. But so far the partnership has been smooth. Arguing that Hart was "too boring and issue-oriented," Caddell persuaded him to give his message a "populist tinge."

Caddell, says one Hart staffer, "helped Gary sharpen the contrast between himself and Mondale." Says Caddell:

"As the campaign got focused, Hart got focused. 'New ideas' is not the issue. New leadership is the issue."