Tackling the Teflon President

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Finally, there is the "sleaze factor": Mondale aides claim that the Reaganauts have shown disregard for propriety, if not the rule of law. More than 30 Reagan appointees have been investigated for one thing or another. In sum, the Mondale staff depicts an incumbent who, while his policies fail and his aides retain counsel, obliviously floats along, taking afternoon naps and leafing through old Reader's Digests for speech ideas. Reagan, Mondale told TIME last week, "is looking at the world through Rose Garden-colored glasses. For him to say that it's a safer world, that interest rates are dropping, that deficits are overestimated, is just not true." Indeed, Mondale contends that on issues such as civil rights, women's rights, arms control and the environment "there's a lot of anger out there, and Reagan doesn't understand it. Reagan is detached from reality, and that can be used against him."

To exploit this caricature of an out-to-lunch President, Mondale will portray himself as "Mr. Competence," a hands-on executive who is familiar with the levers of power and how to pull them. Says Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Matthew Flynn: "Fritz is decent, safe and steady. People trust him to do the predictable thing. He won't tamper with Social Security or go to war." Mondale says he is eager to show his steadiness, and expose Reagan's tenuous grasp of the issues, in "several" TV debates.

Mondale indeed has weathered ten debates in the past six months, while Reagan has not debated anyone in four years. But Mondale must avoid the fate of his former running mate, Jimmy Carter. In 1980 Carter scored more substantive points than Reagan, but the former actor won the debate on tone and style—and the election shortly thereafter. Mondale, though warm and funny in private, is stiff on television; while Reagan grins easily and naturally, Mondale sometimes bares his teeth like the runner-up in a beauty contest.

Even Reagan's worst enemies marvel at his dirt-doesn't-stick "Teflon" presidency. Voters forgive Reagan his verbal gaffes, and even his policy blunders. Many ordinary citizens feel they can say about Reagan, even though he lives in the White House, that "he is one of us." Walter Mondale, on the other hand, is one of them: the Washington bureaucrats, the lobbyists, the big spenders in Congress, who have—at least in the world according to Reagan—ensnarled the nation in red tape and drowned it in red ink.