Looking Out for No. 2

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If Mondale offers Bumpers a spot on the ticket, Brown thinks he would accept "in a red-hot minute." But aides also thought Bumpers would be running for President this year. Bumpers decided in April 1983 that he would be unable to raise enough money to carry on a serious campaign. A vice-presidential race, even if it fails, would provide national exposure that might enhance Bumpers' presidential prospects in 1988. But his nomination in San Francisco in July, says Bumpers breezily, "is not going to happen." Why not? "Lloyd Bentsen would bring five times as many electoral votes as I would."

Bumpers is somewhat more centrist than Mondale—he has voted contrary to organized labor's wishes—but with an A.D.A. rating of 85, he would create no real ideological clash. Brown says Bumpers is able to explain his liberal positions "in such a way that he neutralizes the opposition, and the people come away saying, 'Hey, I never thought of it that way.' " Bumpers, an assertive member of the Energy Committee, is probably the most liberal Southerner in the Senate. He voted against the B-l bomber. He has supported human rights conditions on military aid to El Salvador. On a ticket with Mondale, he would be able to run effectively against the Reagan budget deficit: Bumpers was one of just three Senators who voted in favor of Reagan's 1981 spending cuts but against his huge tax cuts.

In some ways, New York Governor Mario Cuomo is like Bumpers. Both are liberal, vaguely populist lawyers, but neither is doctrinaire. Both first achieved elective office in their 40s. Each has the enviable knack of persuading the press of his soulfulness and decency. Cuomo, 52, could add some passion and streetwise piquancy to a Mondale ticket. Like Ferraro, he is an Italian American from the New York City borough of Queens. Ideologically, he is close to Mondale, but some party strategists, arguing in favor of Cuomo, think Mondale should not worry about orthodox ticket balancing. If the Democrats are to win this year, the logic runs, their best shot may be a pair of unalloyed New Deal Democrats, making the alternative to Reagan stark.

Cuomo is not trendy. As the Governor himself proudly acknowledges in his recently published and thoughtful Diaries, he takes his Roman Catholicism, his family and his responsibilities to society very seriously. He has been deeply influenced by the thought of Jesuit Philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. His son Andrew, 26, is one of his closest aides. For a politician, Cuomo displays unusual ambivalence, even anguish, about some issues. Yet he can show hard-edged political courage as well. He has twice vetoed bills to re-establish the death penalty, even though a large majority of New Yorkers say they want the electric chair switched on again.

Cuomo, in office for less than two years, is still mainly untested. He did, during his first month, deftly resolve a 53-hour cell-block takeover by inmates at Sing Sing. He was an early and important Mondale supporter, but he seems authentically reluctant to run, and has unequivocally promised to serve out his gubernatorial term. His chief aide, Tim Russert, does not dance around the issue coyly. "I know him very, very well," says Russert. "He won't do it."