Aiming for a good show

It should be a heady, optimistic time for Walter Mondale. The bitter and exhausting primary campaign is a fading memory, and his coronation as Democratic presidential nominee is at hand. It is his golden chance to get the drive against Ronald Reagan off to a rousing start by performing crisply some of the normally pleasant rituals of leadership: selecting a running mate, pulling the party together for the fall campaign, writing the script for the convention that next week will surely hand him the nomination he has so long sought.

Yet somehow the preconvention period has turned into a time of pressure and worry in the Mondale camp. There is pressure from feminists to choose a woman as his vice-presidential candidate, which threatens to put him in a damned-if-he-does-and-damned-if-he-doesn't dilemma. And there is tension over the still uncertain prospects of striking a deal with Jesse Jackson that would avoid both a disruptive convention battle and any appearance that Mondale had surrendered principle for the sake of party peace.

Worst of all, perhaps, the latest polls show Mondale badly losing ground with the voters while attempting to steer between these minefields. Gallup now finds the former Vice President running 19 points behind Reagan, a gap more than twice as wide as the one that existed a month ago, when Mondale became the all but official Democratic nominee. A New York Times/CBS News poll puts the current Reagan lead at 15 points. Surveys this early in the campaign are no reliable guide to the outcome in November, but senior Democratic leaders are concerned. The polls, says one, "mean that since the end of the primaries to today, Walter Mondale has only turned off more people."

There were signs, though, that the approach of the convention was beginning to concentrate Democrats' minds on the campaign against Reagan rather than on their internal quarrels. Twenty-three female Democratic leaders visited Mondale in Minnesota and down-played the threat the National Organization of Women had made the weekend before to stage a floor fight for a woman vice-presidential candidate. NOW's president, Judy Goldsmith, stressed that nomination of a woman from the floor would be "a last resort." Mondale soothingly commented: "I understand .. . that's politics."

Jackson met with Mondale in Kansas City, where both had gone to address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and at a press conference afterward the two leaders were no more than stiffly correct. Jackson sounded ambiguously conciliatory. He spoke both of "matters yet unresolved" and of "a time to cooperate." He pledged "a lively convention" but added, "Every debate does not mean division." The Mondale camp's hopeful interpretation: While Jackson's forces will wage floor fights in support of four amendments to the party platform, there is a strong chance that the battles will be conducted without great heat and that Jackson will urge his legions of black followers to vote for the ticket in November.