Rushing to An Early Kickoff

Dubuque's annual small-college basketball tournament is drawing some far-flung spectators this year. Delaware Senator Joe Biden and former Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt, who have more on their mind than hoopsters, decided it was the place to be on Sunday. Others are likewise discovering the joys of Iowa in January. New York Congressman Jack Kemp was there twice last week, and former Delaware Governor Pete du Pont is going there this week to tell farmers how he plans to phase out commodity price supports, then heading to New Hampshire for his fifth visit in five months.

To most Americans, trucking desiccated Christmas trees to the dump marks the slow beginning of a new year. But for the class of 1988, it is only 13 months before voters in Iowa begin to choose convention delegates, and 1987 seems all too short. While Washington wonders whether Ronald Reagan can recover from Iranscam, those who hope to succeed him are organizing for what promises to be the least predictable, most wide-open campaign in at least a generation.

Delegate selection will take place even earlier than usual. Twelve Southern and Border states, trying to increase their influence on the parties, will hold primaries on March 8 of next year. This has led some other states to move up their dates as well. By March 15 nearly half the delegates will probably have been chosen. No one knows whether this front-loaded calendar will make for early decisions or whether the large fields will fragment the results until later in the game. The presence of two Baptist ministers -- Jesse Jackson on the Democratic left and Pat Robertson on the Republican right -- also casts conventional scenarios in doubt. But one thing is certain: more candidates are out campaigning earlier than ever in the belief that late starters are likely to be left in the dust.

To mount a serious campaign next winter, a candidate must raise more than $3 million this year. Already potential contributors are scouting the field; in Phoenix this weekend, 36 Democratic donors who have formed a group called Impac '88 met to discuss uniting behind one candidate early on. Meanwhile, skeletal campaign organizations were adding expert meat to their bones. Babbitt last week became the first Democrat to form a full-fledged campaign committee. In the past fortnight senior strategists also took posts in the campaigns of Kemp, Du Pont, Gary Hart and Richard Gephardt.

Mechanical preparations aside, the dynamics of 1988 promise drastic differences from the past four elections. For the first time since 1968, no incumbent is running. For the first time in memory -- since 1952, at least -- the race in both parties is completely open. Neither party boasts a dominant potential leader with a solid lead at this stage.

Robert Strauss, once Democratic chairman and now Washington's senior soothsayer, argues, "The confluence of these political circumstances opens the nominating process wide in both parties." Pollster Peter Hart carries that idea further, predicting that those running well behind in today's opinion surveys will have the best chance to win the nomination. "Some of the candidates little known today will fulfill what voters will be looking for," he says. "Voters will prefer a fresh start to continuation of the stable present."