Nine Key Moments

(3 of 8)
The day before the weekend meetings began, Teeter arranged for a marketing company in Paramus, N.J., to put together two focus groups made up of people who described themselves as Democrats who had voted for Reagan, but were leaning toward Dukakis. Brady, Ailes, Atwater and Teeter peered through a two- way mirror at people who had been paid $25 each to discuss the candidates.

The participants, it turned out, knew almost nothing about either candidate. Most thought Dukakis was a Governor, but only three of twelve in one group were aware he was from Massachusetts. Everyone knew Bush was Vice President, but that was about all.

The moderator began asking rhetorical questions. What if I told you that Dukakis vetoed a bill requiring schoolchildren to say the Pledge of Allegiance? Or that he was against the death penalty? Or that he gave weekend furloughs to first-degree murderers? "He's a liberal!" exclaimed one man at the table. "If those are really his positions," a woman added, "I'd have a hard time supporting him."

The aides were galvanized by the results of the Paramus focus group. While no single issue swayed voters, the cumulative effect was devastating. Dukakis was a blank slate in voters' minds, and Bush had to be the first to write on it.

At Kennebunkport that weekend, the strategy took shape. Sununu held forth on Dukakis' weaknesses: the furlough program, Boston Harbor, overcrowded prisons. Bush adviser Richard Darman dubbed the Massachusetts Miracle the Massachusetts Mirage. The message was clear: Dukakis should be tarred with the "L" word.

But Bush was uncomfortable with that advice. Conventional wisdom, he knew, suggested that a candidate's own positive qualities should be established before he attacked his opponent. On the final day of the long weekend, Fuller sketched two scenarios on a yellow legal pad. One outlined how Dukakis would be ahead by 20 points if the Vice President waited until after the Republican Convention to attack the Governor. The other showed how Bush could reduce Dukakis to a single-digit lead by the Republic Convention. "Let's get started," said Bush.

4 Dukakis flirts with others, but his heart leads him to Bentsen and the 29 electoral votes of Texas

In the midst of his very public auditioning of vice-presidential prospects, Dukakis traveled to Ohio. There he teased an excited audience as well as an overeager John Glenn when he said, "Wouldn't Senator Glenn make a great Vice President?" Glenn by then had abandoned any pretense at coyness; he wanted the job and let Dukakis fund raiser Bob Farmer know it.

But Dukakis, at his advisers' prodding, had decided his running mate should be from the South. That would echo John Kennedy's selection of Lyndon Johnson, and Dukakis had an almost mystical belief in the parallels between his campaign and that of 1960. Lloyd Bentsen would simply be a less obstreperous L.B.J.

By early July the list was down to Glenn, Bentsen, Gore and Congressman Lee Hamilton. Dukakis had reservations about Glenn, notably because he had been sloppy about paying off his campaign debt, and Hamilton was too reserved for the rough-and-tumble of a national campaign.