The Political Interest It's Not Going to Be Pretty

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NO LESS AN EXPERT THAN THE leader of the free world has now pronounced 1992 "the ugliest political year I've ever seen." Not that he or his minions are the problem, said George Bush last week. It's the other guys: "I look across at the Democratic primary, and anything that happened in 1988 is pale in comparison to what's going on there."

Has the President seen the light? He says he has issued written instructions ordering his operatives to "stay out of the sleaze business," but the definition thing persists. "I don't know what's negative and what's not these days," says the man who views the famous Willie Horton TV ad as a fair examination of prison-furlough abuse.

Fuzzy markers delight the G.O.P., and a foretaste of the war to come was glimpsed clearly on the night before Bush's feigned distress. Minutes after Bill Clinton won the New York food fight last Tuesday, Republican Party chairman Rich Bond gleefully recalled Jerry Brown's characterization of Clinton as "the prince of sleaze." They've "got them all on tape," says Bond. "Paul Tsongas calling Clinton a 'Pander Bear'; Ed Koch saying, 'It happens that Bill Clinton has no credibility'; Mario Cuomo calling Clinton's middle-class tax cut 'a joke.' We've got 'em, and you'll be seeing 'em. It ain't gonna be pretty."

How unpretty will it get? "Character dominates in voters' minds," says Bush campaign manager Robert Teeter; our job, says Bond, is to "remind" voters that it does. For the most part, the "worst of Clinton" will be left for the press to reiterate and for the surrogate salons (the radio call-in shows) to elaborate. Such restraint does not preclude "man-in-the-street spots," cautions Republican consultant Roger Stone. "Ford almost won in '76 with a series of TV ads that had 'regular people' saying, 'There's just something about Carter that bothers me' and 'He seems so wishy-washy' and 'His smile strikes me as insincere.' Same thing this year, for sure."

The truly rough stuff will rise, virgin-like, from the same "independent expenditure" group that produced the Willie Horton ad in 1988. Four years ago, these conservative ideologues called themselves "Americans for Bush"; this time they're the "Presidential Victory Committee." They have a $10 million budget, and "what they'll do," says Stone, "is kind of obvious." All they've said so far is what they won't do: they won't establish a 900 number so the curious can hear the Gennifer Flowers tapes. Beyond that, every mini-scandal and Clinton slickery is considered fair game.

While all that is going on, the campaign will take the "high road," says Bond. "The first goal," explains Stone, "is to extend the doubts about Clinton to issues. You play to the pre-existing prejudice -- that many people don't know if they can believe anything Clinton says. There'll be ads that say 'Clinton talks about a middle-class tax cut, but he's raised over 100 taxes in Arkansas' and 'He talks about improving education, but Arkansas' pupils rank near the bottom on test scores.' " According to Bond, we'll also see spots that "accentuate the stature gap," like, "In the next decade 10 Third World countries will have nuclear weapons. Who better can deal with a madman with nukes, George Bush or Bill Clinton?" "Foreign policy will be an issue if we make it an issue," says Stone, "and we will. You always play to your strength, and you play it over and over."