Two Ways to Play the Politics of Race

THEY'VE WALKED THE WALK and talked the talk, and now they're picking pictures. The candidates and their handlers have toured Los Angeles, and they agree on almost nothing, except the fact that the events there will dominate this year's battle for the White House. In their critiques and responses so far -- embryonic and still evolving -- the campaign to define the images they hope will linger is under way with a vengeance.

For the Bush team, the televised scenes of looters running from stores, their arms laden, demonic grins on their faces, are film from heaven. Never in the past have the Republicans had available such a record -- but they are past masters at exploiting the revulsion such travesties spark. The G.O.P. has been running tough-on-crime commercials since the riots of the 1960s first permitted them to rail against permissiveness as they played to white America's nightmares. Twenty years before Willie Horton, the 1968 Nixon campaign ran an ad in which a white woman, her purse gripped firmly in hand, hurried down an empty city street as an announcer said, "Freedom from fear is a basic right of every American. We must restore it." That spot was staged. The recent video of a white truck driver being beaten senseless by a marauding mob is real, and several Bush aides say they would "not be surprised" if some snappy voice-over were contrived to run along with that tragedy, played again and again in the fall as a reminder of the horror that awaits "us" if "they" are not contained.

"No pun intended, this will be a base election," says a senior Bush adviser. "It will take time and constant repetition, but we will communicate with our base of white and Asian voters. Law and order will eventually win for us because hard-working, honest people are scared and deserve protection. In the end the question will be, Who is better positioned to afford that protection?" In other words, while it is possible to read Bush's saying "We must make sure this never happens again" in various ways, the President's team hopes that by Nov. 3, one meaning alone will predominate -- and Woody Allen will have been proved correct again: "No matter how cynical you are, it's hard to keep up."

It won't all be dark, of course. "Campaigning," said a manual used by Nixon's political staff, "is symbolic, i.e., it is not what the candidate actually does as much as what it appears he does." Bush will do what he has already begun doing. He will speak of addressing the "causes of unrest" and the importance of "understanding hopelessness." This much he can do in his sleep. Bush has always spoken about compassion and opportunity and fairness. As Vice President, he told a friendly biographer that "as long as there are people hurting out there, out job isn't over . . . we will never be a truly prosperous nation until all within it prosper." When he accepted the 1988 Republican nomination, he said, "I've seen the urban children who play amid the shattered glass and the shattered lives . . . We need a new harmony among the races in our country." After his Inauguration, in his first address to Congress as President, he said, "We must care for those around us. A decent society shows compassion for the poor." Kind and gentle words all, yet today 2 million more Americans live in poverty, and the poor are even poorer than when Bush became President.