Three-Ring Political Circus

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In an effort to narrow the gap, the Bush team last week aired two advertisements criticizing the Governor as a high-tax waffler whose economics "you can't trust." One spot portrays real middle-income Americans -- a steam fitter, a scientist, two sales representatives and a housing lender -- whose taxes supposedly would be raised by as much as $2,072 under Clinton's plan. It turned out that the Bush team had calculated the figures by totting up the numbers in Clinton's economic plan and then making up the shortfall in revenues with higher income taxes.

Clinton was so furious at the Bush attack ad that he instantly ordered up a counterattack that will air next week. But a separate Clinton ad unveiled last week made the politically unrealistic claim that Bush would give millionaires a $108,000 tax cut -- a figure derived by assuming that Congress would adopt Bush's capital-gains tax-cut proposal, which it has repeatedly killed. Clinton pronounced himself relieved that the counterpunching had begun. "We're at the body-contact stage of the campaign," he said late one night last week aboard his campaign plane, "and I like that."

Clinton will soon begin one-on-one practice debates against Robert Barnett, a Washington attorney who has played Bush in Democratic warm-up sessions since 1984, when Geraldine Ferraro debated the former Vice President. Barnett plans to show up at the first session this week wearing a rubber Bush mask, a Kennebunkport sweatshirt and a big red "Second Place" ribbon. (No Perot surrogate has been chosen.) The first challenge for Clinton's debate coaches will be to curb the Governor's habit of talking in lists and giving flat, six- part answers. "The smartest thing ever said in the history of the world," admits Clinton strategist James Carville, "is, 'We've met the enemy, and he is us.' "

Bush will go several rounds this week with Budget Director Richard Darman, who played Michael Dukakis during practice sessions in 1988. But in public Bush is working just as hard to roll back expectations with the line, "I'm no Oxford debater." Bush doesn't enjoy debates and has trouble keeping his mind, as well as his arms and hands, from wandering. But he can be a feisty interlocutor, who makes up with grit and heart what he lacks in forensic style. Bush's coaches, moreover, believe Perot's presence on the debate stage works to their advantage: the spectacle of Perot and Clinton ganging up on the Commander in Chief, they say, will generate "sympathy" for the incumbent. "Bush," as an aide put it, "will be able to more easily look presidential."

Nonetheless, it is ironic that after 30 years in public life and nearly four years in the Oval Office, Bush must now rely on the return of a man he despises -- Ross Perot -- and a sport he has never liked nor excelled at -- debating -- to help salvage his political career.