Governors: Different Democratic Styles

CAMPAIGN ’82

The big surprise in the twelve states that held primaries last week is that there were no big surprises. The only incumbent defeated was beaten by a former incumbent. In its continuing coverage of Campaign ’82, TIME looks at the Massachusetts and Florida Governors’ races, which show the diversity of leadership in the Democratic Party, and at the Minnesota and Montana Senate races, where it is evident that money matters.

Exchanging command

It was a rerun of a bitter political contest whose first round was fought in 1978. Then as now, the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Massachusetts featured Michael Dukakis against Edward King. In both elections the incumbent lost. But four years ago, it was Challenger King who upset Governor Dukakis, while last week the deposed Dukakis, 48, won the nomination away from Governor King, 54% to 46%. It was also the state’s costliest campaign ever: Dukakis spent $2 million, King $3 million. Dukakis’ Republican opponent in November, also nominated last week, will be John Winthrop Sears, 51, a well-to-do Boston city councilman and quintessential Yankee.

The ideological gap between November’s candidates, who both hold Harvard degrees, is probably far narrower than the one that separates Dukakis from King. “I don’t think there’s any issue the former Governor and I agree on,” said King. “None.” A bulky Boston College graduate who played professional football (1948-51), King, 57, positioned himself politically as a rough, tough advocate of the fed-up common man. He has pushed a local version of Reaganomics, in 1979 signing a property-tax cap and, just last month, a 2% cut in state income taxes. He is an enthusiastic advocate of the death penalty and an opponent of government-funded abortion.

The Governor’s top political aide described the contest as “between the Chablis-and-Brie crowd and Joe Six-Pack.” As smooth and glib a speaker as King is stilted and lumbering. Dukakis came across as a sensible liberal, supporting stricter handgun control and subsidized day care for working mothers. He promised “a government and statehouse you can be proud of,” a barely veiled reference to scandals that have tainted King’s administration. King’s secretary of transportation was imprisoned after being convicted of bribery, and several other key aides were forced to resign under clouds.

Republican Sears may be a less than formidable opponent. Much as King’s salt-of-the-earth supporters dislike Dukakis, they are likely to find the aristocratic Sears an unpalatable alternative. Nor can the Republican easily portray his opponent as a liberal spendthrift, since Dukakis was a budget-cutting Governor. Above all, there are three Democrats for every Republican in the state. “The Democratic primary,” says a Boston political consultant, “was the general election.”

Formidable incumbent

Democratic Governor Bob Graham of Florida learned early on that a politician has to work like a dog to get—and stay—elected. The lesson seems to have paid off for Graham, a tireless campaigner who regards a 14-hour work day as the norm. A recent poll showed that 79% of Florida’s citizens rate his performance in office good or excellent.

It comes then as no surprise that Graham, 45, a millionaire rancher and land developer from Miami who served twelve years in the state legislature before becoming Governor in 1979, is leading his Republican challenger Skip Bafalis in this year’s gubernatorial race by almost 3 to 1. The surprise is that the G.O.P is spending as much time and money as it is in what looks like a foredoomed effort to unseat Graham. Bafalis, 52, a five-term Congressman from Fort Myers Beach, entered the race at the personal request of President Reagan. He expects to receive $1 million from G.O.P. coffers, and officials of the Administration have descended on Florida in droves to campaign for him.

Bafalis needs all the help he can get. Despite his ten years in Congress, his name recognition by voters is almost nil. Bafalis hopes that a series of television commercials will soon fix that. Even so, he faces a formidable task in carving out a distinctive niche. Bafalis plans to focus on crime as his major issue, favoring mandatory jail sentences and an end to plea bargaining. But Graham is no softy on crime; the Governor has signed 39 death warrants since taking office. Bafalis’ stance on the volatile immigration issue echoes Graham’s as well; both favor deportation of refugees with criminal records.

Bafalis may be concentrating on the wrong issues anyway. According to a poll by the Miami Herald, the voters’ biggest concern is the economy. And there Graham clearly has the edge. Under his administration, Florida has expanded beyond a tourist-based economy vulnerable to every economic downturn. Some 122,000 new jobs have been added to the state’s economy, most of them in high-technology areas that have proved virtually recession proof. As a result, for the first time ever in a recession, Florida’s unemployment rate is running below the national average.

To Graham, states like Florida are “the proper laboratory for the federal system.” He adds that the Democratic Party, “which has sort of exhausted its idea pool,” would do well to heed that lesson. The party could re-establish itself, he is convinced, by articulating a new cooperative, rather than adversary relationship among government, labor and business. Says Graham: “Government at the state level has tried to bring about that new relationship in order to develop economically. It has worked.”