A Self-Styled "Republicrat"

He cuts taxes and wins friends

The first thing that Lee Sherman Dreyfus did after taking office last January as Wisconsin's 41st Governor was to hold three separate inaugural balls and invite everyone in the state to attend. He stocked the closets of the Governor's mansion with two dozen apple-red vests, his personal trademark, and ordered a deluxe blue Chevy van to replace the official limousine. Not long after that, he signed a $946-million tax cut, the biggest in the state's history, which gave delighted Wisconsinites a reprieve from state income taxes in their May and June paychecks. "It's kind of a hard act to follow," jokes Dreyfus, 52, a pudgy, mustachioed man. "I think we may have peaked a little early for a four-year term."

If this sounds unconventional, so is the avuncular Dreyfus, whose wife Joyce refers to him affectionately as "Flannel Mouth." After his upset victory over Democratic Incumbent Governor Martin Schreiber, he is emerging as a bright new Republican figure.

A former professor of mass communications who became chancellor of the University of Wisconsin's Stevens Point campus at 41, Dreyfus is a self-styled "Republicrat." He only joined the G.O.P. in December of 1977. "If you're going to take 'em over, the least you can do is join 'em," he says. An accomplished orator, he challenged and beat Congressman Robert Kasten, the official party choice, in the 1978 primary. He then went on to defeat Schreiber on a platform of open government, curtailed spending and tax relief. It was quite a feat for a political neophyte--polls a year ago showed that only 3% of Wisconsinites recognized his name.

Dreyfus carried out his pledges. Before even proposing a budget, he got the Democratic-controlled legislature to pass a tax-cut bill, which in effect returned the state's huge tax surplus to the people without cutting services. "First you decide how much money there is, and then you decide what you're going to spend it on," he argued. He opened off-limits meetings to journalists, and he announced that there would be a new fiscal restraint. Although he has proposed a budget that is 20% higher than the previous one, Dreyfus maintains that "my key program is no more new programs."

Dreyfus' real feat to date, though, has been his rejuvenation of the state Republican Party, all but moribund since 1970. Preaching that the party must become more progressive to survive, he has crisscrossed the state, drawing crowds of 500 and 600 at rallies that once attracted only 50 or 60. His efforts to court new party members, particularly among the independents who helped elect him, have paid off. G.O.P. membership is up about 1,500 in the first five months of 1979, and party contributions are expected to increase $100,000 over previously projected figures for the year. "Dreyfus has brought in a large number of independents who were dissatisfied with the old tweedledum and tweedledee routine," says Milwaukee Sociologist Wayne Youngquist.

His shrewd party building has earned Dreyfus the attention of national Republican leaders, including presidential hopefuls. John Connally breakfasted not long ago at the Governor's mansion with Dreyfus, and Howard Baker flew him in a leased Learjet to a party meeting in Indianapolis. Dreyfus has even been mentioned as a vice-presidential prospect, but he scoffs at that notion.

At the very least, the novice Governor, who nibbles on raisins and unsalted peanuts for lunch and often plays jazzy tunes late at night on the stately grand piano in his official mansion, is off to an impressive start. "The electorate is angry with the political process," says one Wisconsin Democrat, "and Dreyfus is just as much a product of that attitude as Proposition 13." A recent statewide poll gave Dreyfus a 75% rating on competence and integrity--and a whopping 70% of Democrats gave him their vote of confidence. -

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