Battling for the Party's Soul

By WALTER ISAACSON

Glenn and Mondale exchange opening blows

The first dustup occurred in Iowa, where the Democratic presidential candidates were appearing at a Jefferson-Jackson dinner for party activists. John Glenn set the tone by suggesting that Walter Mondale had been slavishly catering to a wide array of special-interest groups in his quest for the party's presidential nomination. "Will we offer a party that can't say no to anyone with a letterhead and a mailing list?" the Ohio Senator asked. When Mondale's turn came, he pushed aside his prepared text and zeroed in on his opponent's vote in favor of President Reagan's 1981 tax cut. "Of all the measures in modern political history in which the forces of special interests clashed with the profound public interest of the nation, I cannot recall a single instance when the issues were as clear. That would have been a good time for a Democrat to stand up against the special interests and vote no."

Glenn left Iowa simmering. By the time he reached Florida last Monday, at an appearance 20 miles from the Cape Canaveral pad where he was first launched to prominence 21 years ago, he had a retort to Mondale written out: "For him to criticize me is a little like the first mate on the Titanic criticizing someone for going for a Lifeboat." He tagged Mondale as part of the Carter Administration that had given the country 21% interest rates and 17% inflation, leaving behind a deep economic mess. Glenn conceded that he had voted for some of Reagan's proposals in the Senate, but only after trying unsuccessfully to modify them. Said he: "What it came down to was, were we going to make some changes from those disastrous, failed policies of the past, or were we going to have no change?"

The clashes between Mondale and Glenn laid bare four months before the primary season the deep-seated ideological differences between the two Democratic front runners. In large part, the showdown resulted because Glenn has been striving to sharpen his ill-defined image in the minds of Democratic voters. He is known mostly as an astronaut, an image that will be burnished this month with the release of the movie The Right Stuff, based on Tom Wolfe's bestselling book about the space program. To capitalize on the film's heroic depiction of Glenn as a young man, his aides are trying to give him a heroic political cast, portraying him as a natural leader, a committed Democrat and a candidate with vision. In the process, the Glenn camp has drawn sharp contrasts with what it views as Mondale's beholden and outdated liberalism. Says Glenn pointedly: "To govern is to choose, and to choose is to occasionally say no." Mondale's counteroffensive has been to portray himself as "the real Democrat," contrasting his own mainline party positions with Glenn's more conservative voting record and political innocence.

New York Governor Mario Cuomo, with impeccable liberal credentials but a blossoming reputation as an undogmatic new voice in the party, helped fan the smoldering debate by asking the candidates to say how they differed on the issues. Glenn demurred when he went to New York last month for the Governor's public inspection, and Cuomo let his disappointment be known by saying that there should be no "celluloid" candidates.

By the time Mondale visited Rochester, he and his advisers were ready with an answer. Mondale blasted Glenn for voting for Reagan's tax cut, opposing the SALT II treaty, and supporting funding for an improved type of nerve gas for the Army. Cuomo rewarded Mondale's feistiness last week. Along with New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, he endorsed Mondale for President, saying he represented "the soul of the Democratic Party."

Indeed, at least among mainline Democrats likely to participate in the primaries, Mondale seemed to come out ahead in the exchange of charges. He publicly gloated about Glenn's "decision to base his campaign on his support of Reaganomics." At the same time, however, Mondale painted himself more tightly into a traditional liberal corner, which may not serve his long-term interests. He could suffer if voters end up thinking that he is sentimentally attached to New Deal traditions and Glenn is more attuned to the hard realities of the present political situation. Whatever the outcome of the primaries, the battle to determine the true soul of the party could end up being bloody, and it will certainly provide Reagan with ample ammunition to use in the general election campaign.

Glenn, whose counterpunches at Mondale's old-style liberalism were harder than he intended, has apparently decided to back off a bit. "He went too far," said a Glenn adviser, "but it was in the right direction." Vigorous attempts by Glenn to explain his vote in favor of Reagan's tax cuts made it more difficult for him to define himself in a way that would appeal to Democratic activists. As if trying to establish his liberal credentials, he came out last week in favor of delaying the scheduled December deployment of American cruise missiles in Western Europe in hopes that an arms-control agreement could yet be reached with the Soviets. Glenn has long opposed the low-flying cruise missiles because they are very difficult for each side to verify, but critics rightly pointed out that raising objections to the highly controversial NATO deployment plan just as it is scheduled to begin is hardly productive.

For the moment, the exchange of charges is having an energizing effect on both front runners. It is also reinforcing the impression that the Democratic race is a two-man contest. Gary Hart of Colorado and Ernest Rollings of South Carolina, who had been among the ten Democrats in the Senate to vote against Reagan's tax cut, and Alan Cranston of California, who had voted in favor of it, struggled along with former Senator George McGovern and former Florida Governor Reubin Askew to get a word in edgewise. Hollings succeeded, to his chagrin, by loosely using the word wetbacks, often an epithet for illegal Mexican aliens, in referring to some of Cranston's supporters from California who had gone to participate in a straw poll in Iowa. Hart raised a slightly more edifying point in commenting on the Glenn-Mondale exchange. Said he: "This is what a presidential race ought to be about: Whither the Democratic Party?" Indeed, unlike most political spats, this one may have actually eft the voters the winners by highlighting substantive disagreements on important issues.

With reporting by Robert Ajemian, Christopher Ogden This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.