Daring to Be Cautious

By Thomas Griffith

The Democratic presidential race is becoming legitimate news at last. Television crews now hover around the contenders. But the left-behinds complain that they have been mugged in the dark during these past months while the press concentrated on the rivalry between Walter Mondale and John Glenn as front runners.

The press does indeed focus too much on who is ahead. It may also be negligent or grudging in reiterating the candidates' positions on the issues, perhaps because reporters have had to listen to each candidate's basic speech so many times. The charge that the press focuses only on the front runners has less merit: look at the coverage given to that latecomer, the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

When Jackson appeared at the White House on live TV with Lieut. Robert Goodman, Ronald Reagan eyed him with the wary professional respect an adult actor shows around a precocious child who might steal the scene. Jackson had certainly stolen the scene from Mondale. The day Jackson arrived back from Damascus, the CBS Evening News showed Mondale proclaiming: "Today I begin my

1984 campaign ..." CBS Correspondent Susan Spencer then broke in: "Not so fast! Mondale had to precede his long-scheduled speech," she noted, by first congratulating Jackson. As Mondale is shown doing so, Spencer adds, he repeated "his call for withdrawal of the Marines from Lebanon." That's all you are going to learn from CBS about Mondale's kickoff attack on Reagan.

Much of the criticism of press bias comes from the organized and vocal right, but Fritz Mondale has grounds for complaint too. The press rap against him is that he is not exciting enough. At the end of the year, Columnist David Broder of the Washington Post, reviewing some of his own errors and misjudgments, concluded, "But no one, I hope, will deny me my one moment of brilliance." As long ago as January 1983, "I wrote, 'Mondale has the capacity to make the Democratic marathon dull.' Boy, did he ever!" Broder is a fair-minded reporter, but how can one man in a field of eight be blamed if a marathon is dull?

Mondale has a problem but so has the press. In the past year, Mondale did an impressive job of putting together the old Democratic coalition of interests; the press echoed his opponents' cry that he is therefore beholden to the interests. Mondale is still out front, having got through the year without making any major gaffes. But this careful positioning of his came under press attack too. Mondale's media director ineptly countered that Mondale "dares to be cautious."

The Boston Globe describes Mondale as a man who is "very well known but not known very well." In small groups, he is quick witted, sometimes testy, often funny; the press generally likes him. But on talk shows, Mondale lengthily states his positions instead of relaxing and letting his attitudes come through.

Simply because he remains ahead of the pack, the press is likely to become tougher on Mondale. The reservations about him are in part professional prudence: front runners often fade, as Ed Muskie and Ted Kennedy did; a candidate setting too bland a course can be upset, as Thomas Dewey was. Some of the press's tone, however, makes Mondale seem like a wimp, which he is not.

Those who think issues should prevail in politics deplore any emphasis on personality. Yet personality and character matter, because they suggest how a President would respond in a crisis, or whether he would dare to do the unpopular. Nowadays conversations about candidates turn less on specific issues than on judgments of them as tough-minded, unfair, soft, impetuous, cautious, shrewd, stubborn, dangerous. When with trick or trap questions television interviewers try to test how a challenger would react under pressure, the questioners often end up appearing overbearing and rude. Far from being a diversion from a sensible discussion of the issues, however, judgments about character and temperament are essential in choosing a President.