Backing Loser Could Hurt Prestige : Cuomo Holding Off on an Endorsement

NEW YORK —  At the prestigious Gridiron Club dinner in Washington recently, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo told a joke about a jogger who ran through Central Park at night and was accosted by a mugger who held a gun to his head.

“Who are you for? Dukakis, Jackson, Gore, Bush or Dole?” the mugger demanded. The jogger thought for a moment, the gun pressed against his temple. Finally, he replied: “Go ahead and shoot.”

Cuomo’s story brought big laughs but also touched on the essential dilemma of electability as New York’s primary looms on April 19. With 225 delegates at stake, New York is second only to California, which will send 314 delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

Competing Ethnic Blocs

The contest in the Empire State not only focuses attention on the candidates and the power of competing ethnic blocs of voters but on Cuomo, who refused to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. The governor has not ruled out accepting a draft, in the unlikely event that it is offered at the convention.

Cuomo could have a crucial influence on the New York primary should he choose to endorse and campaign for a candidate. He had been close to formally supporting his fellow governor, Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts, before Dukakis’ serious loss in the Michigan caucuses. Political advisers now are suggesting that Cuomo wait at least until after the Wisconsin primary Tuesday before deciding whether to endorse a candidate at all.

By aligning himself with a candidate, Cuomo would be risking a loss of prestige should another contender carry the state.

In a phone interview with The Times, Cuomo praised the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s campaign skills and urged Dukakis to refine and sharpen his message. When pressed, the governor suggested that a more potent Dukakis message might stress how he has brought about racial inclusion through the free enterprise system in Massachusetts, how he has fought for economic justice and, as a governor, how he has proven for years he can deliver on these principles.

Sharper Message

“I have no doubt Mike will meet this new challenge (of sharpening his message),” Cuomo said.

“What is right about Jesse’s campaign . . . is the message,” he added. “He has the message. You can’t win without a rationale. Whether you like it or not, he has a rationale. The others don’t come across the way he does.”

Cuomo said that, if Jackson emerges after California and New Jersey’s final primaries on June 7 with the greatest number of delegates, he should be the nominee. He said the notion that a front-runner should be stopped at the Democratic convention “makes no sense to me.”

A few more victories, the governor said, could give Jackson “an aura of inevitability.”

Cuomo was asked if Jackson could win in November were he the Democratic standard bearer. “I think the country can surprise you,” he replied.

New York could offer some important clues to what the country might expect in November. Without carrying New York, many political analysts say, the Democrats have little chance of winning the general election in November. For Dukakis, whose campaign is based on the premise of electability in the fall, the New York primary is a particularly sensitive test.

“If he can’t win big in New York, he’s seriously wounded,” said William Schneider, political consultant to The Times and resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, in a view seconded by many others. “If he can’t win New York at all, he’s dead.”

Vicious Race Seen

The New York primary “will be like the chariot race in Ben Hur--noisy, vicious, endless, expensive--with clashing wheels, sparks and lots of dust and blood,” Schneider predicted.

Some respected polls show Dukakis, who comes into New York after a crucial victory in neighboring Connecticut, well ahead. But, less than three weeks before the actual voting, the numbers well could be soft and uncertain.

Dukakis is under pressure from Sen. Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee, who is waging an aggressive campaign to cut into the traditionally heavy and vital Jewish vote. As a group, Jewish voters are particularly important in New York, making up almost one third of the electorate in the 1984 presidential primary. Dukakis, whose wife, Kitty, is Jewish, has drawn a strong Jewish vote in primaries earlier this year.

Gore has retained David Garth, a New York media consultant with more than two decades of political contacts in New York state.

Mayor Edward I. Koch, whose mayoral campaigns have been run by Garth, has stopped just short of endorsing Gore. Although pledging his continued support for Cuomo as a convention choice, the mayor called Gore’s positions “of all the announced candidates, closer to mine.”

Koch has called for an extremely strong stand by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Gore has firmly aligned himself with the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, even posing for a photograph with him during Shamir’s recent visit to the United States.

For Dukakis, the danger is Gore’s appeal to conservative Jewish voters coupled with the appeal of Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois to liberal New York Democrats could add up to big trouble.

Message and Momentum

Jackson comes to New York with a message, momentum and an already strong voting bloc. In the 1984 primary, where he received 26% of the vote, blacks made up about a quarter of the electorate. Jackson’s organization has been at work in New York for two months and has opened a dozen regional offices, each with two paid staff members. More than 200,000 pieces of literature have been sent to voters. In New York City, the campaign has 185 phones operating to solicit voters, about half the number of phones planned by primary day.

Dukakis has scheduled a dozen days of campaigning in the state, concentrating not only on New York City, which traditionally provides about 55% of the primary vote, but the upstate cities of Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse. There will also be heavy emphasis on the suburbs just north of New York City and on Long Island.

About 10 days ago, phone surveying on behalf of the candidate began to identify supporters who can be pulled to the polls on primary day. Dukakis’ campaign currently is operating about 150 phones a night, and staff members expect the number to grow to 500 in the days before the election.

Researcher Eileen V. Quigley contributed to this story.

POPULAR VOTE IN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES

All contests to date

DEMOCRATS

99.6% of precincts reporting

Jackson 3,211,084 27.2% Dukakis 3,094,107 26.2% Gore 2,635,730 22.4% Gephardt 1,261,582 10.7% Simon 904,044 7.7% Hart 311,541 2.6% Uncommitted 202,102 1.7% Others 99,464 0.8% Babbitt 71,372 0.6%

REPUBLICANS

98.1% of precincts reporting

Bush 3,970,811 56.9% Dole 1,705,842 24.0% Robertson 833,894 11.9% Kemp 343,417 4.9% DuPont 51,335 0.7% Uncommitted 46,887 0.7% Haig 25,578 0.4% Others 3,820 0.1%

Primary states to date: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina (GOP only), South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont.

Source: Associated Press

DELEGATES’ PRESIDENTIAL PREFERENCES Republicans

1,139 delegates needed to secure nomination

Bush: 813

Uncommitted: 250

Robertson: 17

Others: 10

Democrats

2,081 delegates needed to secure nomination

Dukakis: 648.55

Jackson: 642.55

Gore: 367.8

Uncommitted: 488.6

Simon: 169.5

Others: 0

Source: Associated Press