Politics 88 : He Is Steering a Careful Course in N.Y. : For Dukakis, It’s Politics-as-Usual

NEW YORK —  Like millions of other weary commuters here, Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis spent much of last week contending with the city’s dark and dangerous underground.

For Dukakis, however, the challenge was not the city’s subways, but New York’s equally confusing and confounding political labyrinth.

Each day he emerged with another prize: key endorsements in Queens, a fistful of checks in a Manhattan nightclub, support from Spanish-speaking seniors in the Bronx, cheers from anti-nuclear activists on Long Island.

Each day, too, he avoided getting politically mugged by either New York City’s excitable mayor, Edward I. Koch, or New York’s enigmatic governor, Mario M. Cuomo. If both men pointedly declined to endorse Dukakis, they at least aimed most of their barbs at his rivals.

Back on Track

Thus it was back to careful politics-as-usual for a Democratic campaign that was energized only last week with victories in Colorado and Wisconsin. Now in New York, the campaign is much like the candidate: steady, solid, avoiding major mistakes but projecting little passion or excitement.

“He’s not very dynamic, but he’s got substance,” said Rich Niccolai, an insurance agent attending a Dukakis rally in Dunkirk, outside Buffalo, late Saturday. “With his experience and expertise, you hope and pray he can do the job.”

“He doesn’t have much style,” said Randy Koslosky, 34, a pipe fitter. “But we’ve had enough of an actor in the White House.”

Aides argue that Dukakis’ flat consistency is key to the character of a man whose emotion in public, as one aide observed, “ranges from A to B.” They deny that Dukakis is trying to keep a low profile to protect his lead in the polls 10 days before New York’s high-stakes primary on April 19.

On Saturday, in the most recent poll, the Marist Institute for Public Opinion reported Dukakis with the support of 47% of probable Democratic primary voters, the Rev. Jesse Jackson with 31% and Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. with 7%.

“I don’t interpret this as sitting on a lead,” Jack Corrigan, Dukakis’ director of operations, said Saturday of the low-key campaigning. “It’s going to tighten up.”

Has Advantages

Dukakis does, however, enjoy certain advantages. His supporters now include four of the five New York City Democratic leaders and three of the five borough presidents. “I believe the governor will win New York by a significant margin,” said Rep. Charles E. Schumer of Brooklyn, who endorsed Dukakis on Friday before some 2,000 students at St. John’s University in Jamaica, Queens.

Dukakis used the occasion to pick up a foreign policy theme long stressed by Jackson. In Latin America, he said, “the gravest threat . . . comes not from the Sandinistas, but from drugs.” And only the United States has the “resources to take on and beat the drug empire,” he said.

So far, Dukakis has ignored almost daily attacks by Gore on his lack of foreign policy experience and his refusal to criticize Jackson. “This is the first time I’ve been attacked for not attacking anyone else,” Dukakis said at one point.

His aides, however, were less restrained.

“Gore’s unbelievable,” said Paul Bograd, Dukakis’ state director. “He comes into this state in a frenzy of negative campaigning and gets publicly censured by (Cuomo). There’s a touch of desperation in it.”

Cuomo told Gore early in the week that his attacks were not helpful to his campaign or the party. The influential Cuomo called reporters into his office Saturday to say he would not endorse anyone before the New York primary.

Offers Reaction

Although Dukakis’ aides were disappointed, he responded evenly at a press conference at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he had donned a white, hooded, protective suit to tour a dust-free microchip laboratory.

“The decision as whether to endorse or not is one only he can make,” Dukakis said. “He’s a good friend, he’s a colleague, he’s a neighbor.”

Dukakis was more forthcoming when asked how he differs from Jackson, his chief rival in the race. “I have bushier eyebrows,” he told reporters with a grin.

But with Koch attacking Jackson for his allegedly inconsistent support for Israel and his embrace several years ago of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, Dukakis added:

“Well, I wouldn’t negotiate with Arafat, or wouldn’t encourage Israel to negotiate with Arafat, unless and until he . . . stands up and says, ‘Yes, I believe the people of Israel have a right to exist in peace and freedom within secure borders.’ ” he said. “I am not committed, nor do I think we should be committed necessarily, to some kind of independent state.”