A year from now, next July 13-16, the Democratic Party will meet in riotous assembly in New York City.
They will gather there to do what Democrats do: fight among themselves and gnaw on their own ideological entrails to the ultimate benefit of the Republican Party. That`s part of the strategy that has kept the Democrats out of the White House for all but four of the last 23 years.
But there`s more than the quadrennial self-destruction we`ve come to expect of the Democrats: They also will settle on a pair of candidates to challenge President Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle in 1992.
A year away, you may not have any idea who those worthies might be, but don`t worry-the Democrats don`t have a clue either.
Party elders such as Democratic National Committee Chairman Ron Brown are insisting there is time enough to mount a credible campaign in `92, and it`s hard to argue with his contention that the American people are not crying out for a two-year presidential odyssey.
Brown and other Democrats maintain there will be candidates aplenty and, indeed, more than a half dozen are circling around former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas, the only declared Democrat.
But it`s increasingly clear that the 1992 campaign will be a sprint rather than a marathon. There will be enough politicking, sound-biting, polling and cheap-shotting to dismay an already cynical electorate, but the process is going to be a lot shorter than, say, the last two presidential races.
So, faced with a popular incumbent and lacking a coherent message or messenger, many Democrats are approaching the campaign as if it were a tax audit or a midnight ride on the New York subway.
Former White House pollster Richard Wirthlin, a Republican who served President Ronald Reagan, sees it differently. Time, he maintains, is the scarcest of political resources, and Democrats are wasting it.
”The clock is really moving against putting together a campaign,”
Wirthlin said last week. ”You have to be established as a national figure as early as possible to run against an incumbent president.”
His polling indicates areas on the domestic front wherein Bush might be vulnerable, particularly a growing pessimism about the country`s future.
Wirthlin`s latest survey shows that just four months after the end of Operation Desert Storm, 56 percent of Americans polled believe the country is ”pretty seriously off the track.” But he sees no place where Democrats are engaging Bush and his party on these perceived weaknesses.
”There are no strong voices that are speaking in any united way against his (Bush`s) policies,” Wirthlin said. ”There`s no one dominant figure around whom a debate or a dialogue can be organized.”
Wirthlin moves toward a point made by prominent Democrats in big states such as California: The longer the preliminaries go on, the more the process works to the advantage of well-known Democrats such as New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and Jesse Jackson, a two-time contender with a proven ability to win over primary voters.
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Names such as Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, even Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia are less familiar to most Americans than the starters in last week`s baseball All-Star Game.
Offering a new face or even a new idea to voters might be appealing to some elements in the Democratic Party, but a short and relatively uncontested primary season seems certain to produce a Jackson or a Cuomo or a Richard Gephardt, a shopworn name and a message that echoes earlier defeats.
There is a suspicion that a number of these Democrats are in fact auditioning for 1996, when the Republican nominee might well be Dan Quayle rather than George Bush and his 74 percent public-approval rating.
While that might appear to be savvy political maneuvering, it is dangerous for a party that is increasingly seen as a congressional and legislative entity, with the executive branch being ceded to Republicans.
Wirthlin`s polls and just about everyone else`s show that younger voters, particularly those under 35, identify with the Republican Party. Conceding four more years in the White House to the GOP will do nothing more than firm up the perception among younger voters that sitting in the Oval Office is a Republican activity.
The popular notion that anyone in the Democratic Party with national ambitions can sit by and wait until 1996 while his or her party goes the way of Zachary Taylor`s Whigs is just one more measure of the party`s desperate straits.