Bandwagon Effect May Aid Dukakis : Dole Dares Bush to Try to ‘Finish Me Off’ in Illinois

Vice President George Bush, taunted by his beleaguered arch-rival Bob Dole to try to “finish me off” after Bush’s stunning Super Tuesday victory, today begins an intensive campaign for GOP votes in Illinois that could come close to doing just that.

Final returns from Tuesday’s contests show Bush swept 16 of 17 states and won 577 delegates, bringing his current total to 702--almost two-thirds of the 1,139 needed to win the Republican presidential nomination.

And, backed by Gov. James R. Thompson and other Republican leaders in Illinois, Bush is heavily favored to win that state’s primary next Tuesday and claim a majority of its 92 delegates.

‘Up to Illinois’

Dole, acknowledging the primary is a make-or-break contest for him, said: “It will be up to Illinois now to turn it around.”

Speaking to students at Northwestern Law School in Chicago, the Senate minority leader sounded a plaintive note in renewing his challenge to Bush to debate him in Illinois: “I just appeal to George Bush. Here’s a chance, George, to finish me off right here in Illinois.”

But the vice president, playing it safe now that the nomination is within his grasp, sent Dole a telegram saying, “I respectfully decline,” and adding: “I believe it is now time to look ahead to the issues that distinguish us from Democrats.”

Dole’s aides, meanwhile, conceded it is virtually impossible for the Kansas senator to secure enough delegates to win the nomination before the Republican National Convention in New Orleans in August. But they suggested that Dole and the candidate running in third place, former religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, might win enough delegates between them to throw the nomination fight to the convention.

Thomas Rath, a senior Dole campaign consultant and former New Hampshire attorney general, acknowledged Dole had fallen so far behind Bush that it was no longer “conceivable” that the Kansas senator could muster enough delegates in the remaining primaries to win the nomination outright.

However, Rath said it was still possible to keep Bush from gaining a majority of the delegates while Dole reaped a plurality. To do that, however, Dole would have to make one of the more astonishing comebacks in presidential election history and win more than 6807739503elected.

Bush’s candidacy is expected to get another boost today when Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, who is running fourth in the race and who finished far back Tuesday, holds a press conference in Washington to announce he is withdrawing.

Move a Plus for Bush

A Kemp withdrawal would guarantee Bush additional delegates in the already contested Michigan caucus and in the delegate-rich New York primary, according to Rich Bond, Bush’s deputy campaign director. It would leave Bush uncontested in several New York congressional districts where Kemp was the only other candidate to file delegate slates.

Kemp called Dole Wednesday night while the senator was campaigning in Chicago and told him he was withdrawing from the race. Dole told reporters it was “a very nice call” and Kemp “wanted me to know that he was going to get out tomorrow and he wasn’t going to endorse anybody--going to stay neutral.”

“I said if he had any good ideas to slip me a note,” Dole quipped.

Dole said he did not ask Kemp to endorse him, but he did tell the congressman that he would start calling Kemp supporters and seeking their support.

Meanwhile, Robertson, unusually subdued in the wake of his resounding defeat across his Southern base, put part of the blame on having “talked too much” and following a poor strategy before the Super Tuesday contests.

Refers Again to Missiles

“I just talked too much up in South Carolina,” he said. “I don’t think it’s necessary to elaborate.” But he said he does not “back up” on one of his more controversial statements, declaring: “I still think there are missiles in Cuba.”

Robertson was referring to his pre-Super Tuesday assertion that the Soviet Union has secretly deployed medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba.

Trailing far behind Bush in the delegate count after Super Tuesday, Dole has 165, Kemp has 39, Robertson has 17 and 36 delegates are listed as uncommitted, according to the Associated Press.

Bush campaign officials were so exultant in the aftermath of Super Tuesday that they struggled, without notable success, to suppress an attitude of supreme confidence that the vice president’s nomination is inevitable.

When asked whether Bush’s nomination was a certainty, campaign manager Lee Atwater said: “Well, that’s not the attitude the vice president is taking or the campaign is taking. As long as D1869374752formidable candidate.”

And Bond predicted that Bush, who he said has “at least $5 million” remaining in his campaign treasury, will win enough delegates in Illinois and subsequent GOP contests to sew up the nomination before the final contests in California and New Jersey on June 7 and North Dakota on June 14.

White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr. said Wednesday “it would take a major event” to prevent Bush from winning the GOP nomination, but that President Reagan is still neutral in the race, and Baker said he expects the President “will continue that way for the foreseeable future.”

Baker said Bush was the front-runner before Super Tuesday “and clearly is the front-runner now. I think it would take a major event to deny him the nomination. He’s certainly got the momentum.”

The President was “awfully pleased” with exit polls showing he had an 84% overall approval rating among Southern Republicians, Baker said, adding: “I told him this morning . . . he was really the one who swept the South. I think that was a matter of pride for the President.”

Internal Bush campaign polls taken before Bush defeated Dole in last Saturday’s South Carolina primary showed the vice president 10 to 20 percentage points ahead in Illinois, campaign officials said. Bush’s stunning victories Tuesday should have lifted his profile and increased his chances of sweeping Illinois next week.

In seeking to deliver a knockout punch in Illinois, Bush strategists say, the vice president will rely on a meet-the-people style campaign much like the approach that preceded his earlier victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Dole promised to carry the fight to Bush in Illinois, but the senator looked glum as he began campaigning there Wednesday morning.

Aides acknowledged the senator was in something of a funk, but they predicted he would quickly snap out of it. “It’s tough,” said campaign aide Rath. “You’ve got to give him a little bit of time to absorb it.”

It apparently did not take long. After a stop at the Chicago hospital where he spent months recuperating from serious wounds suffered in World War II, Dole went to the Northwestern University Law School on Chicago’s Lake Front and gave one of the most vibrant, engaging speeches he had delivered in weeks.

Staff writers Cathleen Decker and Bob Secter in Chicago and Lee May in Atlanta also contributed to this story.