MISSOURI COMMENTARY: MONEY, STRATEGY, TIMING, LUCK

Contemporary politics is a blend of money, strategy, timing and luck. To win the presidency, you need them all. Having three out of four won't do. Having two out of four creates a loser. One out of four means disaster -- and that's where the Dole campaign may be headed.

Money. Both Bill Clinton and Bob Dole have more money than they can productively spend. Both campaigns are up to their ears in money -- "hard" and "soft."

Hard money, in a presidential race, is the $62 million pot of gold the federal government hands over to the major party nominees after their respective conventions. The hard money buys the TV and radio component of the campaign.

Soft money is the avalanche of special interest dollars that comes from private, often undisclosed, sources and is used for everything else -- voter registration, get out the vote and assorted other expensive political machinations. The great virtue of soft money is that you often don't know form whence it came or whither it goest or how much it was.

Of all the big loopholes in federal campaign spending laws, soft money is the biggest. When Congress drafted the electoral finance laws, the obvious intent was that presidential candidates be free of the ugly burdens of fund raising once they won their party's nomination. Obvious intent has been converted into obvious shame.

Strategy. Clinton has been running against Dole/Gingrich for months. No matter that Jack Kemp is the vice presidential nominee. Speaker Newt Gingrich is the most unpopular political personality of our time. Almost single-handedly he has resurrected Clinton from the politically dead. The basic Clinton strategy will be to continue to paint a bleak picture of where this country would be with Dole in the White House and Gingrich running Congress.

Dole's strategy, sink or swim, is his last-minute conversion to supply-side economics. The public isn't buying it. Even some notable Republicans like Murray Weidenbaum, President Ronald Reagan's old supply-side adviser, have expressed their doubts about a simultaneous 15 percent tax cut and a balanced budget. As Weidenbaum points out, cutting taxes is easy; cutting the budget by an offsetting amount is unlikely. "We learned it the hard way," Weidenbaum said referring to the colossal Reagan deficits after cutting taxes.

This means that Dole will have to consider resorting to a frontal assault on Clinton's character. It won't be good enough to ferry Bill Bennett around on the Dole campaign jet to hurl whispered charges and insults at Clinton. Dole will have to do it directly if there is any chance for the issue to register.

Dole doesn't want to close out a distinguished public career in a sea of mud, but lack of anything better to do may force his hand. If Dole "goes dirty," there are risks. It can shore up his base of Republican true believers, but it can alienate the middle.

Timing. The incumbent president has great advantage in the timing department. He can sign bills, bestow medals, inspect disasters, sign executive orders, make presidential announcements, implement foreign policy and more.

George Bush in 1992 never understood how to mobilize the inherent political advantages of being president to help his re-election. Clinton in 1996 does. No presidential decision is left to chance. Every presidential decision is orchestrated to enhance Clinton's message as president of the United States.

Luck. If Clinton and his advisers had sat down to invent an economy that would ensure his re-election, they could not, in their fondest dreams, have crafted a better picture than exists today.

Unemployment, inflation, growth in the second quarter, consumer confidence, leading indicators and national optimism about the future are all in Clinton's favor.

Just as a president gets blamed for the perceptions of a negative economic situation, so too does a president receive the credit when the economy is favorable.

Dole and Clinton have tons of money -- on that element they are equal. But strategy, timing and luck are all with Clinton.

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.