In the steps of the small red brick church in Huxley, Ia., hog farmer Jacob Lee casually grabbed for the hand of the presidential candidate and then, after studying the thin, angular face, politely dropped his voice and asked, ”Where are you from?”
”Delaware,” Pierre ”Pete” S. du Pont IV replied cheerfully, as if he had just arrived on the scene and had not been campaigning intensely across the state since last September, pumping the hands of surprised customers in the waiting lines of countless fast-food joints.
But the empty look on the farmer`s face was not new to du Pont. During the hurried drive from Des Moines that bright Sunday morning, he had sat quietly in the car, squeezed in with three campaign aides and his son, Ben, composing his thoughts about what it was he had in common with the people of Huxley.
What traditional American values did he want these people, many of them farmers and descendants of Norwegian settlers, to see in him?
The last thing he wanted to do was stir an image of himself as a 7th-generation descendant of the du Pont dynasty, once one of the world`s wealthiest families, a sailing devotee and man worth at least $6 million, who refined his polished ways at Phillips Exeter Academy and Princeton and Harvard Universities.
So the tall, broad-shouldered candidate in horn-rimmed glasses, crisp white shirt, modest blue tie and classic dark blue suit, who punctured the air with his hands in a very presidential way from the pulpit after services at the Fjeldburg Lutheran Church, wanted to be known simply as ”Pete,” not
”Pierre” du Pont.
The visitor with perfect front teeth (the originals were knocked out playing hockey as a teenager) recounted in a slighty high-pitched, East Coast accent that he, too, had lived in a small town. It was in Maine after getting married at 22 and joining the Navy.
He recalled worrying about urban renewal, garbage pick-ups and local politics with his neighbors. He also spoke of being a father whose oldest daughter was getting married that coming weekend.
A long shot in anyone`s book for the Republican Party`s nomination, du Pont, 52, is constantly struggling to stir a following among voters such as those in Huxley who can help lift him beyond being a well-born former governor and congressman from a tiny Eastern state.
He cannot match the political base or campaign funds of the GOP front-runners. A dedicated note-taker who sizes up every decision with an engineer`s demand for precision, du Pont is the last to pretend that his campaign is anything but a gamble against stiff odds.
”You don`t want the people in your office or yourself sitting up at midnight, saying we`ve won this,” he said one humid afternoon. ”You`ve got to be realistic. I`m 2 percent (on the polls) in Iowa.”
The rented van reeked of cheeseburgers (along with chocolate milkshakes, his favorite snack) as he cruised north-central Iowa, stopping at quiet, spotless courthouses to snare a few dozen handshakes.
Despite du Pont`s reserve, it is an all-out campaign and a unique one, not only because of the nature of the candidate, a former moderate turned Reaganlike conservative, but also because of his push for some unconventional policies that make staunch Reaganites spin.
With $2.5 million raised so far and about $1.9 million spent, the campaign has about 30 paid workers and offices in Iowa, Delaware and Washington. There is no polling, because du Pont workers say they do not need public-opinion polls to learn that du Pont is still a one-digit blip on the surveys.
So the strategy is to snare attention, realizing that the campaign likely will fold if du Pont does not finish in the top three spots in February in the first round of balloting in Iowa and New Hampshire.
From farm subsidies to drug abuse, du Pont, who in June, 1986, was the first presidential candidate to open an office, surely has offered some attention-getting solutions in line with conservative Republican thinking, and other plans influenced by a libertarian dislike for central government.
For example, in a state such as Iowa, still ravaged by the farm recession, where farmers lean heavily on federal support, du Pont has suggested ending federal farm subsidies over five years and letting market conditions set prices.
Accusing anticrime tactics of failing to control illicit drugs, he believes in putting the pressure on drug users. Test high school students at random for drugs, he suggests. Revoke the driver`s license of those who fail. To give parents more say in their children`s education, he would provide vouchers for parents to pick the public school of their choice. His thinking is not complete on that subject, however. As his advisers explained, ”He is more concerned with the philosophy than the technicalities at this point.”
To make the United States more competitive, anyone would be able to receive a government loan at market rates for more schooling.
Welfare payments would be eliminated, and the poor would be counseled about how to find jobs with private businesses. If they could not, du Pont says, they should be given work at 90 percent of the minimum wage, with day-care provided.
His remedy for the Social Security system is as unusual. Du Pont jokingly boasts that he is one of the few candidates with the courage to mention the
”two S words.”
He would allow people to opt out of the system, placing their contributions in private accounts at market rates. Their Social Security benefits would be reduced, based on the years they have invested privately.
Told that some of his policies seem inconsistent with his libertarian leanings, especially his crackdown on drug users, du Pont replies that he is searching for the best answers, not necessarily those from the same mold.
He also has broken one of the gentleman`s rules of party campaigning. He has cast doubts on fellow Republicans. During a recent Midwest GOP conference in Des Moines, for instance, he accused Vice President George Bush of living in a cocoon and not mixing with the voters.
GOP insiders warned that such actions are not likely to earn du Pont an invitation down the road to join the GOP presidental team when his own campaign folds.
That, however, seems perfectly fine with du Pont.
”If I`m like Bush or (Bob) Dole, I`ll finish third at best,” du Pont confided one day during campaigning. ”I have to be different.”
Before the campaign`s start, du Pont`s paid strategist, Bill Roesing, in Washington, offered him two roads, said Glenn C. Kenton, a Wilmington lawyer who is du Pont`s campaign chairman and chief adviser and who has been his alter ego since going to work for du Pont when the candidate was a freshman state legislator 17 years ago.
Du Pont could run a traditional campaign, the advice went, and the best he could hope for ultimately would be a third- or fourth-place finish, yet he would have the future as a potential candidate. The other route, Kenton said, was to make a one-time run for it.
”He (du Pont) said, `Let`s throw everything in it,` ” Kenton recalled.
”He doesn`t want to be hanging around for another four or five years. He`s very comfortable with himself. He doesn`t need this.”
Once the strategy was selected, du Pont laid down some unique campaign rules:
There would be no debts. No money would be accepted from political action committees. And no family. Kenton emphasized the words.
”He (du Pont) said, `I`m not going to get my kids in this.` ”
Over his father`s protests, however, Ben du Pont, 23, an engineer for what Pete du Pont casually describes as ”the family business,” E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., the nation`s largest chemical firm, has increasingly joined the campaigning.
Some political experts say du Pont has positioned himself wisely on the GOP`s right wing, realizing that those who vote in party primaries usually are more conservative than the average Republican. Others warn, however, that his too-conservative policies may deter the typical mainstream GOP voter, who might distrust his shift to the Right.
”Ten years ago the story would have been that he doesn`t have a chance, but that wisdom fell apart after Jimmy Carter,” said Tom W. Smith, senior study director for the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
Just as Carter was, du Pont is equally unknown and far back in the crowd of party candidates, Smith explained. Nor should his name and links to a wealthy family hold him back, Smith suggested, since several Rockefellers have succeeded in politics.
But Greg Markus, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, is convinced that du Pont`s policies would strike most voters as bizarre and inconsistent. What most voters want this year, say Markus and most public-opinion researchers, is a consistent political view.
Yet Eddie Mahe, a political consultant for Republicans, doubts whether du Pont`s issues will hurt him with voters.
”Pete du Pont will not come off as a kook,” the Washington-based consultant said. ”Americans vote for people, not issues.”
All this raises a question that even some of du Pont`s former aides ask:
Who is this man going around the country, calling for silent prayers in public schools and lecturing on the merits of free-market economics?
Who is this three-term congressman who opposed the Vietnam War in its later years and who scored a respectable 48 percent on his votes in Congress with the Americans for Democratic Action, a figure nearly four times Bob Dole`s or Jack Kemp`s?
At least one well-known conservative, Howard Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus in Washington, has concluded that du Pont is really a moderate in hiding.
The tip, Phillips said, was du Pont`s decision to support sanctions against South Africa. Du Pont says he felt a symbolic gesture had to be made against South Africa`s racial laws.
”I think he is a contrived candidate who is trying to figure out what people are looking for and remake himself in that mold,” Phillips said.
Du Pont`s legal adviser and chief of staff while he was governor, Wilmington attorney David Swayze, a card-carrying Democrat, said presidential candidate du Pont is different from the one he knew as governor.
”He was never this strident,” said Swayze, a loyal admirer of du Pont.
”He would tickle you to death. Pete would not debate when he was governor. His approach was gentle, noncombative. The Pete we are seeing is not his natural approach for working.”
Delaware`s Republicans often were chagrined by du Pont`s inclination to name Democrats such as Swayze to high-ranking jobs when Republicans were available, said Priscilla Rakestraw, a GOP national committeewoman and a close friend of the du Ponts.
From Orlando George, the Democratic Party`s speaker of the House under du Pont, there is nothing but praise for the former governor who today disparages ”protectionist Democrats” for advocating ”kamikaze economics.”
”I can think of more times when he took a more bipartisan than a partisan line,” said George, a 14-year veteran of a legislature not known for bipartisan tolerance.
Other Democrats do complain, however, that du Pont was indecisive and slow to act.
Du Pont named the first black to a Delaware state Cabinet post and issued the executive order setting up Delaware`s first affirmative-action program, said Littleton P. Mitchell, president of the state NAACP.
During du Pont`s administration, Delaware`s blacks ”didn`t do any worse, but the progress was minimal,” Mitchell said.
As proof of his conservative credentials, Eleanor Craig, a University of Delaware economist, offers the state`s financial record under du Pont, whom she met when he attended her classes in 1969 as a lawmaker, asking about economic policies.
”We used Delaware like a laboratory and used all of the conservative economic theories,” said Craig, who was named by du Pont to a high-ranking but nonpaying state advisory position.
State spending was trimmed. Delaware`s incomes taxes, at 19 percent the nation`s highest, were cut. The state`s usury law was lifted, and the taxes on bigger banks were geared so they paid less if they earned more.
Inspired by the state`s new laws and booming economy, 23 banks have moved to Delaware since the laws were passed in 1981 and 1983. The state`s unemployment rate fell from one of the nation`s highest in the late 1970s to one of its lowest.
Almost instantly these figures are raised by du Pont if he is asked about his conversion from moderate to conservative. He says it began when he became governor of a financially troubled state. Then he recites the problems he faced and explains how he was forced to make difficult decisions that taught him key economics lessons about helping businesses create opportunities for people.
There were no other reasons, personal or political, he says, and leaves it at that. He might point out with a disdainful aside how Ronald Reagan once was a Democrat, George Bush talked of ”voodoo economics” and go on, his voice trailing off.
Pete du Pont does not often open the door to himself.
To audiences and his own staff, he appears to be an upbeat, easygoing person who rarely raises his voice or shows his mood swings.
”This is a guy with no hidden agenda,” said Larry Leighton, a New York investment banker and close friend of du Pont`s since Princeton. ”What you see is what you get.”
And privacy is crucial to du Pont, say friends and aides, who explain that he would prefer to go straight home rather than have drinks with political cronies. He would tour Delaware as governor, bowling against senior citizens and enjoying getting whipped (his average was 137) because it made him feel close to the average person.
But he would feel awkward, they say, putting on a work shirt and posing for a barnyard campaign picture. In one major flub during his early years as governor, he referred to blue-collar workers as ”Joe Six Pack.”
He would invite a friend`s out-of-town relatives to visit his governor`s office. But his aides say he would put off sessions with lobbyists, and they had to structure meetings with legislators to make it seem that he mixed with them regularly.
”Pete never talks about himself,” said Dr. Robert Flinn, a Wilmington physician who has known du Pont since their Princeton days. ”I`ve known him for years, but rarely does he talk about himself. He may ask you 10 questions about yourself.”
What is it about you, du Pont is asked during conversations and long, rambling chats over several days, that makes you who you are and lifts you to the presidential ranks?
Almost always the answers are cut from the same pattern. Critical events, challenging situations, proved results. Tangibles. Not much is revealed willingly about the glue that holds them together, not much about Pete du Pont.
Even the question seems to make du Pont uncomfortable, to lead him to pause, lift a hand to his properly formed chin and ponder for a minute before coming forth with an answer.
If est were still flourishing, Pete du Pont probably would be a 5-second dropout from its hoards of instant self-explainers.
At best, one gets the feeling from the outwardly self-confident and upbeat candidate that he grappled with himself after most others had found their paths in life and discovered something he hadn`t seen before: He was a leader.
For years, visitors to his governor`s office in Dover admired a huge picture of a New England seascape by the artist D.A. Christmas. Only a few people know, however, that du Pont is D.A. Christmas (Done at Christmas) and a persistent painter, who started painting on Christmas vacations and likes to give away paintings to his family members on their birthdays.
Before he decided to run for president, friends say, du Pont was tortured over the impact it would have on his family, holding group meetings and recalling how his daughter Elise once had been the target of threatening calls from a Nebraska man. As governor, du Pont strictly abided by a Sunday rule: no politics.
His wife, Elise, 51, is expected to join him on the campaign in the fall, but close associates of the du Ponts say no one should expect her to tag obediently behind. After he was elected governor, she finished her
undergraduate degree at Temple University, attended law school at the University of Pennsylvania and after graduation went to work for the U.S. government in Washington.
”If being president requires a dutiful wife by his side,” said Swayze,
”then Pete can`t be president.”
Coming from the closest thing any state in the United States has to its own royalty, he grew up in his parents` estate, Bois des Fosses, in the lush hilly countryside of suburban Wilmington.
His father, Pierre S. du Pont III, or ”Big Pete,” as he is called, was a vice president and executive board member of Du Pont who has been described as ”an arch conservative” in one widely accepted family biography.
From his parents, especially his late mother, Jane Holcomb du Pont, friends say du Pont inherited a stage presence, which has flowered over the years, and an ability to entertain small groups.
Friends talk of parties at the du Pont home, Patterns, where du Pont and his wife will dress up in costumes for theme evenings or du Pont will have prepared an elaborate game for the guests.
Like his father, du Pont, who is often his own toughest critic, has a gentle, self-mocking humor. With a loud chuckle at the end of the tale, he tells about meeting his 3d-grade teacher one day after he became governor and her surprise that he had risen to such an important position.
While his parents and other family members emphasized a tradition of doing well and their community ”obligations,” du Pont says he was an unmotivated student who barely got through Phillips Exeter Academy and had some tough times in Princeton.
He loved sailing, like his father, but he wasn`t driven to much else. He was a shy youngster, he recalls, tall, thin and slightly introspective, who found himself as time went by.
”He didn`t put enough emphasis on study,” said F. Ward Paine, a California businessman who knew du Pont at Exeter and Princeton. ”He didn`t bury himself in books. He enjoyed, and he was active in what was going on.”
Although du Pont says he was outspoken about politics in college, others do not recall any significant interest. They say he studied engineering, mostly because of family pressures, but really became alive and more confident himself and his future in the Navy, where he led a Seabees unit, and then in law school.
His most crucial decisions, du Pont says, were marrying at an early age, breaking the family pattern by becoming a lawyer and running for governor, when he feared that his family name would be a liability and the job would become a political graveyard.
He is most revealing about his own emotions when he describes his satisfaction upon finding himself in his 20s, and how he clearly has enjoyed the upward trajectory as well as his ability to face criticism.
”I can remember the early part when I used to get upset at a letter to the editor,” he recalls. ”I would say, `Who is this guy writing these things about me?` ”
Still, he is not a man who likes to make public mistakes nor, as one aide said, ”take a leap of faith.” He will meet with friends or supporters locally and from around the country, asking their opinions and weighing the options, before reaching a major political decision.
Headed for an interview in Philadelphia one afternoon, his long legs stretched out in the rear of a car driven by a campaign worker, du Pont explained: ”I hope that when I go on television in 15 minutes that every question he asks me, I`ve heard before. I`ve got a thought, and I know how to respond.”
As his campaign has picked up, he has let himself get caught up in his workers` optimism, reveling in a flurry of clippings from national newspapers or smacking his hands together in satisfaction after his highly publicized debate in Des Moines with former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt.
”You ask yourself what you would rather do,” he philosophized one afternoon as the air conditioner wheezed in his van on a lonely Iowa road.
”And I`d rather be doing nothing else.”
