The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, higher food prices pushed the inflation rate up in July, Michael Dukakis labeled Bush policy "Son of Voodoo Economics", more questions dogged Sen. Dan Quayle, the Polish Government accused Solidarity of holding it at strike gunpoint as more workers walked off the job. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: After the News Summary, the renewed worry over inflation [Focus - Weathering Inflation] is our lead focus. Two economists with different perspectives join us. Then new poll results that show Bush [Focus - '88 - Poll Watching] suddenly ahead of Dukakis. We talk about those polls with Norman Ornstein. Next, a report on the second most hazardous occupation [Focus - Hazardous Duty], farming, and finally, Roger Rosenblatt with an essay on one more convention still to come [Essay - Final Convention].NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: Sharply higher food prices drove consumer inflation up in July due in large part to the effect of the drought. The Consumer Price Index rose .4 percent, which if continued would mean an annual inflation rate of 5.2 percent. Including July, it's so far been running at 4.5 percent this year. The Commerce Department also reported that orders for the most expensive manufactured goods fell a sharp 7 percent in July after rising 8.7 percent in June. The figures reflected fewer orders for cars and declining military purchases. In Long Beach, California, President Reagan signed into law the trade bill he once fought as too protectionist. He also vetoed an earlier version because it contained the plant closing notification requirement. The President has since let that become law and modified his objections to the trade bill providing tougher retaliation against countries maintaining unfair barriers to U.S. trade.

PRESIDENT REAGAN: We're here to sign a piece of legislation that will help our economy continue to grow and compete. Our Administration and Congress have come together in an effort to ensure open markets around the world. This bill will help us continue our efforts to open markets. It'll help insist on standards of fair play for our products abroad. It will strengthen the ability of U.S. firms to protect their patented, copyrighted or trademark goods and ideas from international thievery.

MR. MacNeil: On the campaign trail, Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate Sen. Lloyd Bentsen said President Reagan had to be dragged kicking and screaming into signing the bill. Noting that Bentsen had been a principal sponsor of the bill, White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater praised him for doing a good job. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Michael Dukakis today ridiculed George Bush's plan to slow down federal spending by calling it the "Son of Voodoo Economics", referring to a phrase Bush, himself, used in criticizing the Reagan economic agenda eight years ago. President Reagan came to the rescue of the beleaguered Republican ticket meanwhile by calling the Dukakis/Bentsen ticket third stringers that would bring a weak defense and higher taxes. But most of the attention today continued to focus on the GOP's Vice Presidential nominee Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle. Despite his insistence that he did not use influence to get into the National Guard during the Vietnam War, a retired Guard official from Indiana said today that he was contacted about finding a space for Quayle.

ALFRED AHNER, Former Indiana National Guard Officer: Wendell Philipi who had been my friend and division commander and my boss up through my military career called and said he had an outstanding individual who was interested in joining the Guard and would I see if we could take him in. Well, at the time there was an influx of a lot of college people getting into the Guard and so I went to personnel and they assured that they three or four vacancies available at that particular time, so I asked him to hold one until he got this individual over and interviewed him and see if he would be the type person we'd want.

MS. WOODRUFF: Quayle told reporters outside his home today that he found the continued questioning of his past outrageous. He said he was getting a little bit indignant about what he called one bum rap after another, and he once again said he joined the National Guard without any special treatment.

SEN. DAN QUAYLE, GOP Vice-Presidential Nominee: There was no influence used. I didn't have to use any influence because before I applied there were openings, when I applied there were openings, and after I applied there were openings. Those are the facts. And if you're interested in the facts, there they are.

REPORTER: Well, they're quoting records that were taken from the Indiana archives.

SEN. DAN QUAYLE: Well, I'm just telling you the records that we have, the military records that we have that will be made available to you will show just what I said.

MS. WOODRUFF: Quayle also denounced a news report that former lobbyist and Playboy model Paula Parkinson told FBI agents that Quayle had asked her to go to bed with him during a golfing weekend in Florida in 1980. The report, which came in the Los Angeles Daily News, quoted two former attorneys for Parkinson as saying she turned down Quayle's overtures. The Senator told reporters today the story was an absolute flat out falsehood.

MR. MacNeil: The Polish Government said today the Solidarity Union was holding it at strike gunpoint as more workers joined the week long strikes for recognition of Solidarity. The government announced a special parliamentary commission to meet next week to review the state of the economy, but said it would not negotiate with Solidarity to end the strikes. Workers in the Gdansk ship repair yard were said to have joined the strike at the Lenin shipyard and 10 mines in Southern Poland. Last night, riot police stormed three transport depots in the City of Szczecin and dragged away strikers occupying them.

MS. WOODRUFF: In South Africa today, a bomb exploded in the coastal City East London, injuring at least 25 people. The blast occurred in a fast food restaurant at about lunchtime. It destroyed the restaurant and scattered glass fragments over a 50 yard area. South African officials have blamed a number of recent bomb attacks on the African National Congress, that is the guerrilla organization whose goal in the overthrow of South Africa's apartheid government. But in a statement issued last week, the ANC leadership said a tax on civilian targets was contrary to their policy. In the Central African nation of Burundi there were more reports today about last week's massacres, which may have left more than 5,000 dead and caused 38,000 people to flee into neighboring Rwanda. A United Nations official told the Associated Press that refugees have reported that members of Burundi's military took part in the massacres. The killings resulted from a longtime rivalry between Burundi's minority, Tritsitrad, which rules the country, and the majority Hutu Tribe.

MR. MacNeil: The Chrysler Corporation today agreed to pay at least $500 each to people who bought cars that had been test driven with the odometers disconnected. An estimated 39,500 people will receive the payments in a settlement worked out between Chrysler and claimants in 46 states. That's our summary of the news. Now it's on to the inflation threat, the wildly swinging political polls, farm hazards, and a Roger Rosenblatt Essay. FOCUS - WEATHERING INFLATION

MR. MacNeil: First tonight we look at the inflation rate which rose by almost 1/2 point last month. That brings the projected annual rate for 1988 to 4 1/2 percent. Food and energy led the price rises last month, food costs overall up by 1 percent with some items like poultry and eggs up 7 1/2 to almost 10 percent. With inflation a lively political topic as the campaign heats up, how much of a threat to the economy is the inflation rate this year. Here with two different answers are two economists. Jeff Faux, President of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington- based think tank, and Larry Chimerine, Chief Economist for the Wefa Group, a Philadelphia-based economic forecasting firm. Mr. Chimerine joins us from public television station WHYY in Philadelphia. Mr. Chimerine, are the figures today worrying? Is it only the drought, or are other factors pushing prices up?

LAWRENCE CHIMERINE, Economist: Well, I wouldn't worry too much, Robin, about today's figures. I think you have to look more broadly at all of the data that have become available in recent weeks, in recent months. I think if you do, you conclude that there is some inflation. Until now, it's been heavily commodity type inflation. There are some signs it's beginning to spread throughout the system. So I think if you take today's number in the context of the other data, I think the general conclusion would be that inflation is slowly escalating throughout the system.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Faux, how do you look at it? Is it worrying?

JEFF FAUX, Economist: Well, I think you have to look at, worry about an overreaction to this. When you look at the entire spectrum of prices, it seems to me that the inflation rate has not accelerated very much. Consumer prices in July were about 4 percent above where they were last July. That's about the rate of the last four years more or less. Producer prices are also going up pretty much at the rate that they have. Food prices are going up, but I think that's a little blip and it's not going to cause a significant -- [audio difficulty] --

MR. MacNeil: We can hear you again. I don't know what happened. We put you on the echo chamber for a minute.

MR. FAUX: And then if you look at wages that some people are worried that, you see there's no indication that we're in a situation where wages are rising. Three out of the last four years, wages have actually risen slower than prices have. The dollar is going up, so I don't think that there is a threat of increases in prices of imports.

MR. MacNeil: Well, let me ask each of you this question for a moment. Would you expect the figures over the next four months to be as high as July's increase, start with you, Mr. Chimerine, as high or higher, given all of the factors you see at work, or lower?

MR. CHIMERINE: I think it will be roughly in line with the figures that came out today, Robin, maybe slightly higher for two reasons. No. 1, we're going to see several more months of rising food prices because of the drought and, in fact, later this year, early next year, we'll see another round of increased food prices, particularly in meats, as the second stage of the impact of drought. And secondly, some of the increases in other commodity prices like chemicals and paper and rubber and so forth are now beginning to spread into finished goods prices, so I think we'll see a little of that show up in the inflation numbers during the next several months as well.

MR. MacNeil: Do you agree with that, Mr. Faux?

MR. FAUX: Yes. I think they'll rise over the next six months or so at about the same rate that they have in the last few months.

MR. MacNeil: And what about other things besides foods, commodities that Mr. Chimerine mentioned, working their way through into the retail sector?

MR. FAUX: Yes. I think there's a very limited amount of that that's going to happen. People have been talking about the low unemployment rate, for example, but we still have 5 1/2 million people working part-time who would like full-time jobs. So I think there's plenty of slack in the economy. And what I worry about is that other number that you've cited, the decline in durable goods orders. It seems to me that the danger is overreacting to these minor increases in prices, raising interest rates and putting the brakes on a very fragile economy.

MR. MacNeil: So that leads me to the next part of this. You said overreaction. Do you think what the Federal Reserve Board did last week in raising the discount rate and the other things it's been doing recently in raising the Federal Fund's rate and gradually tightening up on credit, that that is an overreaction?

MR. FAUX: Yes, I do. I think the Federal Reserve Board is excessively worried about inflation at this time and not enough concerned about the possibilities of sowing the seeds for a recession. after the first of the year. If we start raising interest rates, that also has a ripple effect through the economy. Homeowners have to pay more for variable mortgages. People who buy automobiles have to pay more. It increases the risk of recession. And I think you're weighing risks at this point and I think the risks of a recession are more important than the risks of inflation.

MR. MacNeil: How do you see that, Mr. Chimerine?

MR. CHIMERINE: Well, I can't, Robin, fault the Fed for what they've done so far and I think to answer that more effectively, it's important to recognize that, you know, it's very easy for all of us, and we all do it from time to time, to blame the Fed for whatever happens in the economy. But the Fed's control over interest rates has declined dramatically in recent years given the large budget deficits and the need to attract foreign capital and our competitive problems and so forth and, in fact, until a month or two ago, the increase in interest rates we'd gotten in the economy really were not the result of Fed tightening. They started in the long end of the market, and it's only been in the last month or two that the Fed has tightened. What they've done so far is very very mild. Some of it is symbolic and I don't think it is going to slow the economy very much. I think what the Fed is trying to do is dampen it slightly to prevent the commodity inflation from spreading through the rest of the economy. I would agree with Jeff, however, that I hope this isn't the start of a progressive series of tightening moves, because that I would not be in favor of. But what the Fed has done so far indicating that they are concerned about inflation, telling the world that they are watching it and they won't tolerate an acceleration of inflation, I think what they've done is appropriate.

MR. MacNeil: What do you think about Joe Faux's point, that the risk of tipping the economy into a recession is bigger than the risk of letting the inflation rise as it is?

MR. CHIMERINE: I think they're both serious risks and I don't think the mild tightening that we've had so far really increases the recession risk that much. I think the Fed's going to be very very flexible. If they see signs of recession developing, they'll ease back very very quickly. And I think they've got to take both risks into account and right now there is some evidence of some ratcheting up of inflation and the Fed wants to engage in a small pre-emptive strike to prevent that from happening. And I think that's appropriate, provided they don't go too far and engineer a severe credit crunch which again I would not be in favor of.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Faux, why are you so worried about the Fed tipping us into a recession? What is the evidence you base your anxiety on?

MR. FAUX: Well, I think that if you look at consumer spending, for example, we've had a slowdown in consumer spending. If you look at the export sector of the economy, the rising dollar I think is going to slow down the increase in employment that we've been generating from exports. Higher interest rates will discourage business --

MR. MacNeil: And the higher interest rates attract or cause the dollar to go up.

MR. FAUX: That's right. Well, at this point, it's supporting that higher dollar. The higher dollar means that our exports become less competitive and imports become more competitive. So if you look at all these factors and you look at the fact that we're not going to get a stimulus from the federal government on the deficit side, you have to wonder where the stimulus is going to come by the first quarter of the next year. Now the other problem is this next recession is going to be much more difficult to deal with than the last one was, and that's partly because of these deficits the current Administration has run up. Ronald Reagan back in 1981/1982, had the ability to spend money and borrow to get us out of the recession. The next President will have that weapon taken away from him, and I worry that the next President will come into office faced with a recession and will have a very very difficult time getting out of it.

MR. MacNeil: You mean that the deficit, budget deficits are so large that the borrowing couldn't be dramatically increased to get out of a recession?

MR. FAUX: That's right. And another factor is the high level of debt throughout the economy. We need $50 billion to bail out the savings & loans that we don't have and we have corporations that are very highly leveraged. My fear is that if we get into a recession at the beginning of next year, it is going to be very difficult for us to get out of it.

MR. MacNeil: So you'd like the Fed just to leave it alone at the moment?

MR. FAUX: I'd like the Fed to leave it alone, yes.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Chimerine.

MR. CHIMERINE: Well, I agree with everything that Jeff said, Robin, about the risk of recession and the risk of a severe recession. I think the Fed would argue that what they're trying to do is smooth things out. They want to avoid the typical boom/bust kind of situation which we've had many times in the past where they allow the economy to get too strong in the latter stages of recovery which pushes up inflation, and that sets the groundwork for the next recession. So I think what the Fed is really trying to do is sort of smooth things out by taking a little edge off growth right now by preventing the next recession, because they're also very concerned about it. And again I would repeat what I said earlier that I think it would be a mistake to conclude that the small amount of tightening they've done so far will dramatically slow the economy. It will a little bit at the margin, but it will not severely increase the recession risk.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Let's spend our last minute or so on the political side of this. Here we are in an election year. The Republicans are claiming credit for having brought interest rates and inflation way down from where they found them in 1980. The Democrats are saying, but waiting a minute, the economic chickens have yet to come home to roost or are just beginning to come home. Over the next few months before the election, a prediction from each of you. Are we going to see interest rates continue to rise? Mr. Chimerine.

MR. CHIMERINE: I think marginally, Robin. I don't think we'll see too much additional increases because I think the Fed isn't going to tighten anymore for some of the reasons Jeff mentioned. They want to see what the impact of what they've done is already and make sure they don't tip the risk too much toward recession.

MR. MacNeil: And then, Mr. Faux, how do you see interest rates up till the election?

MR. FAUX: Well, I think interest rates will probably stay where they are or go up mildly. It's 2 1/2 months to the next election and it's pretty hard to mess up the economy in that period of time. I worry about what the next President will inherit.

MR. MacNeil: Yeah. You don't worry about that, Mr. Chimerine, what the next President is going to inherit?

MR. CHIMERINE: I worry greatly about it, Robin. I am extremely concerned about the fundamental problems of debt and budget deficits and deterioration of competitiveness. I think what we have to think about in looking at interest rates, a lot of people are advocating that the Fed cut interest rates. The Fed just doesn't have that flexibility anymore, given the other problems that exist. And those are the ones we ought to be addressing right now, instead of just bashing the Fed, as all of us tend to do from time to time.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Well, we'll ask you back to get on to those issues. Mr. Chimerine, Mr. Faux, thank you for joining us. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Still ahead on the Newshour, the latest Presidential polls, dangerous farm equipment and Roger Rosenblatt on the coming convention. But first, this is pledge week on public television. We are taking a short break now so your public television station can ask for your support. That support helps keep programs like this on the air.

MR. MacNeil: For those stations not taking a pledge break, the Newshour continues now with an excerpt from Sen. Dan Quayle's speech last night before the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Chicago.

SEN. DAN QUAYLE, GOP Vice-Presidential Nominee: My National Guard unit, it was never called up to active duty, but let me say that after these last 72 hours, no one can say that I've never faced combat. Let me first say that I come from a family that believes in serving our country. My father in World War II was a member of the United States Marine Corps and proud of it. My brother the same year, in 1969, followed the tradition of my father and joined the United States Marine Corps, served on the USS Midway off the Coast of Vietnam, and proud of it. And I joined the Indiana National Guard and served for six years, and I'm proud of that too. There's been a lot of discussion about if, in fact, I used influence, which I have denied from the very beginning. There was no influence. Influence was not even necessary had I chosen to use it and I would never have used it. And the reason is is because my Indiana Guard unit had openings before I applied, they had openings when I applied, and they had openings after I applied, so there was absolutely no influence used in me volunteering to join the Indiana National Guard whatsoever. And I just wanted to share with you as a generation that came out of the Vietnam era and born in 1947 after the Second World War and graduated from college in 1969, there were 27 million males that were eligible for the call of duty during those Vietnam years. Nine million of us served, 1/3 of the eligible served. Of that nine million, over two million people saw active duty in Vietnam, and like all of us, we remember Vietnam very vividly. The small town in Huntington, I can name a few of my friends that lost their lives and I can tell you that my compassion and understanding for those people and those families goes without saying. It is there and it is meaningful. As I said in New Orleans, and I want to say it again here tonight, that my generation, and I am the first to represent my generation on a national ticket, and I don't intend to speak for my generation, I'm just part of it, but my generation owes a lot to George Bush and his generation for the peace and prosperity that they have brought us. The issue in this campaign my fellow friends is not what did or did not Dan Quayle do some 20 years ago. The issue of the campaign is what will George Bush or Michael Dukakis do for the future of this great nation of ours. That is what is the issue. What is going to happen to the future? Who is going to provide for the peace? Who is going to continue the economic growth? Those are the challenges that confront this great nation of ours and as you look at the record, and I know that George Bush spoke in very clear terms, that there is a very stark difference between these two gentlemen, of whether we're going to have an investment in national defense and national security. I am convinced in my service on the Senate Armed Services Committee for eight years that the reason that we're able to have an ongoing arms control process and that peace is breaking out all over the world is because the United States of America was willing to make an investment in national defense.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Dan Quayle addressing the VFW Convention in Chicago last night. FOCUS - '88 - POLL WATCHING

MS. WOODRUFF: We turn next to Presidential polls. In the few days since the Republican Convention, two national polls have given George Bush a sudden lead over his Democratic opponent. Newsweek Magazine reported on Sunday a Gallup Poll showing the Bush/Quayle ticket leading Dukakis/Bentsen 51 to 42 percent. And yesterday a CBS News Poll showed the Republican nominees at 46 percent to the Democrats' 40 percent. These figures are in marked contrast to most earlier polls, including a CBS Poll from the first of the month when Dukakis was leading Bush 50 percent to 33 percent. Well, joining us now to help sort out all these numbers is Norman Ornstein, Resident Scholar at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute. He's with us tonight from the studios of publicstation WHRO in Norfolk, Virginia. Norman, what is going on with these numbers?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN, American Enterprise Institute: Well, the numbers are going to fluctuate widely for quite a while I think, Judy, the single largest reason being that people have not yet really settled in, focused, and anchored in their choices in this campaign. Events such as the Republican Convention can make a dramatic difference. We're going to see polls that show 15, 17 point leads change, as we've already seen, to 9 point deficits for Dukakis/Bentsen. Now with George Bush in the lead, we may see another poll in a week or ten days that will show a bigger lead for Bush or maybe that lead vanishing. It's going to take a few weeks before we really get people settled in and focused on the campaign.

MS. WOODRUFF: Are the numbers in and of themselves accurate, Norm?

MR. ORNSTEIN: What we have with the Newsweek Poll, which was conducted by Gallup, and the CBS Poll, are among the best commercial surveys that we have. There's no reason to doubt that what they're tapping into is genuine sentiment as of the moment. The big problem is that that sentiment as of the moment bears very little resemblance to the sentiment a week ago and very little resemblance or predictability in terms of what we'll see a week from now.

MS. WOODRUFF: How much of all this has to do with the fact that the Republicans have just come off their four day convention in New Orleans?

MR. ORNSTEIN: It is a fairly standard process that we see what we've come to call a bounce coming out of the convention. Four days of concentrated media attention, the excitement surrounding a convention, what generally is good news for a party, and then the speech that the candidate, himself, gives, going off of that, we usually see a rallying around and a movement forward. That's happened here. It happened with Mike Dukakis following the Democratic Convention. Now it appears to be one of the phenomenon we're seeing with these polls following the Republican Convention. But this doesn't always happen, Judy, and it doesn't tell you very much about anything that's enduring or long lasting. In 1984, Ronald Reagan got no bounce out of the Republican Convention. Walter Mondale got a huge bounce out of the Democratic Convention in San Francisco, and immediately following that convention, polls showed him leading Ronald Reagan. We see by the results of the 1984 election how much these polls immediately post convention mean.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, what do the numbers mean then? You're saying the electorate is volatile, that the numbers are not necessarily inaccurate. Is it just that one day it reflects people's feelings, the next day the feelings may be different, is that what you're saying?

MR. ORNSTEIN: I'm saying feelings can change along about now and you don't have a public that's really focused on the election campaign. One of the things that's interesting about this is that we're seeing the favorability and unfavorability ratings of both candidates, Mike Dukakis, George Bush, change pretty substantially. Mike Dukakis's negative ratings, the unfavorable feelings people have about him, have gone up substantially in the last three weeks. Before that, his unfavorability ratings were low, but people didn't know much about him. What they've heard in the last few weeks has been more negative. George Bush's ratings have been negative for several weeks. Now they've dropped those negative ratings. People view him more favorably. That's kind of interesting, especially given that we've had George Bush around for 7 1/2 years in this Vice Presidential role. You wouldn't think there'd be that kind of volatility but we're seeing people just now focus. The messages they're getting now, if they conflict with previous messages that they've gotten, they still take over because you don't have the anchors that existed before. As we move further along in the campaign, people will get more knowledgeable, they'll focus more intensely, they'll be a little more anchored. We're likely to see the fluctuations begin to move less and less as we approach November.

MS. WOODRUFF: At what point does that happen? I mean, after which point can we say these numbers are beginning to be fairly reliable and fairly predictive of what may happen?

MR. ORNSTEIN: I would guess that by the time we get to the first of October, we're likely to see the week to week fluctuations be less. That doesn't mean we can look at results in surveys in the first week of October and say this is how the election is going to come out. Of course, that was the mistake that people made in 1948, when Harry Truman was behind by quite a margin going into the election. And it doesn't mean that we won't see polls move over a period of time in September and October mostly in one direction. In 1976, immediately after the conventions, Gerald Ford was down to Jimmy Carter by over 30 points. Of course he lost by only one point. So we can see substantial movement but the movement is likely to be less from a week to week basis when we get to around October. Remember though, this is an election campaign with no incumbent running. We're not talking about people viewing it simply as a referendum on the incumbent Administration in office. They're going to focus on two individuals, neither of whom has been President, on the decisions they make, on their personal qualities, as well as on the issues where they stand and the objective situation in the society. A lot of things to take into account, we're likely to see less predictability frankly in the results here than we might have found even in 1984.

MS. WOODRUFF: Norman, given how volatile these poll results are right now, how much attention should we pay to them, how much stock should we place in these numbers which seem to come out every day from different sources?

MR. ORNSTEIN: Well, clearly, we're paying too much attention to them, Judy. I think it's a natural reaction in an election campaign which we treat, at least in significant part, as a horse race, who's ahead at the quarter poll, who's behind, what's happening as we move forward a little bit. We pay too much attention to that now, before, frankly, the race itself has actually begun. But of course there is some value in looking at these surveys. The fact that we see these wild fluctuations tells us among other things that we don't have a public that's focused in. The surveys, themselves, tell us that a substantial number of people, more than we have in an election campaign at this stage say that they haven't made up their minds and might change their minds between now and the election. And there are some surveys that have a deeper intent, that look a little bit more at the underlying variables. Frankly, those surveys, including some that I've been involved with with Times Mirror done by the Gallup Organization suggest that in an underlying way this is a very close election, the underlying coalitions that the parties have built up are pretty much even. We're going to see these fluctuations, but it's likely to come back to a close race.

MS. WOODRUFF: Are there certain polls, Norm, that we should pay more attention to than others? And I don't mean by polling organization, but are there certain kinds of questions that are more predictive? For example, a lot has been said, and you just mentioned this again, this whole question of negative rating or unfavorability rating of the candidates, is that an indicator we should perhaps pay more attention to than just the overall numbers?

MR. ORNSTEIN: One of the more interesting sets of questions that a number of the more reputable surveys are asking now is personal characteristics and favorability and unfavorability. Those things as they change will give us a better fix in some ways on how the campaign is going. What we've seen for example in the last month is that as the Republicans have focused on the furlough program in Massachusetts, the prison furlough program that lets convicted criminals out for weekends, that has had a very substantial effect on the public's view of Michael Dukakis more than any other issue, in fact, more than all other issues combined. So we can get a gauge as to how the campaign, itself, is working in terms of public attitudes. Polls can help us in that regard. One of the things we've got to be careful of though and one of the things viewers have to watch very much is overinterpretations of these surveys. When we'll see surveys for example that are done with five hundred or six hundred or a thousand cases where the margin of error is much greater, if we see one or two or three point differences, you'll often find that newspapers or other media outlets will suggest that that means somebody is winning or losing when, in fact, they don't tell us that much at all. What we see with these survey results, the Gallup Poll, the CBS Poll, something that's beyond a margin of error with a substantial enough sample that we can say right now as of today Mike Dukakis is behind George Bush, but again, that doesn't mean anything when it comes to November.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. Well, Norman Ornstein, once again, we thank you for being with us. FOCUS - HAZARDOUS DUTY

MR. MacNeil: Next the hazards of family farming. In these days of drought, there's been much talk about hardships faced by farmers, but contending with bad weather is only one of the challenges of family farming. Another is farm safety. A recent study by Minnesota's Mayo Clinic ranks farming as the second most dangerous occupation. It's an industry which is hard to regulate because it's also a way of life. We have this report from Fred Sam Lazaro of public station KCTA in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

FRED SAM LAZARO: This Central Minnesota farm, 200 acres of corn field and about 60 dairy cows, belongs to Andrew and Marlene Virnig. They have six children. For the Virnig family the day begins at 5 AM. It ends about 14 hours later. There are chores for every member of the family, for the children before and after school. There are no weekends off. Andrew and Marlene Virnig last took a vacation 21 years ago.

ANDREW VIRNIG, Farmer: I never had one since we was married. When we went to get married, we went to South Dakota. That was the last night.

MR. LAZARO: The Virnigs also work in an occupation considered second only to mining as a hazard to human health. It is also one of the most heavily mechanized. Unlike mining, working conditions on family farms are not monitored by any government agency and there have traditionally been few federal safety requirements for farm equipment, equipment that is often either operated around children or by them. In fact, children under 16 make up 20 percent of the family farmwork force. The two elder Virnig sons, Benno and Felix, say they've been operating equipment since they were six.

BENNO VIRNIG, Farmer: My mom's brother got killed in a farm accident on a blower chopping -- and my mom, mom always warned us all the time, especially chopping.

MR. LAZARO: It was while operating this machine used for chopping silage that a younger Virnig son suffered a tragic accident two years ago. David Virnig had just turned 13.

BENNO VIRNIG: And then when he was going to reach over to put it in gear, he pushed against the rubber, so then the shear pin caught the rubber and ripped the rubber off and caught his shirt and coat and wrapped it up.

ANDREW VIRNIG, Farmer: I was out in the field chopping and she came out with the pickup and was coming across the field with the pickup driving pretty fast and I figured there was something wrong. So I got out of the tractor and she said he had his arm caught in the PTO shaft. Then when we come home I told her to call the 911 number right away and then I run down by the box, well, then he was laying from the box about 20, 30 feet, he didn't have any arms on at all, so I just picked him up and hollered for somebody to get the car out of the garage.

MR. LAZARO: David was rushed to a local hospital and later by helicopter to the Twin Cities where a team of microsurgeons worked 10 hours to reattach his farms. For a time, David's was a story of a medical miracle as much as farm tragedy. Doctors predicted he would regain up to 70 percent of the use of his hands. But as is common with farm injuries, doctors weren't able to completely sanitize the wounded area. Infections developed and David's arms had to be severed a second time.

ANDREW VIRNIG: that was another shock just about as bad as the first time, because we had so much hope and they gave us a lot of hope that it was going to really take good because he was young, but then he got the infection so bad and he's allergic to penicillin and it was so hard to identify what type of infection he had to treat it.

SPOKESMAN: From a personal standpoint, we visualize that as a failure.

MR. LAZARO: Alan Van Beek is a Minneapolis surgeon who was on the team that operated on David Virnig.

DR. ALAN VAN BEEK, Surgeon: In a farm accident, particularly when a child involves, a part of me goes to that child emotionally. And because I know that given this child and his accident and the severity of the accident that he will never get complete recuperation.

MR. LAZARO: Van Beek is himself the victim of a childhood farm accident. At 13, a tractor ran over his legs. He recovered but says he felt morally obligated to do more to prevent accidents and to train family members to respond appropriately to them. Seven years ago, he began this publicity campaign called First Care aimed at hospital waiting rooms, farms and schools. [Educational Videotape Clip on Farm Accidents]

DR. ALAN VAN BEEK: In rural schools, they usually have a shop class or a mechanics class, or they certainly have to take arithmetic. Maybe what they have to do is to take a course on farm safety to teach youngsters where these accidents occur, to teach youngsters that it's not macho to work with equipment, to drive a tractor, when you're six, when your legs can't even reach the pedals. I can recall in my youth driving tractors when I was eight, nine years old, when I could barely get my foot down to the pedal, because it was fun. I wanted to do it. I begged to do it. I think that mentality needs to change.

DR. JILL SWANSON, Pediatrician, Mayo Clinic: It's difficult when they come to the emergency room with their arm dangling and it's very hard on the family obviously.

MR. LAZARO: Jill Swanson is a pediatrician at the Mayo Clinic. She's been studying farm injuries in children brought into the Minnesota clinic over the past several years. Nationally, Swanson says 300 children are killed in farm accidents and 23,000 are injured each years. She agrees that one of the more frustrating aspects of treating injured children is a seemingly resigned attitude in many farm families.

DR. JILL SWANSON, Mayo Clinic: One of the interesting comments one farm family said to me was that it was a way of life on the farm, yes, it was unfortunate, they felt awful the accident happened, but their uncle had lost an arm on the farm, their grandfather had lost a couple of fingers. They almost acted like it was a way of life and part of being on a farm.

MR. LAZARO: Steve Dille says he understands the mindset of farmers and agrees it is perhaps the biggest challenge in launching a safety program. Dille is a farmer and also a representative in the Minnesota House.

STEVE DILLE, State Representative, Minnesota: If you have a program in a rural farm town in Minnesota on farm safety, advertise in the local newspaper, and you get all geared up with a good speaker and movie slides and so forth, almost no one will show up. And that's why I think education is not enough.

MR. LAZARO: And Dille says legislation or government safety inspections of family farms wouldn't do either. Not only would such proposals be prohibitive, but farmers, Dille says, wouldn't tolerate them.

STEVE DILLE: There's a real feeling that the farmer wants to be free and independent. Some people describe him as the last bastion of independent business people in the United States. Everybody else has gotten wrapped up in all kinds of regulation and control.

MR. LAZARO: So instead of the stick, Dille has proposed a carrot approach to farm safety. He has co-sponsored legislation to encourage farmers to have so called farm safety audits

STEVE DILLE: As you know, in an energy audit, a person comes out who is skilled in energy conservation to inspect your home and then make recommendations on how you can become more energy efficient. I feel we can go out there and do a farm safety audit on a voluntary basis and those farms that wind up being particularly safe reward them with some kind of incentive whereby the insurance premiums would be reduced on his farm liability policy or maybe some kind of reward system through some public recognition and so forth to try to promote on farm safety.

MR. LAZARO: But Dill admits that good results will take years. Farmers are spread out. They rarely congregate in large numbers and most face more immediate challenges like bad weather, sick livestock, and keeping financially afloat. In fact, things are expected to get worse before they get better. Farmers are relying increasingly on large machines. Many buy them used and without the safety equipment that's being added to newer models. Further, the Mayo Clinic's Swanson told producer Gaile Freidenger that even though the two income family is becoming more common in farm country, child care hasn't caught on.

DR. JILL SWANSON, Mayo Clinic: Due to the financial situation, many of the spouses are working off the farm in a predictable paycheck type of employment. Many times this is the mother and because of that oftentimes the children are under supervision of the farmer. Many farm families are not used to or don't anticipate using day care sorts of facilities when the children could be on the farm.

MR. LAZARO: Two years after losing his arms, David Virnig has worked hard to return to his former way of life. He's learned anew how to operate this tractor and the disking implement. He can also drive the family pickup truck on the farm. Realistically, however, David's parents say he will probably not be able to farm for a living. He is thinking about a college education, the first member of the Virnig family to do so. David, himself, like most teenagers, says little in conversation with adults.

MR. LAZARO: David, what's your ambition in life?

DAVID VIRNIG: [Laughing shyly, working at computer]

MR. LAZARO: In general, doctors and parents alike say they're surprised at David's resilience, his physical and mental adaptation to the handicap. Ironically, farm advocates say these qualities, a philosophical approach to his fate, and an ability and willingness to work hard, come from his farm upbringing. Steve Dille says like everything else it's a tradeoff, but on balance, he says, the positive aspects of farm life far outweigh the dangers.

STEVE DILLE: My kids are really a privileged minority. They're growing up on an American farm and know they can learn how to do all kinds of things. They've got a greater appreciation of life and death. They understand something about soil erosion in the ground, the animal husbandry. They've learned how to work. They've got the responsibility of some chores. When they got out into life after they leave that American farm, I'm sure that they will be better prepared for life. But I also know that my children are growing up in probably what is one of the most dangerous places in America. ESSAY - FINAL CONVENTION

MS. WOODRUFF: Finally tonight, Essayist Roger Rosenblatt reminds us there yet another political convention ahead of us, the most important one of all.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: What use does one make of private experience in a country where public experience drives and shapes the government? The question is heightened and made concrete every time a Presidential election comes round the corner tooting its horns. Now the process begins again, the exhilarating, confused, cacophonic process by which Americans alchemize their individual experiences into the fundamental instrument of the Republic, a vote. On November 8th, the people will convene as a nation at the polls in the third and final political convention of the season, and by the exercise of a single decision, private experience, frailly, shaky, less informed than it ought to be, will emerge as public experience, monumental, self-assured, cocky as the king of the cats. Yet now to November constitutes the truly imaginative time, after the more predictable political conventions have done their work, when the impressions of the election year congeal, fall apart, begin to sort themselves out. Spun off the mind's table are the memories of the seven dwarfs and Gary Hart's luminescent boat ride, and Bob Dole's descriptions of Bob Dole, and the Robertson threat, and the Jackson threat. Like those operas in which crowds mill about aimlessly in a plaza at the opening of an act until the main characters clearly step forward, the two main characters of the election have clearly stepped forward, with everything in the world expected of them, Bush to prove that he is a man and a half, Dukakis is expected to allay fears that he is a bleeding wallet liberal, both candidates to show that they are hard nosed but soft hearted, patriotic but diplomatic. In the process the two men will be made into mythic statutes, the canniest of managers, the most heroic of the heroes, while the public in its accidental malice will simultaneously hail them as works of art and remark on the cracks in the busts. From the outer perches, the election will seem supremely analyzable. Go study the key voting blocks, the key states, the Reagan factor. The overwhelming presence of Reagan functions not only as a major element in the Bush Campaign but for Dukakis as well. Nothing so explains the exquisite caution of the Dukakis Camp as the popular affection in which Reagan is held no matter how Reagan's programs are judged. Who has picked the better running mate? Who will benefit most from the televised debates? Which issues will tilt toward one candidate or the other? The Soviet Union appears demenaced by its ruined economy and the charm of its leader. Gridlock in Israel. Near peace in Iran/Iraq. The campaigns look homeward to the issues of health care, taxes, Social Security, industry, housing, the environment, the poor, the years of the child. Then there are the invisibilities to see. Every political era needs a monster to beat back. Andrew Jackson had his monster bank, Lincoln the monster secession, FDR the monster depression and the monster axes. Today's monster is the budget deficit, huge, shapeless, crouching somewhere in the future. It quietly terrorizes a citizenry that is increasingly edgy about its place in the world, often doubtful and lonely, expressing no discernible general will, except to insist that America remains a remarkably valuable idea even in times of the weirdest weather. Still, the most incalculable invisibilities are the private experiences of the electorate, known more familiarly as the asthmatic tycoon in Waco who breeds quarter horses as a hobby, and the Puerto Rican father of nine in Jamaica Plain who lays cables in river tunnels, and the red haired manicurist in Boulder, who was so exhausted last night driving home to her trailer park that she swerved to miss a dairy truck, pulled over, wept at the wheel and thanked God for his vigilance. Through the minds of such millions will the candidates rove, making their pitches among the stacks of the most personal complaints and desires, baffling, solitary procedure. Shortly those minds will collect on a day to continue a country. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Once again the main stories of the day, higher food prices in part caused by the drought pushed inflation up slightly in July, Michael Dukakis called Bush policies "Son of Voodoo Economics", while more questions about Dan Quayle dogged the Republican team. Poland's government accused the Solidarity Union of holding it at strike gunpoint, but promised a special commission to review the economy. Good night, Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.