Dukakis Departs on Tour of the South

BOSTON--Gov. Michael S. Dukakis hits the road again today to talk about housing issues on Capitol Hill and meet with political leaders in the Deep South as his self-imposed deadline for deciding on a presidential bid rapidly approaches.

The three-day trip, the latest in a series of out-of-state sojourns the governor has taken as he contemplates a presidential campaign, is expected to be his last trip outside the region before the much-anticipated announcement, expected sometime next week.

Dukakis will give the keynote address tonight at the annual dinner of the Children's Defense Fund, a national group of human service activists who lobby Congress and state officials on issues facing poor, minority and handicapped children.

The speech gives the governor the opportunity to drive home his theme of breaking down barriers of opportunities by addressing root causes of welfare dependency.

Dukakis administration programs to help pregnant teenagers and teenage parents, and to keep teen-agers in schools, outlined in his 1987 inaugural message to the Legislature in January, mirror the Children's Defense Fund's goals of "preventive investment."

Group spokeswoman Evelyn Lieberman said Dukakis was selected as this year's keynote speaker because he "is one of the governors who has tried to address" those issues.

Earlier in the day, Dukakis is scheduled to testify on housing issues before the House Housing and Community Development Subcommittee, said Dukakis aide Mark Gearan.

Gearan said aides were trying to schedule a meeting between Dukakis and a group of congressmen headed by Rep. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), to discuss possible federal legislation on beefed up tax enforcement based on the commonwealth's tightened tax collecting policies under Dukakis.

The schedule includes no private meetings with Democrats to discuss his possible presidential campaign, but Gearan and Dukakis spokesman Jim Dorsey said that remained a possibility.

"We're still working on the schedule," Gearan said. "It depends on how much time we have."

Last month, Dukakis met with former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, Sen. John Glenn and a string of other prominent Democrats in separate, private meetings during a Washington visit for the National Governors Association winter meeting.

Tomorrow, Dukakis flies to Louisiana, the fourth southern state he has visited during his flirtation with a national campaign, meeting with local business and political leaders.

Tomorrow night he delivers an economic address to a group of Baton Rouge business leaders on his favorite topic, the commonwealth's "economic success story."

"They find themselves in a similar situation to ours a decade ago [and they want to know] how we bounced back," Dorsey said.

Earlier in the day, Dukakis will visit Southern University to discuss minority businesses and tour Louisiana State University to discuss the oil industry. He then will hold a private discussion at LSU with local academic, government, labor and business leaders about the Louisiana economy.

Louisiana poses the same problem Dukakis faces in other Deep South states, that of name recognition of a Northeast governor who only recently ventured into the national political scene.

But the Massachusetts Democrat is surprisingly well known among Democratic activists in Louisiana, according to Phillip Jones, director of party development for the Louisiana Democratic Party.

Noting that stories and photographs of the governor have appeared on the front page of the state capital's local newspaper twice in a week, Jones said Dukakis’ recognition statewide is equal to Joseph Biden, the Delaware Democrat who has gotten more attention so far in his anticipated bid for the presidency.