ASHINGTON - Officially, Texas Governor George W. Bush's decision to take Dick Cheney as his running mate will have no effect on Vice President Al Gore as he decides on his own running mate.
Unofficially, however, Democrats are war-gaming the possible rejoinders, with Senator John F. Kerry's name moving quickly up the mentioning chain.
''There are already two camps of punditry,'' said Bill Carrick, a veteran Democratic strategist based in Los Angeles. ''`Oh, we could trump this with Senator Mitchell' - somebody who's equally experienced and more moderate and less identified with past administrations. Or we could go generational with Dick Durbin, Evan Bayh, John Edwards, and John Kerry - all youthful, vigorous types.''
The men Carrick listed are Democratic senators from Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, and Massachusetts, respectively. George Mitchell of Maine retired as Senate Democratic leader and mediated the negotiations that led to the Northern Ireland peace accords.
There is, of course, yet another take on the Cheney choice for Gore. ''It doesn't force us in any one direction,'' said a top Gore official. ''It's liberating in a way.''
The campaign's on-the-record response to the Cheney pick pounces on Bush's decision to call upon an older man. ''It's a retro pick,'' said Douglas Hattaway, Gore's spokesman. ''It's showing that Bush would take the country backward rather than forward. He lacked the leadership to pick someone who represents a new generation of Republicans.''
With Bush's selection, Democrats also pointed out that the Republicans are fielding a ticket in which neither candidate served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Bush was in the Texas National Guard and Cheney received deferments keeping him away from service altogether.
''We have two people from the Vietnam generation who both missed the war,'' said one Democratic official, pointing to Kerry's war-hero status as a compelling contrast to Cheney's deferments. Last night, Kerry and Gore met at Kerry's Georgetown home during a dinner expected to raise $250,000 for the Democratic Party.
''We're getting down to what you would call a short list,'' Gore said, ''but we still have some work to do.''
Gore would not discuss the size of his current list or any of the names on it.
