George Bush, it seems, must forever follow, and compare. His father was a senator; George was not. Ronald Reagan is beloved; George is not. Time magazine put George on its cover this week; the week before was Jesus Christ.

But the largest shadow hanging over his campaign is that of 1960. Then, as now, an incumbent vice-president faced a Massachusetts-Texas Democratic challenge after eight years of Republican prosperity. That race was the closest in history; this, too, is expected to be close. His Republican predecessor was defeated; for once, Bush would like to fail to match form.

Much has changed in the political culture since then. Voter turnout was 62.8% of the electorate in 1960; in 1988, it is expected for the first time to fall to less than 50%. This is usually the subject of much-worried moaning. It ought in fact to be cause for some satisfaction.

The American voter's apathy is popularly thought to reflect a belief in the inefficacy of democracy. But if so, then why are turnouts so much higher in countries with demonstrably less responsive, less adaptible systems, such as Mexico, Italy, or Israel, where the chances of real change are effectively foreclosed, either by one-party inertia or multiparty gridlock?

It may well be that popular interest in politics depends on the place of politics in social organization. In a country where social and economic rewards are distributed less through formal political means than through such spontaneous and informal social structures as markets, as in the U.S., politics declines in importance.

The intense cafe debates and endless demonstrations of European political life, as much as the violence and confrontation of less peaceful models, are testimony only to the dominance of politics over markets, and more broadly of state over society, in the social and economic life of the community - which is hardly to be envied.

ELECTORAL ENNUI

It is not without significance that electoral ennui in North America, and declining expectations of government in general, should be accompanied by active interest in the personal lives of politicians, and rising expectations of their moral standards. What we are witnessing, I would suggest, is a popular reassessment of the role of political leadership in modern society. We vote no longer for what politicians do, but for what they are - at least, as we perceive them.

A modern economy is less about bashing metal than about manipulating information. Likewise, modern government is less about ordering people than exchanging ideas. In a post-industrial society, we have less need of traditional managers, in business or in politics. The role of the leader is rather as communicator.

In this he is a conduit in both directions. A leader must project his idea of society, but society projects onto him its own ideas. What is important, then, is both vision and image, in equal part: how he sees things, and how he is seen. And today, that is conveyed through television.

It is ironic that in the television age, a politician should be derided or thought insubstantial if his great strength is to be ''good on TV,'' while those who fail utterly at the medium are thought almost by definition best-qualified to govern.

The archetype of the modern leader is John Kennedy. His legislative achievements were marginal, his character, we learn since, in many ways suspect. Yet who can doubt he was a great leader, for he reflected and articulated the ideas - of society and of leadership - that moved his time. In him were expressed the conscious and unconscious hopes of a generation, and around him would the nation rally in crisis.

One thinks of his campaign poster. The slogan, ''A Time for Greatness,'' was audacious enough; try it on any present contender for size. But it is the photo that leaves one gasping. For he is depicted in profile. Not front-on as usual, but smiling shyly, oval-framed, the image of the emperor stamped on a coin.

What a world of meaning is in that rotation!  This is a face not to be scrutinized, but adored. He does not ask for your vote, but simply offers his presence. He does not know you are there, he has merely been plucked for a moment from history. He does not seek office, it seeks him.

I say modern. Of course I mean ancient. As we retie through advances in technology the bonds of social discourse which modernity had strained to breaking, we rediscover the old ideas of leadership. What Bush calls ''the vision thing,'' what the press dismisses as ''image politics,'' is the very dynamic of social relations - politics at the tribal level. It is not vague or trivial, but sounds the most unknown depths of our social being.