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Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7KB | 141 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 25

THE DEMOCRATS

Southern Fried Feuding


As Tsongas and Clinton pull ahead, they begin hurling negatives
at each other -- and reveal a lot about themselves

By LAURENCE I. BARRETT/NASHVILLE -- With reporting by Walter
Shapiro with Tsongas


    Good chemistry, Paul Tsongas liked to say when asked why
he and his rival Bill Clinton got on so well. Clinton would
point out that he and Tsongas were the two candidates for the
Democratic presidential nomination offering broad, serious
economic plans. That was in New Hampshire barely a month ago --
a lifetime in the compacted nominating calendar. By last week
the chemistry had turned combustible as each struggled to define
the other in negative terms, an exchange that revealed as much
about themselves as each other.

    After last Tuesday's contests, the former Senator from
Massachusetts and the Arkansas Governor emerged as joint front
runners. Bob Kerrey, losing badly everywhere, quit the race, and
Tom Harkin's war chest is empty. Jerry Brown's narrow win in
Colorado will allow him to continue receiving federal matching
funds to wage a guerrilla operation.

    Tsongas' victories in Utah, Maryland and Washington
demonstrated that he could prosper outside New England.
Clinton's big win in Georgia was his first victory of the year,
but the nominating process puts him in a strong position for
this week's Super Tuesday contests. His treasury is the plumpest
of all, his organization the most robust -- and with seven of
the 11 contests in Southern and Border states, he has the
home-field advantage.

    Last week's outcome, however, left Clinton and Tsongas,
both cerebral candidates with a strong sense of purpose,
scrapping like ward pols. In Florida Tsongas' best hope in the
South, Clinton aired a commercial questioning Tsongas'
commitment to maintaining Social Security benefits. When Tsongas
accused Clinton of misstatements and scare tactics, Clinton's
aides distributed a fact sheet showing that Tsongas had in fact
proposed an amendment eight years ago that would have frozen
cost of living increases in benefit programs for a year.

    Then a suddenly bellicose Tsongas attacked Clinton
personally as a "cynical and unprincipled politician," a "pander
bear" eager to promise everything to everyone. Jetting around
the South, Clinton told reporters at a late-night press
conference in Nashville that Tsongas was the real panderer, with
Wall Street the prime beneficiary, and that Tsongas had belied
his image as a "truth teller" by lying about the impact of
Clinton's position on a middle-class tax cut. A Tsongas ad had
implied that the reduction would worsen the deficit. Clinton's
plan would offset the loss with a higher rate for affluent
taxpayers.

    But the fact that Clinton's camp has been striving for
weeks to undermine Tsongas' credibility is testimony to the way
the ostensibly cool Clinton is suffering from the pressure of
the campaign. The furor over his alleged romance with Gennifer
Flowers and his draft status during the Vietnam War nearly sank
Clinton's candidacy. Though he staged a gutsy comeback, neither
his campaign nor his image has fully recovered from the trauma.
Says his campaign manager, David Wilhelm: "Because of what
happened to us, we lost for the time being the aura of the
serious, thoughtful candidate."

    This loss was particularly damaging in caucus states like
Washington, which became an ideal target for Tsongas because his
constituency consists mainly of upscale, educated voters.
Tsongas' Mr. Candor persona allowed him to benefit from the
attacks on his opponent's character. Clinton and his assistants
have since admonished reporters to give Tsongas' own record
deeper scrutiny.

    Clinton's need to fight off doubts about his character is
leaving its mark on his message. His intense efforts in New
Hampshire and Georgia forced him to divert time and money from
other states he might have won. Further, Clinton has adjusted
the emphasis of his message in subtle ways. He started as a
new-wave centrist disdainful of traditional liberal nostrums.
But against the fiscally conservative Tsongas, Clinton has had
to find other points of contrast in their philosophies. He has
reached out to traditional Democrats -- minorities,
working-class families, older voters still enamored of the New
Deal. Without changing any of his positions an iota, Clinton has
inched rhetorically toward being the compassion candidate.
Tsongas, he says, "wants to make life harder for ((working
people)). We want to make life somewhat easier for people
already paying the bills."

    Clinton understandably feels threatened by his plodding,
sober rival. An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey last week found
that only 5% viewed Tsongas as an unacceptable nominee, while
17% rejected Clinton. Says pollster Peter Hart: "Tsongas'
greatest advantage is that he repels no one."

    Whether Tsongas can build on that asset is uncertain. In
New Hampshire he had a year to campaign at his leisure. As the
nominating contest goes national, Tsongas has not been able to
expand his austere message. "We're going to have to broaden the
appeal," he conceded last week, while giving no evidence that
he knew how. Nor is it clear that Tsongas can keep up
effectively with Clinton's tireless pace. During a televised
debate in Dallas last week, Clinton was feisty, Tsongas wan. "I
was just exhausted," he said later. His lean campaign
organization, which he began to enlarge only after New
Hampshire, also has difficulty competing with the far larger
team Clinton assembled last fall.

    Tsongas sometimes gives the impression of being as
surprised as many of the pundits that he has made it to the
Democratic finals. Now that he has been euchred into negative
slugging with Clinton -- an exercise for which Tsongas seems ill
equipped -- his ability to demonstrate leadership will be
further crimped.

    Still, Tsongas is gritty enough to put up a stiff fight,
and Jerry Brown's continued presence will nibble some votes
from both front runners. That will prevent any candidate from
winning a critical mass of delegates soon. For months party
leaders had hoped to have a consensus candidate in place by
mid-March so that the Democrats could target George Bush, the
most vulnerable incumbent since Ronald Reagan challenged Jimmy
Carter 12 years ago. But the chemistry for that accomplishment
may be as transitory as the chemistry between Clinton and
Tsongas.