The Underground Primary Begins

By Laurence I. Barrett/Washington

When Paul Tsongas arrived in Iowa last week to explain why he should be President, he expected a friendly reception. The former Massachusetts Senator was, at that point, the only Democrat to have established a campaign exploratory committee, the first step in making a run for the White House. "It's like Economics 101," said Tsongas. "There's an enormous demand for a candidate out there and at the moment I'm the only supply." But Tsongas' monopoly disappeared only two days later, when Governor Douglas Wilder of & Virginia announced that he, too, had registered a 1992 fund-raising group with the Federal Election Commission.

Thus, after painful months when no vaguely plausible party member seemed prepared to challenge George Bush, the Democrats' underground primary had finally begun. In this largely unnoticed phase of the race, candidates try to build credibility by scratching for donations, recruiting local volunteers and hiring campaign consultants. Those with the fewest assets must make a fast start to escape the first-in, first-out syndrome that often erases little known and underfinanced candidates.

As presidential candidates, Tsongas and Wilder give new meaning to the term underdog. Neither has ready access to big bucks. Tsongas left the Senate six years ago suffering from cancer. He says that he beat the disease. Conquering his image as a cool, cerebral Ivy League lawyer in the Dukakis mold may be just as tough.

Wilder at least has the benefit of incumbency. Only 15 months ago, he made history by becoming the nation's first black elected Governor. But residual racism will be a problem for him, as will his lack of foreign policy experience, disdain for political organizing and habit of picking quarrels with powerful Democrats just to keep in fighting trim. Some insiders believe that Wilder's real aim is to become the vice-presidential nominee.

Yet both Tsongas and Wilder could attract support by running against type. Unlike most black Democratic politicians, Wilder has made fiscal austerity his mantra. He heaps scorn on the Democrats' inside-the-Beltway leadership, which he accuses of "strengthening the two-party system -- the party inside Washington and the party of the people outside."

Tsongas had a liberal voting record during 10 years in the House and Senate, but he was an early defector from orthodox liberalism. He supports the creation of a national industrial policy that would involve government directly in business development. Says he: "You cannot redistribute wealth that is never created."

Though neither man has much of a chance of winning the nomination, much less unseating Bush, the Democrats welcome their candidacies. The party is desperate to shift attention away from foreign affairs, the President's best suit, back to the domestic issues. A vigorous debate among presidential aspirants is the one way to accomplish that mission. Now that Wilder and Tsongas are entering the field, other candidates with more pull at the polls will be tempted to join them.