Are These Guys Really Serious?

By Sidney Urquhart

Paul Tsongas, the only declared contender for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination, may have some unlikely company. Associates of JERRY BROWN say the former California Governor yearns for elective office and is nursing a slim hope that his state's anticlimactic June primary could be advanced to March, when it would be a better springboard. Still more improbable is the gathering of support for consumer gadfly RALPH NADER. "I'm a citizen, not a politician," protests the lonely crusader. But he has yet to disavow his followers' efforts to get his name on the Democratic slate.

With reporting by Andrea Sachs