Politics Sweet Smell of Success

By JON D. HULL CHICAGO

Bill Clinton is the first Democratic presidential contender since Jimmy Carter to attract black voters without alienating blue-collar whites. He is popular among women, union members, veterans and the unemployed, both North - and South. He talks tough on welfare without criticizing the poor and supports the death penalty without turning off liberals. He has a strong organization, loads of powerful friends, a lightning mind and a damage-control system that could have kept the Titanic afloat. He trounced his remaining two rivals so badly during crucial primaries in Illinois and Michigan last week that Paul Tsongas suspended his campaign, leaving only Jerry Brown still snapping at his heels. And while he has seven more months to prepare for the November election, polls already show Clinton running dead even against George Bush.

Not bad for a candidate who nearly knocked himself out of the race only a month ago.

"We've got the fat lady tapping the mike, getting ready to sing," says Paul Tully, political director of the Democratic National Committee. Yet Clinton's latest victories do not guarantee that his road to the nomination will be a ceremonial stroll. Plenty of Democrats fear his campaign may be doomed when he squares off against Bush, and the fat lady is no fool. Even as he pummeled his opponents at the polls, Clinton has been dogged by questions of electability. In the fall, as Republicans go knock, knock, knocking on Clinton's closet door in search of another lady in red, those questions will return with a vengeance.

That prospect is excruciating for a party long cursed by fatally flawed standard bearers. "The idea that a misplaced love letter could keep us out of the White House for another four years makes me ill," says a Democratic fund raiser in Chicago. Clinton's defenders take comfort in the fact that their candidate has survived months of scrutiny by the press and voters. "He's got presidential stature, and he's convinced a lot of people that he can win," says Ed Scribner, president of the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO. "When he started out, there were some problems with his private life, but I think most people in our union look at that as a private matter and do not think it takes away from his ability to run this country." But that reasoning ignores the fact that Clinton has yet to face the toughest character test of all: a multimillion-dollar assault by the Republicans.

Even before that struggle begins, Clinton has to shake Brown from his pant leg, or at least figure out how to prevent the former California Governor from drawing too much blood between now and the nomination. Tsongas' departure enables Clinton to quicken his march to the nomination; he already has nearly half the 2,145 delegates he needs, while Tsongas has 430, and Brown 129. But unlike Tsongas, Brown can't be starved out of the race, because he lives off the land, foraging for petty cash with his 800 number. He vows to wage an insurgent war for "the soul of the Democratic Party" in the remaining primaries and caucuses, painting Clinton as a political insider and protector of the status quo. "If you feel things are more or less O.K., that's Bill Clinton," says Brown. "If you feel that this country is decidedly on the wrong track, this is your campaign."

Clinton would just as soon ignore Brown's increasingly shrill attacks and prepare for the general election by emphasizing centrist political ideas that appeal to a broader spectrum of voters. At strategy meetings in Little Rock last week, the candidate and his aides prepared to launch a series of major policy speeches intended to restore his pre-scandals image as a new-thinking statesman who can lead a "majority for change" with his blend of populist and neoliberal ideas. Until Tsongas dropped out, Clinton had played down such notions, stressing instead his support for a middle-class tax cut that the former Massachusetts Senator decries as shortsighted and wasteful.

But without Tsongas to play against, Clinton will be hard-pressed to ignore Brown's lowball attacks, especially since Tsongas' departure gave Brown an instant boost in stature. He is now positioned as the only visible alternative to Clinton, rather than just a noisy sideshow for dyspeptic interest groups. While Tsongas complained that he lacked the funds to compete effectively in New York's costly media market, his withdrawal assures Brown near blanket press coverage for the April 7 primary. In a two-way race, the state's vast and voracious press corps will gobble up Brown's frenzied attacks against Clinton.

Brown can't beat Clinton, but he can bruise him badly, doing the dirty work for the Republicans all the way through the convention. Brown's badgering under the klieg lights of New York is likely to be just a warm-up for California, Brown's stronghold and the probable grand finale of his revolt. Says Erik Schockman, an election expert at the University of Southern California: "If there is not a successful summit between Clinton and Brown before the California primary, you're going to have a bloodbath." Willie Brown, Democratic speaker of the California assembly, warns that Clinton could face an embarrassing defeat at Brown's hands in the June 2 primary.

Even that would not be enough to deny Clinton the crown. But to beat Bush, he must overcome nagging doubts about his character, cobble together an ungainly alliance of constituency groups and then get them to the polls in massive numbers. The trick, which no Democrat has performed since Carter's election in 1976, is getting blacks and whites to remain in the same tent. Since 1980, Republican presidential candidates have enjoyed a critical advantage over Democrats by pushing racial hot buttons at a time when violent crime, affirmative-action programs and a swelling underclass convinced millions of white middle-class voters that liberalism did not work. One consequence: during Super Tuesday's primaries two weeks ago, a majority of whites voted Republican in Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina for the first time.

In a TIME/CNN poll this month, which ranked Bush and Clinton even at 43%, Clinton was backed by 70% of black voters but only 40% of whites. Those numbers spell defeat for Clinton if voter turnout is low. To prevail in November, he needs to lure back blue-collar Reagan Democrats and capture suburban middle-class independents while retaining strong support among blacks and Hispanics.

So far so good. Clinton has won an impressive 80% of the black vote in the South and about 70% in Illinois and Michigan. "There was a general view that you could no longer get working-class blacks and whites behind the same leader," says William Julius Wilson, a black sociologist at the University of Chicago. "But that's what he's done. He's been able to bring back disaffected whites who voted for Reagan while holding on to minorities and the poor."

Unlike either his Democratic or Republican rivals, Clinton knows how to court blacks, even allowing pauses for the "amens" when he addresses black congregations. Following a Clinton speech at Morehouse College in Atlanta last month, student Nelson Williams, a senior, said, "He understands the African- American community. He grew up in an environment where there was segregation, and he had an opportunity to see what it can do firsthand." But Clinton has also shown some strength among blue-collar white Democrats who defected to Reagan and Bush. In Michigan's Macomb County, a stronghold of Reagan Democrats, where race baiting and welfare bashing have proven politically effective, Clinton told voters, "Let's forget about race and be one nation again. Most black people work for a living, and more white people than blacks are on welfare." Macomb County whites rewarded him with 26% of the total vote, compared with 28% for Bush. "Clinton more than any other candidate articulates middle-class issues," says Leo Lalonde, chairman of Macomb County's Democratic Committee. "If you put in a request for a presidential candidate from central casting, they would send you Bill Clinton."

But Clinton's biracial coalition is fragile, and his support nationwide remains shallow. Despite the endorsements he is getting from Democratic leaders, more than a third of Clinton's supporters in Illinois and nearly half in Michigan expressed reservations about their candidate. Clinton's biggest worry is that so far most voters have simply stayed away from the polls. In such crucial states as Texas, Florida and Georgia, the turnout in the Democratic primaries was markedly smaller than four years ago. In Louisiana only 380,000 people voted in the Democratic primary this month, compared with 624,000 in 1988. Low turnout among blacks is largely due to Jesse Jackson's absence from the campaign trail for the first time since 1980. These numbers suggest that Arkansan Clinton might have a difficult task winning many of the 14 Southern and border states that Jimmy Carter won in 1976. Unless Clinton catches fire by November, his coalition could crumble. Says Democratic pollster Peter Hart: "In a year like this, given the economy, if we can't get people to participate, we're in trouble. The Republicans can win by default if the trend continues."

With Clinton's nomination now all but assured, most party leaders feel obliged to put aside their concerns about his electability and fall in behind him. Says Maryland state chairman Nate Landow: "If there is any lingering doubt or fear, and it's projected to the electorate, that will be very damaging." But the public has nagging doubts of its own, and polls show that Democrats who think Clinton will win his party's nomination are also more likely to believe that Bush will triumph in the fall.

Ironically, both Clinton and Bush are encumbered by strangely symmetrical flaws that could prove a wash among voters. For every Democrat offended by the likelihood that Clinton broke his wedding vows, there is probably a Republican infuriated that Bush broke his "no new taxes" pledge. Assuming Clinton doesn't self-destruct over the next seven months, real issues rather than rumors might just determine the election. In that case, the outcome in November may well hinge on which proves stronger: Bush's economic recovery or Clinton's new coalition.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett/Washington and Jordan Bonfante/Los Angeles