The Campaign Goes Into Low Gear

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN DIDN'T COME TO A complete stop last week, but it did slow down long enough for one White House hopeful to get off. David Duke announced that he would end his quest for the Republican nomination and promised not to launch a third-party bid this fall. Score one for Patrick Buchanan (assist to H. Ross Perot).

Less propitious was word that Paul Tsongas had suffered a relapse from lymphatic cancer as recently as 1987. Tsongas insisted that he had not misled the public last fall with stipulations of good health. "There was never a recurrence," he said, "in our minds." Maybe not, but coming from Tsongas, who sold himself as a straight-talking pol, the reversal will make it easier for Bill Clinton to pass him over as a running mate. Now there are doubts about Tsongas' credibility -- along with his health.

Meanwhile the frontrunners concentrated their fire on each other. Clinton derided George Bush's environmental record as "reactive, rudderless and expedient" and called on the President to attend a global-environment summit in Rio de Janeiro in June. Bush, who has been forced to play catch-up on foreign policy and education, had been hoping to get ahead of his rival by focusing on trade matters. But Clinton's "theme of the week" attack trumped Bush's own effort, and the President hurriedly launched a counterattack on Clinton's environmental record. "This man," said Bush spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, "does know pollution. He's got it. He's caused it."

Bush's very public dithering over whether to make the Rio trip only underscores his image as indecisive. Bush wants to go but is hemmed in by conservatives who believe that U.S. participation in such global parleys undercuts American power. Buchanan called on Bush to forgo the Rio meeting and instead "send a telegram" to the conferees explaining that the U.S. would not "yield one iota of our sovereignty to these global parasites."

Otherwise, Buchanan continues to simmer: he vowed to support the party nominee this fall and ended his feud with G.O.P. chairman Rich Bond when he said, "George Bush is entitled to have the chairman he wants."

And Ross Perot? His telephone hasn't stopped ringing. Last week he averaged 30,000 calls a day.