CORRECTING HIS POSTURE

By JAMES CARNEY/WASHINGTON

SOMETIMES THE ONLY WAY TO RESTORE a frayed friendship is to pick a fight with a common enemy. When chief of staff Leon Panetta gathered 15 or so of the President's top advisers last week to plan their communications strategy, Topic A was to figure out what message Bill Clinton should convey if, as expected, the stalemate with Republicans over the budget leads to a partial shutdown of the U.S. government this Tuesday. A shutdown, precipitated in part by Clinton's refusal to accept Republican budget priorities, could be a good thing for the President, Panetta and others offered. Their reasoning: it would prove to a skeptical public and embittered Democrats in Congress that he actually has principles and won't cave in.

Until a few weeks ago, the message emanating from the White House was not about standing firm but about standing apart. In a strategy conceived by Dick Morris, Clinton's controversial political consultant, the President was deliberately keeping his distance from both the heartless Republicans and the troglodyte Democrats in an effort to occupy the ground between them. But that approach has so alienated members of his party on Capitol Hill that Clinton and his aides have come to realize that without an immediate show of resolve, he may have no allies when it comes time to cut a budget deal with Newt Gingrich. At a pep rally attended by scores of congressional Democrats, Panetta vowed that "for this President, no deal is better than a bad deal." But listeners like Representative Jim McDermott of Washington State were far from persuaded. "There weren't three people in there who believed it," says McDermott.

That's a problem for Clinton, who has decided he can't sign any compromise budget deal this year unless at least 70 House Democrats--out of 199--vote for the deal. Otherwise, the rift between the President and his party could become irreparable just as he launches his re-election campaign. With Democrats wary of taking Clinton at his word, he can't expect support for a compromise until he proves his willingness to veto G.O.P. legislation.

That outcome was virtually assured last week when Republicans loaded up two stopgap bills, one to continue government spending and another to extend borrowing authority, with extra provisions they knew the President would not accept. The question now becomes who will bend after what will probably be a series of presidential vetoes. Emboldened by polls showing public opinion running nearly 2 to 1 against the G.O.P. budget, Clinton aides believe, as senior adviser George Stephanopoulos says, that "the bottom is falling out for the Republicans." That may be wishful thinking, but the idea of a prolonged showdown no longer worries the White House, where officials now speculate that the debate over budget priorities might not be resolved until after next year's election.

Before any negotiating begins, however, Clinton will try to shore up his credibility by talking tough. Early this week he plans to deliver a speech to the centrist Democratic Leadership Council focusing on the "values" that he promises are nonnegotiable in any effort to balance the budget. He will also give an Oval Office address or hold a press conference to explain why the government is shutting down. The message will be that the President is standing tall. Warily, Democrats in Congress will be watching to see how long that posture lasts.