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                                                                                NATION, Page 23

DEMOCRATS

Where Do They Go from Here?


Precedents crumble as all five contenders, led by Tsongas and
Clinton, survive the primary and gird for the frenzied battle
that comes to a head on Super Tuesday

By WALTER SHAPIRO -- Reported by Sam Allis/Sioux Falls, Laurence
I. Barrett/Washington and Michael Riley/Winter Haven


    Little more than 36 hours after finishing first in the
New Hampshire primary with 33% of the vote, Paul Tsongas was
flying halfway across America for what he thought would be a
campaign speech to the South Dakota legislature. There was one
small problem: his staff had forgotten to tell the former
Massachusetts Senator that the speech had been scrubbed in favor
of a visit to the stockyards and a meeting with a newspaper
editorial board. Stunned to learn from a reporter about the
abrupt change in plans, Tsongas asked, "Where am I going
tomorrow?"

    Tsongas' befuddlement over his schedule can serve as a
metaphor for the plight of his underfunded and ill-organized
campaign as it struggles to transform New Hampshire hoopla into
a full-throated national crusade. But the where-am-I-going
question is also an apt shorthand for the unpredictable
Democratic race itself, a bizarre contest that has made
political pundits look as reliable as racetrack touts.

    Because all the Democrats except home-state Senator Tom
Harkin passed up the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire stood out as
the only state where people could actually talk to the
candidates in settings other than staged photo opportunities.
Frightened by the middle-class recession, voters demanded of the
candidates I-have-a-plan economic specifics and refused to be
diverted from their high-minded commitment to issues by sideshow
scandals.

    Tsongas, the ungainly long shot with his stark probusiness
philosophy, ran strongest among college-educated and independent
voters. Looking beyond the controversies that have dogged the
Arkansas Governor, New Hampshire granted Bill Clinton a strong
second-place finish (25%) so that on primary night he could
proclaim himself "the Comeback Kid." The big losers were two
Senators who never grasped that so far 1992 represents a
repudiation of politics as usual. War hero Bob Kerrey of
Nebraska, an oddly diffident campaigner, offered the voters his
biography wrapped in a glib media campaign and finished a poor
third (11%). Harkin (10%) with his old-line liberalism and
attack-dog persona came across as strident and out of touch.
Quixotic Jerry Brown (8%) eked out a moral victory by running
nearly even with Kerrey and Harkin on a shoestring budget.

    The race will now enter a chaotic phase. Democratic
leaders have stacked many primaries and caucuses in early March
to create an artificial stampede for a consensus nominee. But
this frantic schedule means that just when the candidates should
be gradually introducing themselves to most voters, they have
to embark on a merciless two-week media-market march through 14
primaries and 10 state caucuses, climaxing with 11 contests on
Super Tuesday, March 10.

    Pity the poor Democratic voter in a March-madness state.
If after months of mulling the candidates, nearly half the New
Hampshire voters were still vacillating three days before the
primary, imagine the misery of selecting a favorite based on a
hastily glimpsed campaign spot, a few snippets on the nightly
news and a handful of newspaper clips. Here is how the race
looks as the candidates zoom from airport rally to hokey media
event, praying they can get their message across amid the din:

    THE COMEBACK KID. If 1992 were a normal political year,
the auguries would make Clinton the favorite. He alone has that
magic elixir called money in the bank -- $2 million after New
Hampshire with $1 million more in federal matching funds on the
way. Small wonder that Clinton fund raiser Bob Farmer
proclaims, "This will be all over by Illinois," one of the two
big Rust Belt primaries (Michigan is the other) that will be
held on March 17. Much of the upcoming political terrain is made
to order for Clinton, the lone Southerner in the race and the
contender who appears most at ease courting black voters.
Between March 3 and Super Tuesday, nine states below the
Mason-Dixon Line will hold primaries.

    The Clinton campaign calculates that to set the mood for
Super Tuesday, the Arkansas Governor has to first sweep Georgia
(March 3) and South Carolina (March 7). A bit trickier is
Clinton's need to prove that he can win outside the South,
perhaps by trying to spend his rivals into oblivion in Colorado
(March 3) or, less likely, by going head-to-head with Tsongas
in Maryland the same day. Clinton's hopes, especially in the
South, rest on mobilizing middle-class anger behind his plan for
economic recovery.

    But Clinton still cannot afford a misstep. Though the New
Hampshire results crowded out the Clinton headlines about
Gennifer Flowers and his Vietnam-era draft status, the threat
lurks in the shadows; in Savannah a veteran held aloft a sign
that read NO DRAFT DODGER OR PLAYBOY FOR PRESIDENT. As a Clinton
campaign aide put it, "It's a bit like Alcoholics Anonymous.
Every single day has to go by. It's never completely behind
you."

    TSONGAS THE SERIOUS. Looking at what passes for Tsongas'
national campaign, it is tempting to dismiss his strong New
Hampshire finish as a freak of nature. Tsongas is, after all,
a contender who introduced Texas railroad commissioner Bob
Krueger as "my Southern connection" and meant it: that is about
all the organizational support Tsongas has in many March primary
states. The campaign last week had just one staff member in
Georgia and a lone 19-year-old holding down the fort in South
Carolina. True, Tsongas raised $360,000 the day after New
Hampshire, but he still largely depends on unsolicited checks
turning up in the mail.

    It all seems reminiscent not of St. Jude but of Gary
Hart's up-from-nowhere 1984 surge that carried him to the cusp
of nomination. Miracles do happen in politics -- for that rare
candidate who resonates with the national mood. Tsongas got it
right when he referred to his supporters as "true believers" and
reminded them, "When I was cast aside, you took me in; you gave
me sustenance."

    To justify this near messianic rhetoric for long, Tsongas
needs the pick-me-up of another dramatic victory, and next
week's primary in Maryland, a state with a proven affection for
low-key cerebral Democrats, remains his best shot. Tsongas'
challenge is to show that he is an economic statesman with the
courage to tell the truth to the American people, while painting
Clinton as just another glad-handing Governor willing to pander
to the voters with giveaways. That is why Tsongas, the candidate
of pain -- both economic and personal -- zings Clinton over his
advocacy of a middle-class tax cut, a popular, but economically
questionable, nostrum.

    STAYING ALIVE. For all the talk that the New Hampshire
vote would cut down the field -- or be so fractured that party
power brokers could lure a big-name contender into the fray --
it remains a five-man race. Despite nudges and nods from
Albany, the overhyped Mario Cuomo write-in campaign (4%) drooped
as badly as New York State's credit rating. Clinton's
resurrection was enough to scare off potential candidates like
Congressman Richard Gephardt and Senator Lloyd Bentsen. The
message from New Hampshire was an unequivocal one: "No guts, no
glory."

    Kerrey and Harkin will duel it out this week in the
impossible-to-predict South Dakota primary. Kerrey remains the
far more intriguing candidate, both in his potential
electability and in his still evolving efforts to define
himself. Voters like Kerrey, but they do not understand him,
especially when he makes such cryptic comments as "I know what
it is like to be alone, and I'll tell you when I'm President
there won't be a single person who will feel alone." Moreover,
he cannot seem to explain how to connect the dots in his shadowy
vision of "fundamental change."

    Harkin can only dream of his potential breakthrough
primaries, Michigan and Ohio, a long and lonely three weeks into
the political future. Although he won the support of 14 AFL-CIO
unions last week, the angry prairie populist must be asking
himself, "Aren't there some traditional Democrats still alive,
somewhere?"

    Brown, the turtlenecked Pied Piper for the young and the
restless, has few short-term worries. His 800-number fund
raising brings in enough cash to fuel his no-frills caravan, his
now modulated debate style attracts anti-Establishment votes,
and he knows the race ends on June 2 on his home turf of
California. In his inimitable way, Brown may have found the
perfect low-overhead formula, not for the nomination, but to
endure as the last challenger to the presumptive nominee.

    Who that nominee will be remains a guessing game. But the
prize is there for the taking in an anything-can-happen contest
likely to be decided by a combination of TV imagery, strategy,
money, luck -- and if voters can see through the murk, the
quality of the candidates' ideas.