By  Judi Hasson; Judy Keen

In a sign the White House is still scrambling to find a formula to sell health reform, the Democratic National Committee's leading reform salesman quit Wednesday.

        Latest victim of the constant retooling: former Ohio governor Richard Celeste.

        He leaves after only seven months and as the party was announcing a new TV ad and a new emphasis on the mass media to try to revitalize the president's plan.

        Celeste was recruited to organize a multimillion-dollar grass-roots campaign, but the DNC's efforts were overshadowed by a $ 10 million television ad campaign by the insurance industry featuring actors "Harry and Louise" blasting the Clinton health-reform plan.

        Stung by the success of those ads, the White House told the party to refocus its National Health Care Campaign with an emphasis on television ads.

        Celeste, however, framed his resignation and the new campaign as a logical evolution of the Democratic Party effort, and he made no mention of the White House disappointments.

        "It's the natural evolution of a campaign where we did not put resources into media in the beginning," Celeste says. "I think the president and first lady realize they have to go out and generate some money for media."

        The White House has been relying on the power of the presidency to generate support for its plan, sending the president and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on dozens of trips across the country to campaign for the plan.

        Celeste said that wasn't enough: "The place where we have been most vulnerable has been in the media, where we have simply not made a case for the president's initiative with the kind of national oomph that it needs to have."

        Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour says the White House is making a mistake in thinking the problem is a public relations one.

        "Their problem's not public relations," Barbour says. "Their problem is the more people find out what's in their plan, the less they like it. Their problem is bad policy."

        Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the powerful chairmen of two key House committees Wednesday sought the elusive agreements among Democrats needed to keep Clinton's reform efforts on track.

        -- Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., convened the first of nine party caucuses to seek a consensus plan capable of passing his 38-member panel and the 435-member House. His only stated goals: "universal coverage, cost containment, and 218 votes."

        -- Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., cajoled a half-dozen Democrats on his 44-member panel whose votes are needed to approve a revised plan that eases the burden on small business. By most accounts, he was only halfway there.