Detachment May Affect Outcome : Democrats Fail to Rouse N.Y. Middle-Class Whites

Jerry Vuoso is having a hard time deciding who to vote for in Tuesday’s New York Democratic presidential primary and the candidates are not helping him one bit.

“The more I listen to them, the more disgusted I get,” Vuoso complains as he weighs out a pound of grapes in the fruit and vegetable store his grandfather opened 75 years ago. “These guys aren’t talking to us.”

“Us” for Jerry Vuoso is Carroll Gardens, a mostly Italian, mostly lower-middle class community in Brooklyn, which like many other New York City neighborhoods is an island of Middle America tucked away in the Big Apple.

It is only 30 minutes by the “F” train from the heart of Gotham to these neat homes and quiet, tree-lined streets, on one of which the hit movie “Moonstruck” was filmed. But culturally and ideologically Carroll Gardens is worlds apart from the Manhattan maelstrom of special interest pressures, which have so far defined the campaign competition in New York. It is much closer to the political mainstream, to which Democrats must appeal if they are to regain the White House in the fall.

Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis is leading the Rev. Jesse Jackson by about 10 points in statewide polls, with Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. much further back in the battle for New York’s 255 convention delegates, second in size only to California. But the disturbing news for the Democrats is that none of these three candidates has yet made an impression on Carroll Gardens. And this raises serious questions about their ability to reach the rest of the country beyond the Hudson--where the anxieties and aspirations of Jerry Vuoso and his neighbors are widely shared.

This failure is all the more significant because it reflects the fundamental dilemma plaguing the Democrats as they strive to recover from a series of landslide defeats: How can they heal their estrangement with the white American middle class represented by the citizens of Carroll Gardens and still retain the loyalty of the broad array of disaffected and disadvantaged cohorts with whom they have made common cause for half a century?

While this challenge confronts the Democratic Party in almost every quadrant of the nation in this presidential election year it is most evident in New York.

For this state, and particularly this city, which produces about two-thirds of the state’s Democratic vote, embodies the Democratic Party’s strength--its diversity, its imagination and its compassion. But it also reflects the party’s gravest weakness--its dependence on the support of a range of special interest groups who look to government for help.

Whatever the long-term implications of the New York campaign, the detachment of the residents of Carroll Gardens from the sound and fury being generated by Democratic candidates and activists could have important impact on the outcome of the voting on Tuesday.

Most of the attention in this campaign has focused on blacks, because of their impassioned support for Jackson’s candidacy and on Jews, because of their equally impassioned resentment of Jackson and their concerns about Israel, now under heavy criticism because of its handling of the rioting by Palestinians in the occupied territories.

White Catholics Predominate

But each of these groups makes up only 20% to 25% of the total Democratic primary constituency. The largest single voting bloc--about 30% or so--is composed of white Catholics, like most of the citizens of Carroll Gardens, many of whom feel left out of the campaign debate.

“I’m really disappointed in what’s going on,” says Anthony Merolla, a plumbing estimator who lives on Staten Island and works out of Brooklyn. “The way the candidates carry on this election process you can’t find out anything about them.”

As the campaign has unfolded here, the candidates at times seem to be just as much victims as the unhappy voters in Carroll Gardens and elsewhere.

Thus at the first full-dress televised debate last week the audience and the candidates were distracted by a determined group of gay activists who unfurled a purple banner reading “Silence=Death” and chanted their demands for a program to combat AIDS. And after dealing with that issue, the candidates were forced to grapple with the question of whether gay and lesbian couples should be permitted to adopt foster children. They agreed that sexual preference should not itself be a disqualification for foster parenthood.

And all week long the argument raged between Jackson, Gore and Dukakis over such complex Middle East policy controversies as the prospect of a homeland for Palestinian Arabs and the status of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Reflects Local Clout

While everyone agreed that discussion of such concerns had a legitimate place in a presidential campaign, the amount of attention given them here seemed to some critics to be disproportionate, reflecting more the local political clout of interest groups than the broader national needs.

“The tenor of the debate is such that it gives the public outside New York the impression that the Democrats are not a real national party but a microcosm of special interests,” says Linda DiVall, a Republican pollster who worked for the Dole presidential campaign. “And it reminds the rest of the country that this is just what the Democrats said they were going to change for 1988.”

Indeed, there is reason to believe that this sort of negative reaction is already beginning to take place in parts of New York itself, judging from interviews with more shopkeepers and their patrons on Court Street, the main business thoroughfare of Carroll Gardens one day last week.

Many of the long-term residents own the brownstone houses that are the most common dwelling here, usually living on the ground floor, and renting out the second, third and fourth floors to newcomers from Manhattan, including some Yuppies, whom the old-timers anachronistically refer to as hippies.

Each two- or three-room flat rents for from $700 to $1,000 a month, very moderate by New York standards.

The life here, new arrivals say, is comfortable rather than chic as it is supposed to be on Manhattan’s West Side and upper East Side.

The biggest disturbance in Carroll Gardens comes on the Fourth of July, when the teen-agers set off long-hoarded stockpiles of heavy-duty fireworks.

Still the residents have their problems, which they don’t feel are being addressed by the Democratic contenders.

Jerry Vuoso is angry because the changes in the federal tax code raised the taxes on the $4,000 his teen-age son earned from part-time work last year.

Anthony Merolla is worried about finding the money to help his 17-year-old daughter attend St. Johns College in Brooklyn in the fall. Vito DiMeglio, a worker at a veterans hospital, is furious because he did not get a cost-of-living salary increase last year.

Middle Class Resentful

And because they do not believe that any of the candidates are responding to their problems, but instead are preoccupied with the concerns of special interest groups, these middle-class voters are resentful.

“Right now I’ve got nobody in mind,” says DiMeglio about his Election Day choice. “The only thing these candidates seem to care about is getting the power that goes with being President.”

Most residents of Carroll Gardens consider themselves Democrats, even though some voted for President Reagan, because the Democratic Party has long been part of the way of life in Carroll Gardens as well as the rest of New York City.

The energy, vitality and sheer numbers of New York’s teeming and polyglot populace made it the forcing ground of the modern Democratic Party. It was the governor’s mansion in Albany in which Franklin D. Roosevelt served before going to the White House to launch the New Deal and forge the biracial, multi-ethnic coalition that dominated American politics for more than a generation.

Remains a Crucible

And this city still remains the crucible that challenges the mettle of Democratic seekers of the presidency. More than any other of 1988’s presidential battlegrounds, it highlights the tensions between the party’s deep-rooted commitment to the new groups it has empowered on one hand and the middle-American backbone of the country on the other hand.

Here is a look at how the three candidates have shaped their strategies in the light of this conflict:

--DUKAKIS. As the front-runner in the race, and the candidate many feel has the opportunity to make his nomination inevitable by winning here, Dukakis has sought to remain above the interest group pressures.

Thus he refused to commit himself to opposition to a Palestinian state, as many Jews would have liked him to do, choosing instead to leave that hot potato to future negotiations. But it has been difficult for his characteristically cautious candidacy here not to be overshadowed by the sound and fury engendered by the tensions between Jackson and the Jewish community.

Paul Bograd, Dukakis’ New York coordinator, claims that his campaign “has been getting done here what we had to get done--clearly defining Dukakis as the candidate most able to secure jobs now and pursue economic expansion in the future.”

Must Reach Catholics

But judging from interviews in Carroll Gardens this impression has barely scratched the surface of the consciousness of the Catholic voters Dukakis must reach. “So far, I’d say I’m leaning to Dukakis,” said Susan Cranchina, as she pushed a stroller with her 2-year-old son in it along Court Street. “But there’s no one who really has done anything great for me.”

Other likely Dukakis voters showed much the same lack of enthusiasm. Two said only half-jokingly that they would probably vote for him partly because his cousin, Olympia Dukakis, had just won an Oscar for her performance in “Moonstruck.”

As Election Day neared, Dukakis threw himself into a last-minute burst of activity intended to woo ethnic voters like these by stressing his concern with combatting drugs. But the danger remained that some of his potential backers will not bother to go to the polls, leaving Dukakis vulnerable to being overtaken by Jackson.

--GORE. Ever since his successes on Super Tuesday established him as a potentially serious rival to Dukakis, Gore has been eyeing New York as the likely place for a breakthrough. His strategy has been clear--to take advantage of Jewish resentment of Jackson and of Jewish concerns about American relations with Israel in the light of the rioting on the West Bank.

He tacitly supported Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s rejection of the U.S. Mideast peace proposal and he attacked Jackson for his past befriending of PLO leader Yasser Arafat. Then he criticized Dukakis for not criticizing Jackson.

Gains Needed Attention

All this gained Gore badly needed attention and the endorsement of New York Mayor Edward I. Koch. But it has also earned him a reputation for pandering and negativeness, and perhaps most important of all has undercut what some of his own advisers thought should have been the main thrust of his campaign--reaching relatively conservative white ethnic voters.

“I had hoped he would have spelled out in more positive terms his overview of the issues,” said Sarah Kovner, co-chair of Gore’s state steering committee, who feels his emphasis on Israel and his criticism of Jackson has been a distraction from such efforts.

Many believe that if Gore is to make a significant showing on Tuesday--some of his own supporters feel he needs something close to 25% to stay in the race--he will have to do it among white ethnics like those in Carroll Gardens and Upstate New York.

But he has been having a hard time reaching them. Joseph Canistrati, a retired carpenter who lives in Carroll Gardens, intends to vote for Gore because “he’s young and energetic.” But most of the other voters interviewed there said they knew little about the senator and if they thought about him at all, thought he was too young and inexperienced for the presidency.

--JACKSON. For Jackson, New York offers the biggest bloc of black and minority voters and thus the richest opportunity since Michigan, where he scored his biggest victory of the campaign. But to take advantage of that opportunity Jackson needs to win a big share of the white vote, something close to the 25% he achieved in the April 5 Wisconsin primary.

Seen as Polarizing Issue

But that seems to be turning out to be a difficult task. As Jackson himself has complained, nowhere else has his race been such a polarizing issue as here in New York, where the burdens of urban life and the intense competition for the favors of government among factions tend to sharpen racial and ethnic distinctions.

A large part of Jackson’s problems stems from his past statements about Jews, Israel and the Mideast, which have made Jewish resentment of his candidacy a force matched in its intensity only by black admiration for Jackson.

“I’d be for Jackson but I don’t like his views on Israel and the Jews,” explains Eva Stettner, as she munches on a spinach pizza. “It’s too bad because I think he’d be good for women and minorities. But I’m afraid of what he’d do in the Mideast,” said the young artist and city health department worker who is Jewish and is one of Carroll Gardens’ newer residents.

Nor are Jews the only Carroll Gardens voters offended by Jackson’s past associations. Catherine Cannilla, proprietor of a Court Street lingerie shop who is backing Dukakis, says she objects to Jackson’s previous ties to Palestine Liberation Organization leader Arafat, whom she considers “a terrorist,” and to black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan, whom she labeled “ a racist.”

This sort of sentiment will make it difficult for Jackson to reach 40% of the vote, which his state coordinator, Hulbert James, says is the objective of the Jackson campaign. The potential irony of the New York campaign may turn out to be that even if Jackson hits the 40% target he would still lose, unless Gore gets 20% or more, a figure that current polls indicate may be beyond Gore’s reach.

Times staff writer Jay Sharbutt contributed to this story.