Russians Uneasy With U.S.-Style Campaigning : Elections: Yeltsin is front-runner in first-ever contest for president of largest Soviet republic.

At a recent campaign rally, a well-wisher gave Boris N. Yeltsin some advice on how to improve his image. “We beg of you, during television interviews, please--at least sometimes--smile at the viewers.”

The burly, white-haired front-runner in the first election ever for the president of the Russian Federation shrugged. “I know I have this shortcoming--I’ll have to work on it,” he replied.

Then, flashing his best smile, he added: “But you have to understand, I’ve never been through Hollywood.”

So goes the campaign for president of Russia, in which the leading candidates believe that voters will decide not on the basis of pretty faces or a hard sell, but on the policies they stand for.

The conviction that ideas are more powerful than images may prove true, but campaign consultants and even voters agree that, as Russians directly elect a national leader for the first time, a quick wit, sincere smile or a rumpled suit will count for a lot.

Image consultants, who virtually control American campaigns, have made little headway in Russia, where until two years ago campaigning did not exist and the only time people went to the polls was to cast ballots in sham elections for sham parliaments.

For instance, Yeltsin, 60, appears to be running as a confident incumbent--with hardly any posters, leaflets or buttons visible in Moscow less than a week before voters go to the polls Wednesday.

His main rival, former Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, 61, has made only a few token campaign trips around the vast republic but is using his connections with the Communist Party to get favorable television coverage and canvassing help across the republic.

Another candidate, Vadim V. Bakatin, 53, an adviser to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, has appeared on television scratching his belly and looking generally unkempt, although he is younger and considered better-looking than the front-runners and could use his appearance to win votes.

“In principle, he understands the importance of looking good on the television screen, but he doesn’t consider it most important,” said Vyacheslav A. Nikonov, a campaign adviser to Bakatin and a former lecturer on American history at Moscow State University. “We have image specialists on our team, but these are the people he does not like to talk with.”

Nikonov contends that Russian voters are not ready for aggressive, American-style campaigns.

“A grand campaign with hot-air balloons, bumper stickers and all the rest would have more of a negative effect than a positive effect,” Nikonov said. “American politicians are sold with advertising. But in our country, there has always been a negative association with advertising. We have so few products for sale, and if a product needs to be advertised, according to our psychology, it must be bad.

“It’s the same with advertising for politicians. If there’s a lot of extra pomp, then people start thinking, ‘This must be a bad candidate.’ ”

Although the candidates seem unaware of the effect of an untucked shirt, a few hairs out of place or, in Yeltsin’s case, a once-perpetual frown, local cameramen are very aware of the power of angle and lighting.

During an hourlong, prime-time interview on the national television program “Who’s Who,” Bakatin was shot from below and on his least flattering side, Nikonov complained.

“I don’t think that was by chance,” he charged.

When Ryzhkov appeared on the same program a week later, the camera angle, lighting and good makeup made him look healthy and vigorous, although in person he has dark circles under his eyes and his face seems almost gray.

Viktor I. Borisyuk, a specialist in domestic American politics at the prestigious USA and Canada Institute, said that the election, the first time a Russian leader will have been chosen by the people, has made image an important factor in Soviet politics.

“It’s a new element in this election,” Borisyuk, a co-author of the law establishing the Russian presidency, said, “and television plays the most important role in establishing candidates’ images.”

This worries Soviet conservatives, conditioned by years of old-style campaigns that consisted of Communist Party slogans, posters with simply biographies of the candidates and ballots with a single name.

“The coming election for president has become an open farce when people will vote not for a live person but for his image in the newspapers,” Sergei Baburin, a leading conservative in the Russian Parliament, complained in a newspaper interview. “We consider this not only an attack on democracy but actually a rollback of democracy.”

Although the candidates have made some trips around the republic, which is almost twice the size of the United States, lengthy television interviews with phoned-in questions have largely replaced the old-style, meet-the-voters rallies as the most powerful campaign tool for most of the six candidates.

“This is a totally new process,” said Borisyuk, a Soviet expert in American campaigns. “We’ve never come in contact with anything like this before. It’s just a starting point, but for a starting point it’s not bad. The live, televised (interviews) are very active. I would say they’re even more exciting than in American campaigns.”

News programs on both Russian and national television have followed the candidates’ campaigns, but their coverage has been criticized as biased. Central Television is accused of backing Ryzhkov, and Russian Television of backing Yeltsin.

“Vremya,” the main evening news program on Central Television, has broadcast endorsements of Ryzhkov by well-known political figures, including Roy A. Medvedev, a longtime dissident historian who won a seat in the national Parliament in the country’s first multicandidate elections in 1989.

“Vremya” also reported the results of an opinion poll that gave Ryzhkov almost equal standing with Yeltsin and gaining on him, although all other polls indicated that Ryzhkov was far behind.

The sociologists who conducted the poll found that Yeltsin’s popularity was declining, “Vremya” said, because “voters dislike Yeltsin’s playing up to the audience, empty promises that are not related to any realistic possibilities, ambition, putting his own interests above the interests of the cause, his lack of a consistent political line, the fact that he does not reflect the political interests of the majority of the population and his incompetence.”

Ryzhkov’s rating was going up, “Vremya” quoted the sociologists as saying, because of his “care for people, human decency, honesty, the fact that he defends the interest of the majority of the population, his political orientation, professional competence and considerable experience in statesmanship.”

Borisyuk criticized “Vremya’s” pretense at unbiased reporting. “They made it appear as if they were giving an objective report,” he said. “But it’s clear they are trying to mold viewers’ attitudes.”

Although television has been used by the old Communist Party apparatus to support Ryzhkov’s candidacy, it has also played a role in making an unknown scholar, Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, 45, into a folk hero for at least a segment of the electorate.

Running an aggressive, mudslinging campaign, Zhirinovsky has captured voters who are fed up with leaders who live in luxury while most Russians live in squalor. He appeals to the common man with emotional anti-Establishment speeches and promises to bring plentiful supplies of cheap vodka back to the stores.

“I live in a two-room apartment just like yours,” he said at a campaign rally held in front of a Moscow park that was broadcast over national television. “I earn the same 200 rubles a month”--about $400 at the official rate of exchange--”that you do. My refrigerator is just as empty as yours. Only after you elect someone who knows your interests, understands them and will defend them--only then will you have respite.”

For Borisyuk, the Zhirinovsky campaign recalls the demagogic style of Louisiana politician Huey Long in the 1930s.

“He’s a typical nationalist, fascist figure,” Borisyuk added. “It will be very interesting for political analysts to see how many votes he gets, but his growing popularity is very dangerous for the political process here.”

Although the leading candidates have refrained from criticizing one another, Zhirinovsky and ultraconservative Col. Gen. Albert M. Makashov, 52, and the Soviet media all have tried to smear the front-runners.

The conservative newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya charged Friday that Yeltsin had appointed as the honorary consul general of the Russian Federation’s charities a man it described as an Italian thief. In early April, six months after his appointment, the man was arrested on charges of swindling a Frenchman out of $100,000, the paper said, suggesting that Yeltsin either had consorted with criminals or had been duped by the man.

The paper had earlier accused Yeltsin of “abusing liquor,” habitually telling lies and acting as a front for the Soviet Mafia, which it said uses him as a puppet by exploiting his weaknesses.

The liberal press has meanwhile tried to besmirch Ryzhkov by publishing numerous accounts of voters being ordered by superiors or pressured by canvassers to vote for Ryzhkov.

“Contrary to the good-natured mask he wears on TV, he used to be tough and rude until demands for his resignation crushed him,” Pavel Bunich, a leading free-market economist and national legislator, said of Ryzhkov in an interview with the largest liberal daily newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda. “He’s obstinate, intolerant of people, especially those whose opinions differ from his, (and) revengeful, abusive.”

According to the independent news agency Interfax, teams of Communist Party canvassers in the city of Orel have promised that those voting for Ryzhkov will get various “material bonuses” such as a truckload of coal, four pounds of sugar or a sack of mixed fodder.

But not all of the commentary in Soviet newspapers on the candidates has been negative. The official news agency Tass reported Friday: “Russian underdog presidential candidate Aman Tuleyev’s campaign got an unexpected boost after he helped subdue an armed terrorist in central Moscow.”

Tuleyev, 47, a little-known politician from Siberia, was riding in a bus when a man snatched a child from her mother’s arms, held a knife to the toddler’s throat and demanded money. Tass credited Tuleyev with “courage and self-control” for the way he negotiated the child’s release.

The press’ impact on the race has grown as the variety of public opinion polls has increased. Most show Yeltsin far ahead, contributing to his image of virtual invincibility.

“Polls are one of the strongest weapons in this election campaign,” said Oleg I. Orlov, a Yeltsin campaign coordinator. “This is the first time opinion polls have had a real influence on a campaign.”

The one factor that has had little impact on the campaign, according to Borisyuk, is money. The government gave each candidate the same amount--200,000 rubles, or about $400,000 at the official rate of exchange--and the candidates have been forbidden to raise funds on their own.

Out on the campaign trail, Yeltsin’s lead is clear.

Ryzhkov has found it difficult to win over the crowds at the factory meetings and local rallies that his campaign has featured. He is hampered by his image as a political has-been now running a distant second.

Addressing a crowd of a few hundred workers during a campaign stop at Moscow’s Watch Factory No. 1 last week, he was repeatedly challenged with tough questions.

A deputy plant manager asked him to outline his economic program. Ryzhkov, looking very uncomfortable, said he did not have one yet.

“Ryzhkov ran down our economy for five years as prime minister,” countered Mormon Ketiladze, 27, the deputy plant manager. “How can he run for Russian president when he doesn’t even have an economic program?”

Then, a 22-year-old electrician accused Ryzhkov of being out of touch with the common people because he has access to special services as a former prime minister.

“You don’t know our problems,” declared Oleg O. Alexeyev. “You have your own stores, your own hospital, your own resorts.”

Ryzhkov, whose tie and dark blue business suit contrasted with the electrician’s industrial blue smock, gave a weak answer that failed to satisfy.

“I’m voting for Yeltsin,” Alexeyev said later. “He seems to know better what the people need.”

Yeltsin, who has built his political career on fighting privilege, underwent similar questioning during a nationally televised interview.

“My family lives as a normal Moscow family,” he replied. “My wife spends three to four hours per day going from store to store just like other unfortunate Muscovites. We have no privileges.”