National Perspective : POLITICAL BRIEFING

FAMILY AFFAIR: In deciding whether to make a second try for the Democratic presidential nomination, Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. has family concerns uppermost on his mind, aides on his staff insist.

The anxiety every candidate feels about the impact a grueling presidential marathon might have on his closest kin is intensified in Gore’s case by the ordeal the family went through when his son, Albert III, was seriously injured in an automobile accident two years ago. (Gore and his wife, Tipper, also have three daughters.)

And sources plugged into Gore’s political operation say the senator is also weighing the political risk of emerging from the campaign a two-time loser. “If he runs, he has to win the nomination to avoid political damage,” said one who was an adviser to his 1988 campaign. Unlike someone making a first presidential bid, who could gain prestige by finishing a strong second or third, “there is no way Gore can win by losing,” this source said.

If he does decide to run, Gore has vowed that he will spare neither himself nor his rivals. “You run with all your heart and soul,” he recently told reporters, “and you’re in there and you’re going to rip the lungs out of anybody else in the race, and do it right,” he said.

GETTING OUT THE MESSAGE: Officials at the Democratic Leadership Council, an organization of centrist Democrats, are cooking up plans to get out the group’s controversial message of party reform even if its chairman, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, does not run for the presidential nomination.

The most dramatic idea: sponsoring ballot initiatives around the country seeking to put into law ideas the group has promoted at the national level--among them, welfare reform, cracking down on parents who do not pay child support and placing a greater emphasis on community policing. Though the cost of such an effort in California would probably be prohibitive, council insiders believe that drives in smaller states could open a new front in their uphill effort to change the public perception that the Democratic Party is dominated by traditional liberal ideas.

“Imagine how different the images of the party would be today,” said one official of the council, “if Howard Jarvis (the Californian who spearheaded the Proposition 13 tax revolt in 1978) had been a Democrat.”

THE MARIO SCENARIO: Though New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo insists he is not interested in seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, he does claim to have 1992 presidential battle plans figured out for both parties.

He recently told an interviewer that President Bush’s reelection campaign theme will boil down to this: “I won the war and the other guy is a bum.” The Democrats’ counter-strategy, as proposed by Cuomo: First, do a better job than Michael S. Dukakis did of rebutting “rotten attacks” from the Bush campaign in 1988. Second, go after Bush aggressively on domestic policy, where he supposedly is weakest.

Bush, said Cuomo, “is a big guy, a world leader,” but “he has no substance, he has no case on issues and problems.” Democrats should not hesitate to give Bush credit for his triumph in the Persian Gulf War, Cuomo counseled, but they should do so on their own terms. “You won the war,” the Democrats should say, “but you didn’t know how to get out of it and we didn’t achieve what we wanted to achieve. But the war itself you won. I credit you for that. And if that’s enough to make you President again, you win--but it’s not.”