7 Democrat Hopefuls Will Meet National Committee : Politics: The formal or potential candidates may be able to attract staffers, money and delegates at the Los Angeles gathering.

With the contenders for the party’s presidential nomination finally taking the field, the Democratic National Committee convenes in Los Angeles today for a meeting that Chairman Ron Brown calls “the kickoff of the 1992 campaign.”

The two-day meeting at the Biltmore Hotel will bring together the 408 committee members and dozens of reporters with seven announced or potential presidential candidates--the largest group of Democratic hopefuls yet assembled in one place.

“For Democrats and others who say: ‘Where are our candidates? Where are our candidates?’ well, here they are,” Brown said.

This weekend’s meeting, occurring less than five months before the race formally begins next February in Iowa, represents the first opportunity that many party leaders will have to assess the little-known contenders. Their judgments could help the candidates find campaign workers and money, not to mention the most valuable commodity in the race--delegates.

As unpledged delegates to next summer’s national convention in New York City, national committee members will cast almost one-fifth of the 2,142 votes needed for the nomination.

In a forum scheduled for Saturday morning, the Democrats will hear from three formally announced candidates: former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin and dark horse Larry Agran, the former mayor of Irvine, Calif. They also will hear from two contenders likely to formally announce their candidacies in the next few weeks: Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., and from two Democrats still exploring whether to join the race: U.S. Rep. Dave McCurdy of Oklahoma and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Jackson emerged from a meeting with supporters Sunday declaring that he is giving “the most serious consideration” to a third quest for the nomination.

Only two contenders will miss the meeting. Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, who declared his candidacy earlier this month, told national committee officials that he had a schedule conflict. U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, who is scheduled to announce his candidacy Sept. 30, also begged off to focus on organizing his campaign and to avoid upstaging his announcement, sources said. New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, who insists that he has no plans to enter the race, also declined an invitation.

Chairman Brown said he is confident that the Democratic candidates, at this meeting and beyond, will focus “95% of their firepower . . . at the do-nothing Bush Administration” and not at one another or their own party.

But, to varying degrees, all of the Democrats seeking the nomination have positioned themselves as outsiders--and most as critics of the policies that have dominated the Democratic Party over the past generation.

In an interview this week, former Gov. Brown--who is building his campaign on a call for fundamental reform of the political process--said he saw the national committee meeting as “a great opportunity to speak the truth.”

“Does anybody really know who goes to these big dinners the national committee puts on?” Brown asked. “Does anybody know there is a special interest at every table that is interested in a specific piece of legislation?”

Less lacerating but still strong words are likely from Tsongas, who has criticized the party for embracing an anti-business “Twinkie economics”; Clinton, who has called for thorough reform of liberal domestic policies, and Jackson, who has accused congressional Democrats of complicity with President Bush’s agenda.