Democratic Presidential Hopefuls Woo Party Leaders : Politics: Meeting in Los Angeles draws several likely candidates. Harkin spends the day working at a Metro Rail site.

The contestants for the Democratic presidential nomination began working for votes at a party gathering in Los Angeles on Friday--with one putting his back into it a bit more than the others.

While several of the likely Democratic hopefuls presented themselves to party leaders at the fall meeting of the Democratic National Committee, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin devoted most of his day to working on a Metro Rail construction site near Union Station.

Harkin spent Friday stringing electrical wire at what will become the Metro Rail system’s main repair depot, located alongside existing railroad tracks east of downtown Los Angeles. He used the site to gibe President Bush for what Harkin said was the President’s reluctance to spend money on new domestic initiatives.

“There is a feeling all over this country that we’re not investing here in America,” said Harkin, who was clad in blue jeans, a blue, short-sleeved work shirt and barely broken-in work boots.

The action was less sweaty, but the rhetoric just as heated, at the DNC gathering Friday, as the little-known cast of Democratic contenders used the opportunity to sharpen a race still largely without clear lines of debate or hierarchy.

“It is wide open,” said Tennessee party Chairman David Seivers.

The hallways at the downtown Biltmore Hotel had the feel of a political bazaar as candidates mingled with campaign consultants, fund-raisers and party activists, all palpably relieved to see presidential hopefuls on display. “Thank God we’ve got our candidates here at this meeting,” national party Chairman Ron Brown told a group of state party leaders.

Brown continued his criticism of Bush on Friday, accusing the President of running a “do-nothing Administration” that is attempting to deceive the public. “President Bush has no real goals for America, no real vision for the future (and) . . . no domestic agenda for the working people of this country,” Brown said.

He said Bush’s photo opportunity at the Grand Canyon this week was an appropriate metaphor for the Administration’s environmental policy because “the gap between his promise and his delivery is wider than the Grand Canyon.”

At various appearances and receptions Friday, several of the declared and likely candidates gave the party leaders brief previews of speeches they have been honing for weeks and, in some cases, months.

Former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas aimed a barb at the populism favored by Harkin, who declared his candidacy last Sunday. “You can never beat George Bush with class warfare,” Tsongas said. “What you can do with that is reinforce maybe 40% of the vote.”

Former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. warned one group that the Democratic Party “like the Whig Party, can just disappear” if it does not commit itself to fundamental political reform.

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who is expected to announce his candidacy in the next few weeks, echoed some of Brown’s themes. “The national government has been so dominated by status quo and PAC contributions and frozen dependence on money that we have permitted the most scandalous outrages without responding to them,” Clinton said.

Long-shot candidate Larry Agran, former mayor of Irvine, also appeared, declaring that national policies have failed to recognize “that the Cold War is over.”

The DNC is scheduled to hear today from Harkin, Tsongas, Brown, Clinton and Agran, as well as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Dave McCurdy of Oklahoma, both of whom are still exploring the race. The session, beginning at 10:30 a.m., is open to the public, but DNC officials caution that because of space limitations, visitors may have to watch the proceedings on a closed-circuit monitor elsewhere in the hotel.

Even as the candidates gathered for their first inspection by the party elite, it was clear that some Democrats remain discouraged that no better-known contender has stepped forward.

That sentiment was reinforced by a Cable News Network/Gallup poll of 410 registered Democrats released Friday. Among the potential candidates only Jackson, Brown and New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo were well known enough to provoke any sort of opinion--either positive or negative--from a majority of those surveyed. Neither Jackson nor Cuomo has committed to the race.

“It sort of feels like we’re playing semi-pro ball,” lamented consultant Fred DuVal, who ran former Arizona Gov. Bruce E. Babbitt’s 1988 presidential campaign.

Harkin faced an even more profound skepticism Friday as he tried to convince his fellow workers he was more than just another politician using them as a backdrop.

As Harkin perched halfway out of a manhole to answer questions from reporters, one worker lobbed some queries of his own, in angry, staccato tones. “We’re still feeding the world, and you got people starving to death on these streets in Los Angeles,” said the worker, who declined to give his name. “When in the hell are you going to do something about it?”

Another worker, 44-year-old electrician Wesley White of La Mirada, whipped out his wallet and showed Harkin his payroll stub, which showed that White paid $215 a week in federal taxes and took home only $600. “Ordinary people are so far removed (from politicians) that you don’t have much time to talk to them,” he said. “I finally got a chance to say something to someone who might be someone someday.”

White left his encounter impressed with Harkin--but skeptical.

“ ‘Course,” he said, “they get into office and it changes.”