An Anti-Incumbent Mood Has Officeholders Nervous : Politics: Officials seeking reelection are scrambling this year as they face unusually intense voter frustration.

At a town meeting bursting with anger and anxiety over the economy, taxes, health care and trade, Nick Torello stood up and delivered a less-than-cheery greeting to Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).

“People are totally disgusted with government,” he said. “I’m not saying this to you personally, but nobody listens to us. Most of you have been in Congress since prehistoric times. You bow down to special-interest groups. You can talk pretty pictures, but they aren’t going to happen. As long as there’s crooked politicians, we’ll be in this mess. We need new blood in Washington.”

Although DeLauro, serving her first House term, is new blood and has won plaudits for some of her efforts, she and many nervous colleagues say they are encountering unusually intense voter frustration as they approach this year’s elections.

An anti-incumbent mood, first detected in dramatically reduced winning margins in 1990 congressional elections, is believed to have grown recently in federal, state and local elections in Pennsylvania, Mississippi, New Jersey and Virginia. Frightened officeholders across the country are scrambling to counter any rising tide in this presidential election year.

“Right down to my bone marrow, I feel this is the most serious political year in memory for anybody who happens to be running for reelection,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), the third-ranking House GOP leader. “People are very, very frustrated. It almost parallels Proposition 13 time in California. Unless incumbents are really willing to communicate what they have advocated and done, they could be looking for work in high numbers.”

Like many colleagues, Lewis has been racing around his district far in advance of Election Day, seeking out voters to hear their concerns and tell them of his plans and accomplishments.

“I go to community forums, small towns, large towns, ask questions, have exchanges, let people know I do understand the district and am not just stuck beyond the Potomac,” Lewis said.

Similarly, in a recent four-day stretch, DeLauro held a town meeting, went to three senior citizens events, lunched with workers at a company cafeteria, conducted “office hours” at a school, gave two speeches and persuaded House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) to fly in for a discussion with 11 unemployed white-collar workers in her recession-torn district.

“People are frightened and feel . . . government doesn’t understand or care about them. We have to turn that around,” DeLauro said.

Hundreds of miles away in Oklahoma, Democratic Rep. Mike Synar was holding a series of town meetings on health care, expected to be the issue that Democrats push hardest on the campaign trail this year. Besides town meetings, Synar is spending more time with individual constituents and smaller groups now. The challenge, said his aide, Debbie Wesslund, is “to communicate better what he’s already doing, rather than change what he does.”

Added Synar: “My personal feeling is that Americans have watched 500,000 people in Moscow and Prague and Warsaw hit the streets and take their lives and destinies back into their own hands. And then (Americans) wake up and their own roads and schools and the economy are bad.”

Rep. Edward F. Feighan (D-Ohio) also has held town meetings on health care in his district. He recently decided to support a universal health care plan as a result of “folks back home saying something has to be done about health care,” said an aide, Jim Sweeney.

“Certainly he’s seen an increase in anti-incumbent sentiment,” Sweeney added. “He’s made sure he’s been visible in the district.”

Although anti-incumbent sentiment traditionally has been directed at Congress as a whole, analysts said, it seems to be focusing more on individual lawmakers, in part because of bounced checks and unpaid restaurant tabs in the House, and ethics scandals in both the Senate and the House. Perhaps the largest contributor is the poor state of the economy in the midst of soaring budget deficits.

“It should be an interesting year because in the past your own member (of Congress) was always forgiven,” said Carol Whitney, a consultant for Republican candidates. “But people are mad at government and they have shown some very strong indications that they want to get even with incumbents.”

She was referring to a series of dramatic election results last fall.

Mississippi voters, troubled by a stagnant economy and a high unemployment rate, purged the Democratic governor and lieutenant governor as well as 29 state legislators from both political parties.

In New Jersey, Republicans seized control of both state legislative chambers as voters registered unhappiness with the tax policies of Democratic Gov. James J. Florio. There were also sweeping changes in local government.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Democrat Harris Wofford, who had been recently appointed to the U.S. Senate, won a surprising election to the seat by portraying himself as an outsider while his opponent, former Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, acted like an incumbent.

And in Virginia, the GOP made large gains in the state Senate as numerous officeholders from both parties took tumbles at the local level.

These developments chilled many members of Congress, who fear a growing anti-incumbent trend. Although the advantages of incumbency have led to reelection rates just short of 100% for the House and Senate in recent years, the margin of victory for House members narrowed significantly in 1990. Eighty-five incumbents won by 60% or less, roughly double the number who found themselves in competitive races only two years earlier.

Whitney said she expects that a large number of successful challengers this year will be “outsiders” with no government experience, as well as women--who are vastly outnumbered in the halls of Congress--”because people are interested in change, and that’s change.”

Consultants say that incumbents, in responding to the discontented electorate, would be wise to hit hard on emotional issues like health care, with medical costs soaring and many people uninsured.

“Health care is a grabber,” Whitney said. “Wofford used it very effectively” in defeating Thornburgh. “That was a fascinating example of an incumbent playing the role of outsider, and the Democrats are smart to grab some of those issues for their own. Republicans have to find some too.”

Meanwhile, DeLauro’s energetic efforts, combined with her focus on tax cut and health care issues appealing to the middle class, are being widely adopted by colleagues struggling to cope with a sour voter mood.

DeLauro’s activism--including frequent floor speeches aimed at a national audience served by cable TV--landed her on the “Message Board,” a small group of House Democratic leaders who meet daily to plot strategy. Beginning last spring, she used that forum to push an income tax cut proposal similar to one now advanced by top Democrats: lowering levies on the middle class while raising them on the well to do.

In her encounters with constituents, DeLauro holds out hope for change but is careful to keep expectations realistic.

For example, addressing a large group of bingo players at a senior-citizens center in Milford, she said she was “encouraged” that Congress might pass a bill this year to substantially increase Social Security benefits for “notch babies,” who contend they are penalized by a quirk in the law because they were born between 1917 and 1926.

But she added: “I don’t make promises because oftentimes I can’t keep promises. I can only promise that I’ll work as hard as I can. And I promise that I won’t forget you.”

The crowd applauded briskly.

And a few minutes later, when she did an impromptu tap dance in her gray tent dress and black suede heels, the elderly constituents clapped again.

DeLauro’s strategy to close the alienation gap, however, involves as much listening as talking and entertaining. And she has found there is much to hear from agitated voters.

At one of the congresswoman’s listening posts, the Elm Street Diner in West Haven, waitress Ann Laspino told a visitor: “People are so depressed. So many don’t have jobs, yet officials are giving themselves raises. I get so angry.”

Owner John Theodoridis said the faltering economy, punctuated by high unemployment, a banking crisis and an uproar over income taxes, is the overriding issue on voters’ minds.

“Abortion and crime? Those are only secondary today,” he said. “If you don’t have money and can’t eat, why worry about abortion? Killing and stealing are connected to the economy. When it gets better, there will be less violence. We have got to create more jobs.”

At the T.J. Maxx clothing store in East Haven, which DeLauro also trolls for complaints and advice, shopper Sandra Mango protested that governments “cannot continue to make the middle class responsible for paying their bills. My husband works six to seven days a week as an attorney. More goes out than comes in. . . . Politicians are going to suffer all over the country” in this year’s elections. “People are tired of being patronized.”

DeLauro is adept at projecting a willingness to consider such grievances. When Torello concluded his town meeting outburst, she responded sympathetically.

“What you said, I wish many in Washington could understand,” she said. “We need to put government back on the side of people. I will agree that much falls on deaf ears. But we’ve got more ears listening now because you’re making your feelings known loud and clear.

“You have tremendous power with the ballot. And if we’re not listening, we don’t deserve to be there.”

Times staff writer Dara McLeod contributed to this story.