Clinton Dodges a Bullet, Looks to South : Campaign: Arkansas governor regains most ground lost to Tsongas over questions about personal life. Primaries in his stronghold lie ahead.

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton prepared Tuesday night to head South with the giddy cheer of a man who knows he has dodged a bullet.

“The bottom line is, to survive all of this and live to fight another day is great,” said Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign director Mitchell Schwartz. “I would have liked to win. Three weeks ago, we would have won, but I’ll take this.”

As recently as nine days ago, Clinton’s own polls showed him trailing former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas by 20 points and raised serious questions about whether his campaign could survive the twin controversies surrounding his personal life and his Vietnam-era draft status.

But after a week and a half of frantic campaigning, Clinton regained large amounts of the support he had lost. And as Clinton advisers look ahead to the delegate-rich primaries that crowd the March calendar, they find cheer in two areas.

First, exit polls by The Times and other news organizations show that Clinton defeated Tsongas here among core Democratic voters--blue-collar workers and those earning less than $35,000 per year. Tsongas prevailed in large part because of support from higher-income white-collar professionals and from self-described independents. The groups that preferred Clinton make up key parts of the electorate in the March primaries.

Second, while Clinton trailed Tsongas, he far outdistanced other rivals, particularly Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey. Clinton advisers believe they can defeat Tsongas, whom they expect will find less support outside New England. But they feared that in a close three-candidate race, they would be at a severe disadvantage--having to fight off Kerrey in some states, Tsongas in others. In a speech at an election eve rally in Manchester on Monday and in remarks Tuesday, Clinton made clear the theme he will stress as he tries to overcome Tsongas. The former Massachusetts senator has a good economic message, but offers only a “narrow” vision, Clinton will argue.

“I don’t believe the only job of the President is to create economic opportunity, although that is important,” Clinton said. A President must also make sure that all Americans can “take advantage of that opportunity.” A President, he said, must be able to “inspire hope” and must be able to offer leadership to make his programs work.

Clinton plans to emphasize two parts of his platform--his proposed middle-class tax cut, which Tsongas opposes, and his program to allow all students to borrow money for college in exchange for national service, which Tsongas calls too expensive--and will try to paint Tsongas as lacking compassion for the pain suffered by Americans in the current recession.

Immediately ahead of Clinton stand the primaries in South Carolina and Georgia, Feb. 29 and March 3 respectively. Losses in either contest would devastate Clinton’s campaign, demonstrating that he no longer can hold his Southern base. Clinton must also decide whether to risk taking on Tsongas in another March 3 primary, most likely the contest in Maryland.

On March 10, Super Tuesday, Clinton hopes to entice Tsongas into a battle in Florida, where Clinton has a well-organized and well-financed campaign and where Tsongas is relatively unknown.