Tsongas Has Slim Maine Caucus Lead : Campaign: He appears to win 30% of delegates. But Brown effort makes him strong second with 29%. Bush sweeps the Republican side.

Former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas appeared headed for the narrowest of victories in the Maine caucuses Sunday over the well-organized anti-Establishment campaign of former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr.

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was a distant fourth, trailing “uncommitted.”

With 92% of the precincts reporting, Tsongas had 30% to Brown’s 29%. An uncommitted slate of delegates had 16%; Clinton, 15%; Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, 5%, and Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, 3%. Tsongas led Brown by only three delegates.

The Maine system is a two-step process. Sunday’s caucuses chose 3,566 delegates to the state convention, which in turn will choose 23 delegates to the Democrats’ national convention.

Maine Republicans, meanwhile, gave their sometime neighbor, George Bush, a lopsided 88% to 4% win over conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, with 81% of expected delegates chosen. Bush has an estate in the seaside resort of Kennebunkport, near Portland.

Brown had campaigned extensively in the state, especially in the last week. Tsongas had been favored both because of his victory in New Hampshire last Tuesday and because he is from a neighboring state. Clinton’s campaign made a last-minute attempt to win support to embarrass Tsongas. Neither Kerrey nor Harkin paid the state much heed, choosing to concentrate on South Dakota’s primary this Tuesday.

Tsongas, in South Dakota for a debate with five other Democratic contenders Sunday night, seemed unworried by Brown’s showing. “If these returns hold up, we’re running 2 to 1 ahead of the other major candidates,” he said. “My fight is with Bill Clinton . . . and I’m running 2 to 1 ahead of him.”

Brown, in turn, tweaked those who had discounted his candidacy. “It certainly is an upset and it has to be a shock to the pundits in Washington who early on decided that only $1,000 checks and obscene campaign war chests could propel a candidacy,” he said. “The people of Maine proved them wrong. . . . Our campaign is being carried on the shoulders of the American people. . . .

“I’m very pleased that we were able to break through the cynical barrier of Establishment politics.”

Brown will accept no contribution larger than $100; the legal limit is $1,000.

Brown’s Maine campaign team attributed his showing to the appeal of Brown’s message and to focused and intensive campaigning. Brown had visited 31 Maine cities in five campaign swings since December, and had stumped the state every day since the Feb. 18 New Hampshire primary.

They also attributed the strong showing to the highly liberal bent of many Maine Democratic activists and to the anti-nuclear sentiment that Brown sought to tap. Anti-nuclear feeling remains strong in Maine, which has had three voter referendums on its Maine Yankee nuclear power station.

Rival campaigns attributed Brown’s showing to his intensive campaigning and to the nature of caucuses, which favor campaigns that are well-organized to win over the core of party activists. Brown had tapped into the large group of Democrats who had never gone to a caucus but responded to what they considered a new political message, said Bill Diamond, who is Maine’s secretary of state and Kerrey’s campaign chairman.

“Brown scratched that itch,” Diamond said.

Officials of the Tsongas and Kerrey campaigns insisted that the real importance of the caucuses lay in the fourth-place showing of Clinton, whose Maine campaign had money, numerous party endorsements and a good organization.

“That’s the real story here,” said Dennis Newman, field coordinator for the Tsongas campaign. He said the Tsongas camp is “happy with our showing. . . . Caucuses will never be our strength.”

Clinton, in turn, tried to turn the results against Tsongas. “It’s awful news for Tsongas,” Clinton aide Paul Begala said. “Senator Tsongas spent the week trying to convince us he’s not a regional candidate; he’s a national candidate. Apparently he’s half right.”

Rick Barton, a former Democratic state chairman and a Clinton campaign official, said Clinton had suffered partly because until Saturday he had not appeared in the state since Feb. 2.

The Maine caucuses had been expected to receive little emphasis from the candidates. In the campaign’s final days, however, not only Brown but Tsongas and Clinton saw the state as central to their plans.

Clinton, with a strong state organization and the backing of party regulars, came to view Maine as an opportunity to embarrass Tsongas on his home turf. In a final push on Saturday, the Clinton campaign had called key Maine Democrats from phone banks in Portland; Little Rock, Ark., and Boston to ask their support. He made his last Maine appearance Saturday night at the Androscoggin County pre-caucus party dinner, in Lewiston.

Tsongas had stepped up his efforts in Maine as well, with last-minute stops here Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

Among Republicans, with 81% of the expected delegates chosen, 88% were for Bush, 4% for Patrick J. Buchanan, and 8% uncommitted. The Republican caucuses will continue until March 14.

Gov. John R. McKernan, co-chairman of the Bush campaign, said the group’s effort had been “a defensive one, as much as anything.

“We wanted to keep Buchanan from coming across the border at the last minute with a terrorist campaign” that would persuade news organizations that a small vote for Buchanan was a victory. To prevent complacency, he said, the campaign contacted all Republican town and county officials to urge them to vote, “rather than going skiing.”

Republican Party officials have predicted an overwhelming victory for Bush from the beginning.

“No one in the party leadership has supported Buchanan, and there’s been no paper like the Union-Leader, in New Hampshire, promoting him,” said Edward O’Meara, chairman of the Republican State Committee.

Buchanan has been in the state only once this month, and has had virtually no organization here. Some Republicans have even complained about the difficulty of getting a Buchanan bumper sticker. Buchanan campaign officials have said they would consider anything more than a 10% showing a victory.

Brown’s strength in Maine was evident at Sunday’s Democratic caucus in Portland, the state’s largest city, where the former governor arrived to a thunderous ovation. “We will shake up the Establishment . . . and we will win in November,” he promised a standing-room-only crowd at Portland High School’s large gymnasium.

When Tsongas took the podium he was interrupted by Brown supporters and others who chanted, “No more nukes! No more nukes!”

“No one interrupted Jerry Brown,” Tsongas protested. “I ask you not to interrupt me.”

Brown has repeatedly attacked Tsongas for his view that nuclear energy must be part of the nation’s energy mix. Thaliae Tsongas Schlesinger, Tsongas’ sister, complained Sunday that Brown “has been distorting Paul’s position” by describing him as a nuclear energy advocate.

But she acknowledged that Brown has worked the caucus system well. “He’s been all over the place,” she said, as she campaigned at the Portland caucus.

Maine Democrats have followed the lead of New Hampshire in the last three elections, picking former Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis in 1988, Sen. Gary Hart in 1984, and Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Maine has recently faced many of the same economic problems as New Hampshire--one reason some party activists had predicted a sizable protest vote this year. The unemployment rate here is 6.3%.

The Maine Vote

DEMOCRATS

92% of precincts reporting

Delegates* % Paul E. Tsongas 969 30% Jerry Brown 966 29% Uncommitted 513 16% Bill Clinton 504 15% Tom Harkin 170 5% Bob Kerrey 104 3%

*Delegates to the Maine state convention, which will choose delegates to the national convention.

Source: Times staff and wire reports