NEWS ANALYSIS : Clinton Seeks Doubleheader Sweep : Democrats: He appears to have overcome misgivings about his character as he positions himself for Michigan, Illinois primary victories.

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton seems on the verge of winning a doubleheader victory in Tuesday’s Michigan and Illinois primaries, which would move him a giant step closer to the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sparking Clinton’s Midwestern bandwagon is his ability to overshadow misgivings about his character with his “people first” economic message. By contrast, his principal rival, former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, has had to struggle, often in vain, to persuade voters that his own economic views could help solve their problems.

That picture could change in the closing hours before the vote in the two recession-ridden states, where voter sentiment seems more volatile than usual this year.

In Illinois, aides to Tsongas are talking of narrowing Clinton’s huge early lead--more than two-to-one according to one poll--to 10 points or so. And in Michigan, former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. hopes to get enough votes from hard-pressed auto workers by hammering at the trade issue to cut Clinton’s similarly big edge in that state and conceivably boost Brown into second place.

But so far Clinton, aided by a boost in momentum from last week’s Super Tuesday Southern sweep and by his superiority in resources and organization, has had things pretty much his own way in both states.

The Clinton forces got off to a fast start, shrewdly staging their Super Tuesday victory celebration in Chicago, while Tsongas lingered in his home town of Lowell, Mass., celebrating his success in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Delaware.

And Clinton reminded Illinois voters of his local connection through his wife, Hillary, with an early visit to South High School, where she had been a student.

As for Tsongas, his Midwest campaign got off almost literally on the wrong foot. His chartered plan got stuck in the mud at Chicago’s Midway Airport as it was preparing to take off, a mishap that caused several hours delay and provided the local media with a handy metaphor for dramatizing Tsongas’ difficulties.

But more important than good timing or bad luck in shaping the course of the campaign was the sharp contrast in the ability of the two principal contenders to communicate their beliefs to the electorate.

For his part Tsongas had difficulty separating himself from the abstract theorems that undergird his approach to lifting the nation out of its economic difficulties. Back in his Boston headquarters, aides said they knew their candidate was headed for trouble when on his first day in Chicago they saw him on the network news lecturing black high school students--whose most immediate concern presumably is finding work in Chicago’s tight job market--on the need for a capital gains tax cut.

Later in the week, a jobless auto worker in Flint, Mich., asked him about meeting competition from imported cars. Instead of answering directly, Tsongas referred him to a relevant passage from his 86-page tome, “A Call to Economic Arms.”

“He has been projecting himself as a Wall Street guru, rather than a friend of blue-collar workers,” complained one upper-echelon adviser who asked not to be identified. “He needs to tell his story in a different way,” by putting more stress on real life examples.

Clinton demonstrated how that should be done last week on a visit to a Chicago cheesecake factory, of all places. There the television cameras captured him, wearing a white baker’s coat and praising the company for helping its workers climb the economic ladder by earning graduate equivalency degrees.

“This is a very big deal,” Clinton said. “We need a structured government partnership with business to make more things like this happen.”

And later in the week when the candidates were pitted against each other in a televised debate, Clinton was more than a match for Tsongas. The Massachusetts senator, who has accused Clinton of playing Santa Claus with his promise of a tax break for the middle class, asked Clinton: “What is the greatest sacrifice you’re calling upon the American people to make on behalf of their children?” Clinton shot back: “The only people you’ve asked to sacrifice are the ones who’ve already sacrificed in the ‘80s, the poor working stiffs.”

Those people, Clinton said, would be hurt the most by the gas-tax increase Tsongas proposes to save energy and fund infrastructure improvements.”

“We’ve had a good week,” David Wilhelm, Clinton’s national campaign manager, said in an interview Sunday. “I think Clinton connected with people on his economic message by putting people first and emphasizing education and training.”

But it was not always easy going for Clinton. Tsongas came after him hard with commercials that sought to play on doubts about his character raised by allegations of marital infidelity and the controversies over his Vietnam War draft status and his business partnership with the operator of a state-regulated savings and loan institution.

One Tsongas commercial does double duty, criticizing Clinton’s record in Arkansas and at the same time leaving the implication that he is not straightforward. “What’s Bill Clinton got to hide that’s really bad?” the ad asks. The answer turns out to be his home state’s low rankings in family income, worker safety and school spending.

Still another commercial, which Tsongas aides consider their most potent, directly challenges Clinton’s veracity. The 30-second ad makes a virtue of the fact that Tsongas lacks Clinton’s polish and boyish good looks and says of Tsongas: “He’s no Bill Clinton, that’s for sure. He’s the exact opposite. . . . He’s not afraid of the truth.”

One indication of negative reaction to Clinton’s personal troubles came when he marched with the local party boss, Cook County Assessor Thomas Hynes, in a St. Patrick’s Day parade in the heavily Irish South Side Beverly neighborhood.

Amid the cheers from loyal party workers and curious neighbors, shouts could be heard of “draft dodger” and “where’s Gennifer?”--a reference to Gennifer Flowers, the woman who told a supermarket tabloid that she and Clinton had had a 12-year affair.

Polling data suggests that some voters are receptive to arguments questioning Clinton’s character. A Chicago Sun-Times poll released this weekend showed that about one voter in five in both parties is unlikely to vote for Clinton because of doubts about his character.

Those doubts appear to be greatest among better-educated upper middle income voters. Kale Williams, executive director of a Chicago fair-housing group and a self-described liberal, said that he intends to vote for Tsongas, despite his “miserable showing” in last week’s debate, because of concern about Clinton’s character. “He (Clinton) steered too close to the line of unethical conduct” in the various controversies about his past behavior, Williams said.

But poll results show that Williams’ doubts are not shared by enough voters to defeat Clinton. “That’s because it’s not just Clinton who is involved in the campaign, but the things he stands for,” according to campaign manager Wilhelm. “Clinton’s message is more important than Clinton.”

Here’s a brief look at late developments in the two states that vote Tuesday:

ILLINOIS (164 delegates): Clinton has been planning for this primary since he announced his candidacy last August, calculating that it would provide a critical test of his hopes for the nomination because it comes a week after Super Tuesday and because of its big contingent of delegates and its neutral location in the Midwest.

He could hardly be better prepared. National campaign manager Wilhelm ran Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s two successful races for City Hall. And Wilhelm’s contacts have helped him get a flock of key endorsements and establish a reputedly high-powered organization.

Polls released last weekend showed him only a few points ahead of Tsongas. But then came Super Tuesday and Clinton’s fast start in the state, which helped put him ahead of Tsongas by 48% to 21% in the Sun Times poll that was taken last Wednesday and Thursday. Brown trailed, with only 7%. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus five points.

Tsongas’ pollster Irwin Harrison predicts that the final results will be closer than the poll figures because, he claims, Clinton’s ‘bounce” from Super Tuesday will fade, Brown will take votes from Clinton and Tsongas will do a better job of making his economic argument.

MICHIGAN (131 delegates): A Detroit News poll taken Thursday and Friday and released Sunday showed Clinton with a huge lead of 49%, to 18% for Tsongas and 17% for Brown. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5%.

But the climate in Michigan is particularly volatile. Turnout is expected to be low because this will be the state’s first presidential primary in 16 years and resentment among auto workers is intense because of high unemployment and the recent decision by General Motors to close its big plant at Willow Run, west of Detroit. In this environment, Brown has mounted a television ad blitz on stations in Detroit and Flint, pointing out that President Bush, Clinton and Tsongas all supported fast-track legislation to expedite a trade pact with Mexico that Brown claims will cost jobs in Detroit.

Clinton struck back last week, airing a commercial that attacks Brown’s flat-tax idea as easing the tax burden on the rich, while taking more from lower- and middle-income groups. “That hurt us,” said Michael Ford, a consultant to the Brown campaign.

Nevertheless, Ford is hopeful that Brown can gain ground at Clinton’s expense. “I think for the first time here we can win blacks and blue-collar workers,” Brown said, in addition to the younger voters and upper-income groups that have been providing most of Brown’s support elsewhere.

Clinton plans to devote almost his entire campaign day today to Michigan, rather than Illinois.