Glitches Afflict Uphill Tsongas Campaign : Politics: Sparse crowds, contradictions harm his efforts in Michigan and Illinois. Officials block one of his Chicago speeches.

In his campaign appearances, Paul E. Tsongas likes to single out children in the audience. “What are we going to leave our children? That’s what this election’s all about,” he says. “The future.”

But in a week of uphill campaigning before Tuesday’s Michigan and Illinois primaries, Tsongas and his campaign aides might have done better to focus on the here and now--or even the next campaign event.

Time and again, Tsongas showed up for appearances rife with glitches--and sparse crowds more familiar in tiny New Hampshire than voter-rich Illinois and Michigan. Such embarrassments were symbolized on the morning after his eight Super Tuesday defeats when his “Tsongas Tshuttle” got mired in the mud at Chicago’s Midway Airport, delaying a campaign trip to Detroit by 90 minutes.

As the former Massachusetts senator enters what may be the beginning of the end of his run for the Democratic presidential nomination, jetting back and forth between Illinois and Michigan, Tsongas has become a study in contradictions.

He tells voters that such issues as health care and economic revival are “not just memos handed to me by staff”--and, in the very next breath, he refers them to this page or that in his 86-page campaign manifesto.

Meeting with voters in a Chicago restaurant, he sketched out diagrams to describe the ills of the economy and then, without prompting, began autographing copies of his campaign manifesto, “A Call to Economic Arms.” At one point, he looked up self-consciously and noted: “I’m a prisoner when you put a pen in my hand.”

The morning after Super Tuesday, Tsongas vowed to get tougher against Bill Clinton, particularly by questioning his chief rival’s electability. But Tsongas could not quite bring himself to do it.

Instead, he repeatedly quoted Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), who has dropped out of the race, as saying that Clinton is unelectable, merely adding: “I share that view.” When asked point-blank about Clinton’s electability during a Friday night debate in Chicago, Tsongas ducked the question.

Rather, the self-proclaimed “non-tradition” candidate, who decried negative campaign advertising, now is letting his harsh TV ads do the job. One Tsongas ad has this voice-over: “He’s no Bill Clinton. That’s for sure. He’s the exact opposite. Paul Tsongas--he’s not afraid of the truth.”

After losing all seven Southern states and Hawaii last week, Tsongas conceded that he must do well Tuesday in Illinois and Michigan, which he has characterized as “neutral territory” outside his native New England and Clinton’s South. But with polls showing him far behind in both industrial Midwestern states, Tsongas again is changing his tune.

Michigan and Illinois, he now says, “are less neutral than one would presume.”

To be sure, Tsongas has not deviated from his message of “hard choices” and “no magic bullets” even in the hard-pressed state of Michigan, where he pressed on doggedly about his plan to “grow the economy” and create jobs by investing in manufacturing.

But he has offered little vision that might inspire sacrifice. As one unemployed man in Flint sternly told Tsongas: “What we need now is some sort of immediate answer--not four, five or six years down the road.”

Among the glitches last week was an appearance at a city-run senior citizens’ center in Chicago--where officials refused to let him speak. After much haggling, Tsongas was allowed to walk around a lunchroom, where he awkwardly shook hands and made small talk with senior citizens. “It’s nice not to have to give a speech for a change,” he said.

As he finally rose to leave, a woman gave him an orange. Tsongas reciprocated with a copy of his position paper on health care reform.

Outside, Patrick Murphy, a Cook County public defender who was ready to endorse Tsongas, fumed. Murphy criticized Tsongas aides for allowing their candidate to miss an opportunity to underscore the point that Tsongas is battling the Democratic Establishment machine here, which is largely backing Clinton.

For all his problems on the campaign trail last week, however, Tsongas was collecting more contributions than ever, garnering $1 million in the first 12 days in March--more than he received in all of 1991.

But his campaign is spending the funds as quickly as they come in, largely on more television ads and other campaign expenses. “I wouldn’t say we’re running a surplus,” campaign spokeswoman Peggy Connolly said.

If Tsongas does not make respectable showings on Tuesday, campaign aides fear, the funds could quickly dry up. And, perhaps telegraphing a growing realization that he is unlikely to pull off an upset in either state, Tsongas already is making plans to spend Tuesday night in friendlier territory--either at home in Massachusetts or in Connecticut, site of the next primary, March 24.

By last weekend, Tsongas’ campaign did manage to put together several spirited and well-attended rallies here in Chicago, including two fund-raisers that netted $98,000.

But later over the weekend, during an after-hours rally at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange attended by several hundred enthusiastic supporters, his backers outside were passing out leaflets that contained erroneous information about Tsongas’ public appearances for the rest of the weekend.

The leaflets said the candidate would participate in a Saturday St. Patrick’s Day parade and appear at various suburban shopping centers in Chicago. But Tsongas spent all day campaigning in Michigan. And instead of appearing at the Century City Mall at midday on Sunday, as the leaflets promised, Tsongas was in church and then took part in a different St. Patrick’s Day parade.

It was also during last week that Tsongas confronted the first questions about whether he would serve as Clinton’s vice presidential running mate. He quickly deflected the question, saying: “I would consider anybody who ran in a primary as my vice president.”

Later, when reporters pressed him on the point, Tsongas said he would not answer such a “theoretical” question. Still later, when the question resurfaced, Tsongas said that he would support whoever is the party’s nominee--but that because of “serious disagreements” with Clinton over economic policies, he would not consider being Clinton’s running mate.

One of the more awkward events occurred Saturday night in Detroit, where Tsongas, Clinton and former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. each spoke at the annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, a fund raiser for the Michigan Democratic Party.

Tsongas was the first to speak. He then went upstairs for an appearance at a voter education forum sponsored by the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

But, because of a misunderstanding, Tsongas found the large meeting room virtually empty. Embarrassed NAACP officials quickly rounded up an audience, but the candidate ended up speaking to only a few dozen people.