Clinton Says Bush, Not Brown, is His Main Opponent : Politics: Aides see little need to hit hard at Democratic rival. Arkansas governor meets with students, minority leaders in Connecticut.

On the first day of campaigning since Paul E. Tsongas abandoned his bid for the White House, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton made it clear Friday that he sees the contest as a two-man race--between himself and President Bush.

As Clinton talked with students at a local high school and met with Connecticut minority leaders, several of whom offered endorsements, the Democratic front-runner and his aides all but ignored the insurgent candidacy of former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., the only other Democrat left in the field.

Aides strongly suggested that Clinton might even bypass a scheduled appearance with Brown today in Buffalo, N.Y., where the two were to fight for votes in the state’s April 7 primary. Clinton was to campaign in New York City this morning and in New Haven, Conn., in the afternoon.

Asked whether Clinton plans to hit Brown hard in Connecticut, where recession-weary voters go to the polls on Tuesday, deputy campaign director George Stephanopolous said: “I don’t think there’s any need to.

“If (Brown) continues with the personal attacks, we’ll hit him back, but the opponent here is George Bush and the Republicans and the need to change the country, not Jerry Brown.

“The whole idea now is to just spread the message across the country and talk to voters and give them a chance to have their say.”

Clinton reinforced that theme during a meeting with students enrolled in a special engineering program at Bulkeley High School near downtown Hartford.

“We have to pay more attention to the problems of America at home,” Clinton told the racially mixed group. “If we’re not strong at home, we cannot be strong abroad. President Bush found that out when he went to Japan,” he said in reference to the President’s trade mission to Tokyo.

Clinton’s local supporters endorsed the strategy.

“Tsongas is a respected individual, and if he were in Connecticut hitting at Clinton . . . it would be damaging,” said state Sen. George Jepsen, who represents the urban Stamford area and is coordinating Clinton’s campaign in the 4th Congressional District. “Having Jerry Brown taking the same kinds of shots will not produce the same kind of damage.”

Brown, nevertheless, continued to throw barbs Clinton’s way, criticizing the Arkansas governor for playing golf Wednesday at a private Little Rock, Ark., country club that has no minority members.

Clinton said Friday that his decision to play nine holes of golf at the Little Rock Country Club “was a mistake” that he vowed not to repeat.

“I have never joined a racially exclusive club in my life,” Clinton told reporters. “I pay dues to one organization, the downtown Little Rock YMCA. . . . A guy asked me to play nine holes of golf with him, and it was the only place we had time to play.”

An aide said Clinton, as governor, has greens privileges at all three private Little Rock golf courses, two of which are said to be racially exclusive, and that Clinton has played at the Little Rock Country Club “two or three times a year.”

The controversy did not appear to upset about 50 members of the Connecticut General Assembly’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus and other minority leaders who met privately with Clinton for about two hours at Hartford’s Mt. Olive Church.

“The Black and Puerto Rican Caucus was very impressed,” said state Rep. Ernest Newton II, the caucus chairman. “I was satisfied enough to endorse him.” In addition, Newton said, Clinton will pick up the endorsement of New Haven Mayor John Daniels, another caucus member.

While the issue of the golf club came up, Newton said he is “more concerned with where (Clinton) is taking the country. His record on affirmative action has been impeccable, and that’s what we’re more concerned with.”

Sources in Clinton’s Connecticut organization said the Arkansas governor had planned to spend virtually no money in the state until late last week, when polls showed his chances improving rapidly against Tsongas, who had been regarded as the front-runner here.

Appearing Friday on NBC-TV’s “Today” show, Clinton said Tsongas’ withdrawal from the presidential campaign “offers the opportunity to unite . . . those who . . . believe we ought to have a progressive social program but a serious economic program to revitalize this country. . . .

“That’s what I intend to do. I want to reach out to his supporters, mobilize them with mine and put together the majority for change that I always felt was out there.”

Of Brown, Clinton said: “I’ve always made it a practice never to tell anybody to get in or out of a political race. . . . If he goes out and runs on his ideas, . . . that’s fine. (But) I think personal attacks on me . . . are not helpful to the party.”