Brown Accuses Democratic Chairman of Taking Sides : Campaign: Rival says Ronald Brown is trying to corral party support for Clinton and cut off criticism.

Democratic presidential contender Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. lashed out at Democratic Party Chairman Ronald H. Brown on Friday, accusing him of “doing a disservice” to the party by attempting to rally party regulars behind Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton.

As he greeted workers reporting to their jobs at a paper mill, Brown blasted the party chairman and other “big money” Democrats for complaining about his efforts to draw attention to reports of Clinton’s personal and political problems.

“The thing with Clinton is that you have a scandal a week,” Brown said to reporters trailing him at an impromptu news conference outside the mill. “He’s got everybody fronting for him.

“I think our own party chairman does a disservice by telling everyone to somehow cover it up and keep quiet about what’s going on with Clinton,” Brown said. “The truth about Bill Clinton is that he’s not electable and he’s taking the Democratic Party for a ride.”

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times earlier this week, Ronald Brown said Jerry Brown is conducting a “scorched earth” campaign of personal attacks against Clinton, which hurts the Democratic Party’s chances to reclaim the White House in November. Ronald Brown made similar comments in the New York Times on Friday.

Those comments apparently stung Jerry Brown, who seemed especially combative in his comments on Friday. He characterized Brown and other party officials as “good old boys” more interested in listening to lobbyists who have donated $1,000 to Clinton than to the people who have contributed $100 or less to his campaign.

Jerry Brown, who refuses to accept campaign contributions greater than $100, has pinned his presidential hopes on a grass-roots movement of people who have not participated in traditional politics.

Brown said whatever critical comments he expresses about Clinton are “pitty pat” compared to what Clinton can expect from the Republicans’ “slash and burn” campaign in the November general election.

“If this guy gets the nomination, (President George) Bush is going to have a field day, which is why so many people say Clinton is not electable,” Brown said.

Friday night, Brown and Clinton squared off in a debate carried live on public television across Wisconsin and Minnesota. The candidates responded to questions from citizens gathered in a studio in Minneapolis. Brown was at the studio, and Clinton appeared via satellite from Indianapolis, where he was attending a fund-raiser.

One of the more dramatic moments of the 90-minute debate occurred when Michael and Sherry Johnson, a married couple from Beloit, Wis., told the candidates they both carry the AIDS virus and asked if Brown and Clinton would take an HIV test to reduce the “stigma and hysteria” associated with the disease.

In posing the question, Michael Johnson noted that Brown is a bachelor and that Clinton has faced unsubstantiated accusations of marital infidelity, drawing a gasp from the studio audience. The candidates, nonplussed, agreed that if elected, they would take an AIDS test.

More routinely, the two men renewed their disagreement over Brown’s proposal for a 13% flat tax. Clinton attacked the idea as a “regressive” proposal that would be unfair to poor and middle-class Americans. Brown responded that his plan calls for tax exemptions for rent payments, which are not deductible under current tax policies and would benefit low-income Americans.

Brown spent much of the day campaigning in Wisconsin, which holds its primary April 7. At one of his stops, he received a rousing welcome from about 1,200 students at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

During a midday stop at Milwaukee’s Way of the Cross Church, Brown’s meeting with a state conference of black Baptist ministers was interrupted by a phone call from the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The phone call offered Brown an opportunity to ask Jackson what he knew about Ronald Brown’s participation in the Clinton campaign. Ronald Brown was a top Jackson aide in the 1988 campaign. “We talk from time to time,” Jerry Brown said of his brief and private conversation with Jackson. “I think there are some people working with Clinton within the DNC.”

Jerry Brown has said Jackson would be his first choice for vice president. He said he didn’t talk with Jackson about the vice presidency during their conversation. Jackson has neither accepted nor rejected the offer.

Brown later traveled to Minnesota, where he attended a rally on the Prairie Island Reservation. Brown met with Sioux tribal leaders who are fighting a nuclear waste dump on their island reservation, located about 65 miles southeast of Minneapolis.