NEWS ANALYSIS : Clinton Tries to Stitch Old-Style N.Y. Coalition

At the start of the critical weekend before Tuesday’s New York primary, the two fresh arrivals from Capitol Hill got their marching orders from the frenzied Midtown Manhattan headquarters of Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles, a longtime ally of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and a leading black politician in her own right, was still eating a chicken sandwich when she was dispatched to Brooklyn’s Medgar Evers College, where most of the students are black.

Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, who is openly gay, never got the chance to even sit down before he was hustled off on his rounds, which included an address to an AIDS activist group.

The candidate himself, meanwhile, had spent the week pledging federal windfalls to big-city mayors, reassuring Jewish leaders about U.S. policy toward Israel and promising black clergymen that he would appoint the most racially diverse Cabinet “in the history of American politics.”

What these efforts suggest is that Clinton’s presidential candidacy could be undergoing a dramatic transformation, one with potentially far-reaching consequences for his bid for the nomination and, should he win that, for his campaign against President Bush in the fall.

Clinton entered the presidential arena assuming the self-created role of a Democratic Party outsider who would run as an agent of centrist change. But now, determined to avoid a defeat that would wreak havoc for his campaign, he is striving to win the New York primary the old-fashioned liberal way--by catering to the potent interest groups hereabouts and stitching them into a coalition with the help of much of the political Establishment.

A host of local officials in New York City and across the state have rallied to his side, along with a flock of members of Congress. And despite a record that has often irked labor leaders in his own state, Clinton has been endorsed by two of New York City’s most politically potent labor unions--those representing public employees and teachers.

This tried-and-true formula seems to be turning into a winning combination for Clinton in his battle with former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., whose upset victory in the March 24 Connecticut primary gave him a surge of momentum coming into New York.

“We’re doing better than we were,” Clinton’s New York campaign manager Harold L. Ickes said Saturday. But he added: “It’s still a tight race.”

If Clinton does win here--and recent polling figures give him the lead--it will be in part because of the unwitting assistance of Brown and what some view as his run-and-shoot-now, think-about-it-later campaign style.

Brown’s proposal to replace the current tax system with a 13% flat income tax and a 13% value-added tax has sparked questions even among many of his own supporters.

And his oft-repeated offer to make Jackson his vice presidential running mate has alarmed many members of New York’s Jewish community, traditionally one of the primary’s largest voting blocs. Reflecting the hostility toward Jackson first generated when he labeled New York City “Hymietown” eight years ago, a recent editorial in the weekly Jewish Press cautioned its readers: “A vote for Jerry Brown is a vote for Jesse Jackson.”

Despite these advantages for Clinton, some analysts believe that by choosing to play by the customary rules of the New York power game, he has surrendered his vaunted claim to be a force for change, opening the door for Brown to exploit that issue here and in future primaries.

“You have to give (Brown) credit,” said Fred Siegel, a Clinton supporter and history professor at Cooper Union University. “He saw his opportunity and he took full advantage of it.”

And the closer Clinton has moved toward the local makers and shapers of political power, the more Brown’s anti-Establishment rhetoric has gained resonance among discontented citizens.

“Clinton is just a wishy-washy yuppie,” said Pat Brennan, a Brooklyn utility worker who cheered Brown on at a Union Square rally last week. “Jerry Brown more than anybody else is for real change for the working man.”

But many who are interested in change find Brown short on substance. “I don’t think Jerry Brown has much in the way of positions,” said Stuart Diamond, a New York lawyer. “All he does is appeal to people’s frustration.”

Diamond initially backed Paul E. Tsongas, who suspended his presidential candidacy last month but whose name is still on the New York ballot. A movement remains alive--complete with television advertisements--to persuade Diamond and others to cast their votes for Tsongas in hopes of persuading him to reactivate his candidacy and his own commitment to change.

Leo Gounardes, director of the draft effort in New York, said Tsongas told him: “Get me 15% of the vote, and I will come and talk to you about the rest of the campaign.”

Tsongas could not be reached for comment.

Gounardes’ hopes of reaching the 15% figure may have been boosted by the newspaper Newsday, which endorsed Tsongas in an editorial appearing today.

The interest-group strategy Clinton has embraced in the New York campaign is applauded by some political analysts as one that could help him in the long term by rallying the Democratic Party’s still powerful liberal base behind him in the fall if, as most expect, he is the nominee.

“This will help him hit the golden mean” between appealing to traditional liberals and voters looking for a change in the federal government’s approach to domestic problems, said Brooklyn-based political consultant Norman Adler.

But Siegel, the Cooper Union professor, faults Clinton for not taking on the entrenched New York City municipal bureaucracy, along with its union allies, as a demonstration project for implementing one of the prime goals of his early candidacy--his call to “reinvent government.”

And he warns that unless Clinton returns to his venturesome goals and his commitment to change, he will fail against Bush.

“If he tries to run a general election campaign like this, he’ll lose because of his personal problems,” Siegel said, referring to the questions about his character, which have plagued Clinton’s campaign. “There’s no reason to vote for him against Bush unless he can show he has a way to revive the economy by reforming government.”

Ickes contends that talk about Clinton deviating from the centrist path he initially charted for himself is exaggerated, inspired by the special nature of New York’s environment.

“I don’t get the feeling that he’s sounding like a new Hubert Humphrey,” Ickes said, referring to one of the icons of party liberalism. “I think he’s just a progressive, carrying on in the progressive tradition.”

But Adler said that in New York, Clinton has sounded “like Walter Mondale,” the 1984 Democratic nominee and another champion of liberal thought, in his apparent willingness to please powerful interest groups.

Clinton did find occasion last week to stress one of his differences with liberal orthodoxy--his belief that people on welfare should make a greater effort to exercise responsibility for their own lives and to find jobs.

But for the most part, when it came to campaigning among key elements of the party’s traditional constituencies, Clinton displayed an enthusiasm and zeal that Humphrey and Mondale would have envied.

In a series of talks before Jewish audiences, he denounced the Bush Administraton for trying to browbeat Israel into making concessions to the Arabs. He also charged Secretary of State James A. Baker III with undermining the taboos against anti-Semitism.

In a lighter vein, he pledged that if he were elected, he would make sure that the White House kitchen was “glatt Kosher,” an especially rigorous standard for adhering to Jewish dietary laws.

“Bill Clinton worked hard to get Jewish support,” said David Pollock, associate director of the Jewish Community Relations Council.

Pollack added that “word has gotten around that Clinton has gone out of the way to surround himself with good people” in terms of the interests of the Jewish community.

Clinton also has gone out of his way to maintain cordial relations with black community leaders. For instance, during a recent meeting with about 40 black clergymen at a Brooklyn coffee shop, Clinton promised that blacks would have “access at the highest level” of his White House administration.

It also was at that meeting that he made his pledge to appoint the most racially diverse Cabinet in the nation’s history.