Rivals Seek Positive Note on New York Primary Eve : Democrats: Polls find Brown and Clinton attacks on each other may drive many to favor ‘dropout’ Tsongas.

In the face of polling evidence that their negative campaigning is driving Democrats to support a candidate who dropped out--Paul E. Tsongas--Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. both sought Monday to try to strike a positive note on the eve of New York’s presidential primary.

Despite the potential for a late surge for Tsongas, who officially suspended his candidacy two weeks ago, Clinton’s aides sounded a confident note. “I think we win by a pretty good margin,” said Clinton pollster Stanley Greenberg, normally tight-lipped about making forecasts that could boost expectations for his candidate.

But Greenberg acknowledged that the vote for Tsongas, the former Massachusetts senator who won the New Hampshire primary, might go as high as 20% here.

Tsongas’ backers staged an old-fashioned torchlight parade through mid-town Manhattan on behalf of their champion, who has said he might reactivate his candidacy if he does well enough here in today’s balloting. Their destination: Madison Square Garden, where the Democrats will nominate their 1992 standard-bearer, and “which is where we want to wind up,” said Leon Gounardes, manager of the local draft Tsongas effort.

Clinton gave credence to Greenberg’s optimism by leaving New York to campaign in Wisconsin and Kansas, both of which also hold primaries today but are relatively small potatoes compared to New York’s cache of 244 delegates. Wisconsin, where a Milwaukee Journal poll last week put Clinton ahead of Brown, will choose 82 delegates to the convention, while Kansas will select 36.

Independent polls indicated that the outcome of the New York race was still in doubt. After two weeks of almost nonstop attack politics by Brown and Clinton, a large number of voters were undecided and an even larger number viewed one or both candidates unfavorably.

Clinton has the backing of party regulars, Jewish and black leaders and two powerful trade unions--the teachers and the public service employees. Brown’s chances depend on a maximum turnout of voters attracted to his banner by their disgust with the political system.

“Brown and Clinton have been successful in defining each other in negative terms,” said Lee Miringhoff, director of the Institute of Public Opinion at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., after surveying about 400 registered Democrats Sunday night, about 200 of them likely voters. Though Miringhoff said his sample was too small to make a precise analysis, he estimated that more than 40% of likely voters had an unfavorable view of each of the active candidates. “As a result we’re seeing an increase in support for Tsongas,” he said.

Miringhoff said that the number of undecided voters was about 20%, roughly double the percentage in a similar poll taken before the 1988 primary.

And a survey by the Sawyer-Miller group of political consultants released Monday showed that nearly half of likely Democratic primary voters said they felt like voting for “none of the above.”

When those interviewed were reminded that Tsongas’ name was on the ballot, and that he had the backing of former New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch among others, his support climbed into the mid-20s.

It was not clear whether it was Clinton or Brown who stood to lose the most from a late shift to Tsongas. But Clinton, taking no chances, made a point of putting down Tsongas on NBC’s “Today” show, the first of the day’s two joint appearances.

Complaining that as a non-candidate, Tsongas was enjoying “the best of both worlds,” Clinton pointed out that “his message was heard and debated against ours . . . and the voters decided they liked what we were saying better.”

Brown seemed to be operating on the theory that Tsongas would take more support from Clinton than from him. ‘He’s a very honest guy,” he said of Tsongas on the “Today” show.

Later, as he campaigned around the state, Brown abandoned any attempt at subtlety. “If you’re not going to vote for me, vote for Tsongas,” he said.

During their final debate Monday, Clinton and Brown avoided the personalized karate chops that have characterized much of their campaign. They devoted their joint appearance session on the “Donahue” show to pointing up their common disagreements with President Bush on such issues as health care, economic policy and the overall role of government. The unaccustomed courtesy at times came close to mutual admiration.

“One of the things I really admire . . . is your Catholic social tradition,” Clinton at one point told Brown. Only the day before Clinton had denounced Brown for branding Clinton as the “prince of sleaze.”

After Clinton chided the Bush Administration for its failure to act more vigorously in dealing with the AIDS crisis, Brown said: “You make a very good point.”

Their encounter was so harmonious that host Phil Donahue remarked afterward: “You ought to be (in a) panel truck, the two of you, and go on the road. This looks like the most civil encounter of the campaign.”

Later Brown explained that he had wanted to “look presidential” on the “Donahue” show. “When you start slugging it out, you get a black eye.”

Nevertheless, Brown did not pass up an opportunity to denounce Clinton as a “Humpty Dumpty” during an interview as he campaigned in Syracuse, in central New York.

“What I mean by that is there are so many scandals and so many problems, questions for Clinton, that we’re not going to put him back together again,” Brown said. “And all the media and the insiders and $1,000 donors that created the Clinton campaign can’t really sustain it in a way that will overcome George Bush and all his powers.”

Brown also emphasized his “Irish Catholic roots” at every campaign stop, attempting to woo a constituency that he had appeared to overlook earlier in the campaign in his anxiety to win support from blacks and Jews.

But Brown’s low-budget campaign continued to exhibit the type of disorganization that has hurt him at crucial moments. His press bus carrying network television crews and reporters for major newspapers got lost and missed the candidate’s only daytime public event in New York City. The bus, led by a minivan driven by a campaign volunteer, took a wrong turn and wound up in the Bronx instead of Brooklyn, where Brown was speaking at a 5 p.m. Borough Hall rally.

During his campaign day, Clinton scarcely mentioned his rival as he once again began to set his sights on Bush and the fall campaign.

“You can choose to live a different future from the path we are on,” Clinton said as he stood coatless in an early-spring chill to address students at Syracuse University. “And the beginning of that choice is tomorrow.”

He bounded past reporters for much of the day, avoiding possible questions that might revive the issue of his controversial draft status during the Vietnam War, when he temporarily avoided service by signing up with the ROTC.

At a rally at Milwaukee’s Serb Hall that was perfectly timed for the local evening news, he told a flag-waving crowd: “This campaign has a choice: no change, wrong change and right change,” referring only obliquely to what he likes to cast as a three-man race between Brown, Bush and himself. “But the most important thing is whether we’ll change. . . . We’re sick and tired of seeing the American dream stripped from the fabric of our lives.”

Clinton planned to fly to his home in Little Rock, Ark., late Monday to attend the funeral today of Wal-Mart founder and chairman Sam Walton, who died Sunday at the age of 74.

Times staff writers David Lauter, Douglas Jehl and George Skelton contributed to this story.