Clinton Clinches Nomination With 3 Strong Showings : Primaries: Democratic Arkansas governor heads to victory in Ohio, New Jersey, Alabama, early returns and exit polls show. Brown hopes for tight California race.

Months of arduous and aggressive political warfare ended Tuesday with Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton clinching the Democratic presidential nomination as he headed to primary victories in Ohio, New Jersey and Alabama, according to early returns and exit polls.

Voters in California, Montana and New Mexico also went to the polls Tuesday, but the outcome of the long Democratic presidential campaign was decided before voting ended in the West. Former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., the last lingering competitor for the Democratic nomination, was hoping for a tight race in his home state.

Among Republicans, President Bush kept alive his unbroken string of primary victories by defeating conservative challenger Patrick J. Buchanan in the three Eastern states. Bush had formally secured his renomination six weeks ago, long after Buchanan conceded that his own ideological candidacy had lost.

Despite their sweeping victories, Clinton and Bush were once again overshadowed by strong support for probable independent candidate Ross Perot, as indicated in exit polls of voters in the primary states.

Perot was not on the ballot in any of the six states. In California, Secretary of State March Fong Eu said any write-in ballots cast for Perot would not be counted, since the maverick Texas businessman had not qualified as a legitimate write-in candidate.

But the measure of interest in his potential candidacy was evident when voters leaving their polling places were asked about hypothetical matchups between Perot and the two major-party candidates.

In Ohio, surveys taken for the four television networks showed that Perot was favored by 46% of Democrats to Clinton’s 34%. Among Republicans, 59% said they would vote for Bush and 33% sided with Perot.

On Tuesday night, Perot made an effort to stay in Californians’ minds. The Texas tycoon made himself available to television stations in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco for election-night satellite interviews.

Clinton entered the day needing only 86 delegates to secure the nomination, and early returns showed that he would win them as soon as the polls closed. All told, the states voting Tuesday allotted 700 delegates, almost one-third of the 2,145 needed for nomination. California alone was due to dispense 348 delegates.

Early returns reflected what exit surveys showed would be comfortable victories for Clinton.

In Alabama, with 6% of the vote counted, Clinton led Brown 65% to 5%, with another 24% of the voters declaring themselves “uncommitted.”

In New Jersey, early returns had Clinton ahead of Brown 62% to 19%, with former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas winning 13% of the vote more than two months after he suspended his campaign. And in Ohio, Clinton led Brown 64% to 17%, with 8% of the vote counted.

On the Republican side, Bush was replicating the easy victories that have come his way since Buchanan’s challenge lost its steam. In Alabama, with 5% of the vote counted, Bush was leading 78% to 7%. In New Jersey, with 4% counted, the President led the former commentator 73% to 22%. And in Ohio, Bush led 83% to 17%, with 4% of the vote counted.

With the close of the last major primary day, Clinton proved to have bested a field that at one time encompassed two current U.S. senators, one former senator and a former governor of the nation’s largest state.

Clinton spent the day in seclusion in Los Angeles, where he finished his primary campaign Monday evening with a rally on the UCLA campus. But Tuesday evening he emerged on network newscasts to accept the nomination.

“I’m just eager to go on fighting,” he told ABC.

For Clinton, there was another victory of sorts Tuesday night. After Clinton’s nomination became fact, Tsongas acknowledged that he would support Clinton--an award he had withheld until Tuesday night.

With his victories on Tuesday, Clinton enters a crucial six-week period in which he will try to wrestle attention from Perot back to the Democratic ticket before the July 13 opening of the party’s national convention. Some time before that date, Clinton is expected to settle on a vice presidential nominee.

Technically, there is one primary left--in North Dakota next Tuesday, where 17 GOP delegates are at stake and where Democrats will conduct a non-binding “beauty contest.” The party’s delegates were selected through a caucus process.

But, for all but the purists, the primary season ended Tuesday. Clinton and Bush were hoping to finish it with sweeping victories that would brush aside gnawing concerns about the future strength of their candidacies.

Even that simple wish, however, was held captive to Perot, who has emerged as the most powerful presence on the current political scene despite not having appeared on a single ballot.

Perot has yet to make a campaign stop in California, but in the days leading up to the primary he maintained a presence through appearances on network television news programs. And last weekend, Perot marched into Arkansas, where he held a boisterous convention on Clinton’s home turf and was assured of a place on the state’s November ballot. He has already qualified in a smattering of other states, and petition drives are well under way to get him on the ballot in the rest, including California.

Although Perot’s surge in popularity may have dampened the celebrations by Bush and Clinton, the two veteran politicians could exult in having survived the tumult of the first half of the campaign year.

For Clinton, victory was hard-won after a slogging battle that saw him quickly ascend as the early front-runner only to sink to the depths after twin controversies arose about his character. Ultimately, it was a struggle that he survived because of personal resiliency and a never-say-die campaign organization.

Clinton’s campaign came close to ending in the snows of New Hampshire when he was buffeted by allegations of womanizing--a charge never substantiated--and of evading the draft during the Vietnam War.

Just days before the Feb. 18 primary, with his presidential dream on the verge of collapse, Clinton fought back. He pressed his message during 30-minute televised sessions with New Hampshire voters, flooded the state with surrogates, pleaded with voters day and night--and managed to finish second to Tsongas, declaring himself “the Comeback Kid.”

The campaign moved to the South, where Clinton’s organization and cultural affinity tripped up Tsongas in a vitriolic clash in Florida, widely viewed as a bellwether state for the former senator, and in a host of Southern states.

Two candidates--Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin and Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey--fell out of the race. Tsongas stuck it out long enough to endure crushing defeats in Michigan and Illinois on March 17. Two days later, dispirited and broke, Tsongas announced that he was suspending his campaign.

Tsongas’ decision caused many to declare the race over--prematurely, as it turned out. A week after his big wins in the Midwest, Clinton suffered a shocking narrow loss to Brown in Connecticut.

Brown’s victory raised new doubts about Clinton and set up New York’s April 7 primary as the crucial showdown between the two. When Clinton emerged from the predictably brutal campaign there as the victor, Brown’s hopes of derailing him were doomed.

The last eight weeks have seen Brown struggle to portray his campaign as anything but a lost cause, and as his third try for the presidency ebbed this week he was still pressing for a place at the political table.

“This is the campaign of real change--not the campaign of some cosmetic false illusions,” Brown said Monday, referring snidely to Clinton, with whom he shares a publicly caustic relationship.

The only hope for Democrats, Brown contended, was to attract disillusioned voters who have yet to side with the presumptive nominee.

“That’s going to require a platform and a candidacy that will touch people’s hearts and convince them that voting for a Democrat will make a change in their lives,” he said.

Although Brown has vowed to continue his insurgent movement through November and beyond, Clinton is struggling to frame a general election message sufficient to take on both Bush and the increasingly prominent Perot.

At times, he has appeared to be shifting strategy almost daily--touting himself as an outsider and then praising his record as governor, contending that he was an independent political force and then showing up in states like California and Ohio to accept the endorsements of each state’s Democratic leadership.

Clinton is hoping that with the end of the primaries, voters will start to home in on his message.

“The primary season is winding to a close, and all the American people will begin to focus on this election,” he said recently. “It won’t be just something that’s going on in other states that grabs intermittent attention. And I’m going to be very disciplined in focusing what I have to say.”

But Democrats and Republicans alike were girding for a general election campaign played out in very different form than either Clinton or Bush could have predicted when their campaigns began. And the full ramifications of Perot’s probable entrance have yet to be fully understood by strategists for either of the two major political parties.

For Clinton, there is an added complication--he closes the primary season in debt, having far exceeded his fund raising with the expenditures needed to win the nomination.

That problem aside, there is the overarching problem of voter disenchantment with traditional politicians.

“We’re going to have to fight cynicism,” Clinton said. “We’re going to have to fight people who are justifiably angry but aren’t quite sure how to manifest that anger yet. Some may not vote; some may not think they should vote for anybody associated with any political party.”

For Bush, much the same challenge exists, despite his success in beating back a challenge from the right wing of his party, personified by former television commentator Buchanan.

Even since he clinched his renomination in late April, the President has been beset by criticism that his campaign organization is in disarray and by voter perceptions that he is out of touch with the concerns of everyday Americans.

Since effectively disposing of Buchanan, Bush has maintained an above-the-fray campaign style, not taking on his two likely general election opponents directly. In an interview with Times Mirror and Los Angeles Times executives last weekend, Bush indicated that that strategy would remain in place until after the Republican National Convention in August.

“There’s plenty of time,” the President said. “If you all need help from me in defining the opponent, I’ll be glad to accommodate. But not now.”

The end of the primaries should produce one benefit to Bush: It may silence, for the most part, Buchanan, whose campaign in New Hampshire launched the season of political discontent.

Buchanan shocked the President by winning 37% of the vote in the nation’s first primary, but his campaign never again soared so high. So Buchanan chose to close his candidacy with a sentimental journey back to Manchester.

There, he invited 4,000 supporters to a Tuesday evening rally, an event that supporters said was meant not so much to close the 1992 campaign as to begin anew Buchanan’s quest to fight for the party’s soul.