Clinton Delights in Keeping Reporters Guessing : Politics: Journalists mount a pre-dawn vigil as they look for clues to the vice presidential pick. Teachers union cheers the Democratic candidate.

For the first time in months, Bill Clinton, governor of Arkansas and soon-to-be Democratic nominee, is having some fun--the kind of fun a guy can have watching his tormentors spin like hamsters in a cage.

This is what the last days of Clinton’s vice presidential selection process have come down to: Reporters hanging out outside hotel loading docks before dawn, trying in vain to catch a look at the just-maybe vice presidential nominee driving in to meet with Clinton, gleaning the identity from a millisecond glimpse of the profile of a nose, as seen through the darkened glass of a black limousine.

Was it Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr., who is supposed to be in Tennessee? Was it Pennsylvania Sen. Harris Wofford, who was supposed to be in Pennsylvania? Was it some other purported finalist, like Rep. Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana or Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska?

Or, perish the thought, was it any one of those who have previously taken themselves out of the running, like New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley or New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo?

Clinton, a wickedly delighted smile pasted across his face, offered no hints Tuesday morning.

“I’m getting very close. I don’t have any further comments on it,” he told reporters gathered inside the Washington Hilton Hotel, where he reportedly met with Wofford--and perhaps others--Tuesday.

Later Tuesday, CBS News reported that Gore had the inside track. The senator canceled his appointments for today and planned to spend the day at home in Carthage, Tenn., the network said.

Clinton’s public mood is close to euphoric, and more than a little of the reason is that he has been able to maintain suspense about his vice presidential pick. For Clinton, it is one of the few times in this campaign that he has utterly controlled the agenda.

He acknowledged his delight Monday night in an informal chat on the Tarmac at Washington National Airport when he was asked if he was enjoying stringing along the press corps, with whom he has had rocky relations.

He laughed. “I’ve had so few opportunities, and you have so many,” he said.

In the whirl of rumors and counter-rumors about Clinton’s selection for vice president, formal comment from the Clinton campaign was similarly limited.

“No more information,” the governor’s press secretary, Dee Dee Myers, told a knot of reporters over and over. “No names. No confirmations of meetings.”

A certain level of seriousness was apparent, although of course no one really knew what was happening inside. Observers took note of the arrivals of Warren Christopher, the Los Angeles lawyer who is heading up Clinton’s vice presidential search team, and Mark Gearan, a Democratic veteran who is expected to organize the vice presidential campaign.

On Tuesday, the veep watch began at dawn, when the first reporters scurried out of the Washington Hilton and stationed themselves outside the perimeter of the hotel. Shortly thereafter, a white van with tinted windows screeched up to the hotel’s loading dock. Before the view was blocked, reporters saw a flash of shoes, a glimpse of brown hair. Was it Gore, someone asked?

No, it was decided later. Reporters standing outside the loading dock called colleagues tracking Gore, who reported that the Tennessee senator was still in his home state.

Ditto Cuomo, whose name came to mind a few minutes after 9 a.m., when a black limousine with darkened windows drove into the loading dock.

No one saw who was inside, but someone thought he caught a glimpse of a round face. Another spotted a prominent nose. A call was made to the New York governor’s office. He was still in New York, an aide said reassuringly.

Clinton, for his part, appeared to be trying not only to pick a vice president but to unify the always-warring Democratic Party. He told reporters that he met Monday night with former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. at Brown’s request.

“He called me yesterday and said he wanted to visit, so we visited,” Clinton said.

Brown, whose delegate count is second only to the Arkansas governor’s, is the only one of the major Democratic candidates for the nomination with no prescribed role for the party’s convention in New York next week. Clinton indicated Tuesday that discussions about Brown’s role were ongoing.

And, in Boston, former Democratic presidential candidate Paul E. Tsongas said he would formally endorse Clinton today. “Bill Clinton won the nomination and I did not,” Tsongas said. “Were I the victor, I would expect him to endorse me.”

After Tuesday’s secret meetings, Clinton spoke to 9,000 delegates at the National Education Assn.’s annual convention in Washington, who staged what amounted to a dress rehearsal for the Democratic convention. They each waved blue Clinton placards and applauded lustily when the candidate was brought to the dais so that dozens of balloons could be dumped on him.

Clinton’s campaign had scheduled a familiar campaign device--a “town meeting” with the delegates--so for most of the hourlong session the candidate stood alone in a sea of delegates as they peppered him with friendly questions.

The governor, who has long championed education in his home state and chaired the 1989 meeting of the nation’s governors at which national education standards were established, has been endorsed by the teachers union. And on Tuesday he took pains to return the compliment.

“You have devoted your lives to the children of America, and it is with the children of America that we must start,” he said.

Clinton reiterated his familiar campaign proposals--an apprenticeship program for students who do not attend four-year colleges and a plan that would allow all students to borrow money to attend college, provided they pay it back with interest or by doing community service.

After the Washington appearance, Clinton flew to Orlando, Fla., where he spoke to a national convention of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Before Clinton had even left Washington, the Administration struck back for his education comments. At a press conference, Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander denounced Clinton as a candidate controlled by the NEA.

Times staff writer Paul Richter contributed to this story.