'92 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION : NEWS ANALYSIS : Clinton Takes the Wheel of Rebuilt Bandwagon : Democrats: He's engineered some novel modifications, but many worry that it will sputter to another loss--or that it will win without them.

By ROBERT SHOGAN

July 12, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES POLITICAL WRITER

NEW YORK —

In bygone days, Democrats told themselves there was nothing wrong with their party that a good, stiff recession couldn’t fix. But this week, as the world’s oldest political party assembles in New York for its nominating convention, that adage will be severely tested.

The fact that the nation is floundering in the backwash of a prolonged economic slump may no longer be enough to assure that the Democrats can fix their own problems, patch up their differences and find their way back to the White House after a dozen years of Republican rule.

What has brought the Democrats’ difficulties to a head is the way their presumptive standard-bearer, Bill Clinton, defined his candidacy. From the beginning, he set out to break his party’s string of losses in presidential elections by moving it closer to the center and away from its reliance on direct government intervention to rectify social and economic inequities.

As if to drive that point home, Clinton eschewed the notion of using the vice presidential nomination to appeal to the party’s traditional liberal base. Instead, by selecting Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr., Clinton assured that his understudy in the White House would be a man cut to his own Southern moderate political pattern.

“We are a changed party. We are focused on economic growth, as opposed to redistributive rhetoric,” declared national Chairman Ronald H. Brown as he hailed Clinton’s efforts. Brown was convention manager for the 1988 campaign of the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

But Clinton’s ability to make the party over in his more moderate image remains in question. This is no trivial matter because his chances of victory in November depend greatly on the answer.

As he prepares to lay claim to the nomination during the conclave that opens here Monday in Madison Square Garden, Clinton faces criticism from some Democrats who worry that he will fail in his mission of change, and from even more who fear he will succeed.

In trying to alter the status quo, Clinton must face not only ideological confrontations, but institutional conflicts with the old-line Democrats who have controlled Congress for most of the Reagan-Bush era and are reluctant to surrender their influence in shaping the party’s future.

Along with these potent forces, Clinton has to reckon with such formidable and unpredictable personalities as Jackson, who after months of bickering with the Arkansas governor endorsed him Saturday night, and former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., who has yet to come on board and has left open the option of not doing so.

Adding to the sense of drama is the location of the gathering: in the nation’s largest and perhaps most relentlessly fractious city, once the crucible of the modern Democratic Party and still a citadel for the interest-group liberalism Clinton seeks to temper.

Thus, well before the delegates began arriving here this weekend, more than a score of groups representing hundreds of local and national organizations announced plans for demonstrations on issues ranging from homelessness and abortion rights to unemployment benefits and police brutality.

Still, no one expects the party’s internal unrest to manifest itself this week on the scale it has at some conclaves in the past. There is no controversy as divisive as the Vietnam War, which prompted demonstrations in the streets at the 1968 convention in Chicago. Nor is there any defeated contender as compelling as Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who, despite losing the 1980 nomination to incumbent President Jimmy Carter, was able to win a bitter platform battle.

“Clinton should be able to pull off the most peaceful convention in recent history,” said Brookings Institution fellow and Democratic activist Tom Mann.

The mood of the delegates and party functionaries who swarmed into their midtown Manhattan billets seemed intensely pragmatic and--at least for the time being--accepting of the leadership imposed upon the convention by Clinton’s forces.

“Everyone is trying to give (Clinton) his moment in the sun,” said Donna Brazile, a veteran staff member of several past Democratic presidential campaigns. “I think people are trying to put the primary campaign behind them for the convention. They know the goal is to beat George Bush.”

But even at this moment of harmony, some doubts are being voiced about Clinton’s course.

Among the prominent critics on his right is New Hampshire primary winner and former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, who complains that the economic remedies offered by the platform hammered together by Clinton allies fall short of the strong medicine he believes is needed to revive the economy and the party.

“The platform is better than what’s been there before,” said Tsongas, whose own proposals for curbing the deficit and boosting the gasoline tax were voted down by the platform committee. “But if my planks caused them to flinch, can you imagine what they would do with things that are really necessary?”

Tsongas is setting up a foundation with retiring Republican Sen. Warren B. Rudman of New Hampshire to promote his economic prescriptions, and his enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket is limited. “I will work for him,” he said of Clinton, “but I made it clear to his people that my major activity will be with Rudman.”

Meanwhile, on the left, traditional liberals like Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin--whose own bid for the nomination fizzled--worry that Clinton’s charted course for the party will take Democrats too far from their base among blacks, union members and urbanites.

“We Democrats always seem to do it wrong,” said Harkin, referring to efforts by 1988 presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis to win back Reagan Democrats. “We try to broaden out and be all things to all people and then, when we see we’re not winning, we come back to our base.”

By contrast, he said, “the Republicans solidify their base and get it excited, then they broaden out.”

Harkin believes that Clinton has not settled on which course to follow. And there is evidence to suggest that Clinton, like most politicians, would prefer to have it both ways.

His choice of the moderate Gore certainly suggests a tilt to the conservative side, as does much of the platform’s language. The document, for instance, rejects “the adoption of new programs and new spending without new thinking.”

But his proposal to spend $50 billion a year on domestic needs, part of the economic plan he unveiled last month, has warmed the hearts of the nation’s big-city mayors, most of them Democrats.

“There is such concern about the economy and jobs that anyone who speaks out about this and makes any sense at all is going to hit home with the average voter,” said Boston Mayor Raymond L. Flynn.

That same spending proposal is also helping Clinton win backing among local black leaders, to some degree offsetting the resentment among Jackson supporters at what they consider the presumptive nominee’s cavalier treatment of him--an impression heightened when Clinton criticized rap singer Sister Souljah at a meeting of Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition.

As for that other powerful Democratic constituency, organized labor, most of its operatives seem to have made their peace with Clinton and his moderate views--at least for the present.

“He figured out a way to get the Democrats to be a mainstream party without giving away core values but by modifying some positions, some of which I agree with, some of which I don’t,” said Rachelle Horowitz, political director of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the first unions to climb on the Clinton bandwagon.

“We know that in the ‘90s people are not going to buy the old tax-and-spend solutions,” Horowitz added. “I’m a tax-and-spender, myself. But I ain’t going anywhere with that.”

Clinton still must cope with the Democrats on Capitol Hill, with whom he has had an uneasy relationship.

This is largely because Clinton’s self-designated role as an agent of change has brought him into conflict with his party’s congressional leaders in their position as part of the status quo. In his early campaign commercials in New Hampshire, Clinton criticized the controversial 1991 congressional pay raise. And more recently, during the California primary, he ran a commercial that declared: “Frankly, both parties in Washington have let us down.”

But many analysts say Clinton needs to be careful to keep his differences with Democratic congressional leaders from getting out of hand in view of the apparent public weariness of the gridlock caused by conflicts between President Bush and the legislative branch.

What is required of Clinton is “a delicate balancing act,” according to congressional specialist Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. “The trick for him is to convince people he can make things happen, which means being able to work with Congress, without basically saying, ‘If you like Congress, vote for me.’ ”

Of course, the ultimate reason for getting along with Congress is that if the expected independent candidacy of Ross Perot ends up sending the presidential election into the House, the fate of Clinton’s candidacy would be in the hands of many of the same Democratic lawmakers from whom he has been trying to distance himself.

Times staff writer Sam Fulwood III contributed to this story.

Convention Schedule

Here are the main events in the Democratic convention: MONDAY

--Call to order

--Welcoming remarks

--Remarks by New York Mayor David N. Dinkins

--Remarks by Convention Chairwoman Ann Richards, governor of Texas

--Speeches by U.S. Senate candidates Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, Barbara Boxer of California, Jean Jones of Iowa, Lynn Yeakel of Pennsylvania and Dianne Feinstein of California

--Remarks by National Democratic Party Chairman Ronald H. Brown

--Keynote addresses: Sen. Bill Bradley, N.J., Georgia Gov. Zell Miller and former Rep. Barbara Jordan of Texas

MONDAY’S TV AND RADIO COVERAGE

All times Pacific Daylight.

C-SPAN: 2 to 8:30 p.m.

CNN: 3 to 8:30 p.m.

PBS: 5 to 8 p.m.

CBS, ABC: 6:30 to 8 p.m.

NBC: 7 to 8 p.m.

KCRW-FM (89.9): In cooperation with National Public Radio, plans extensive live coverage throughout the day.

TUESDAY

--Call to order

--Platform presentations

--Presentation on AIDS by Bob Hattoy and Elizabeth Glaser. Hattoy has AIDS and Glaser has the AIDS virus.

--Introduction of former President Jimmy Carter by former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young

--Remarks by Carter

--Presentation on opportunity by Rev. Jesse Jackson

--Other presentations: California state Treasurer Kathleen Brown, Oregon Gov. Barbara Roberts, District of Columbia Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly, Rep. Patricia Schroeder of Colorado

WEDNESDAY

--Call to order

--Rules Minority Report discussion

--Speakers on democratic values

--Film honoring Robert F. Kennedy

--Remarks by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts

--Nominating process

--Nominating speech for Gov. Bill Clinton by New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo

--Roll call of states

THURSDAY

--Call to order

--Nomination of vice president