Perot’s Abandonment Adds New Uncertainty : Campaign: Move sends Democrats and Republicans back to the drawing board. Both parties voice relief mixed with anxiety.

Maverick independent Ross Perot’s abrupt abandonment of his undeclared presidential candidacy Thursday created new uncertainty in an already erratic campaign, offering a measure of relief but also a heavy dose of anxiety for Democrats and Republicans alike.

“It’s back to the drawing boards for everyone,” Stuart E. Eizenstat, a veteran of the Jimmy Carter White House and now an adviser to Democratic standard-bearer Bill Clinton, said with a sigh as he trudged to the convention floor here to listen to Clinton’s acceptance speech.

By removing himself from contention, Perot ended the prospect for which Eizenstat and other strategists in both political parties had been laboring: the endless complexity of a three-way race among Clinton, Perot and President Bush, and beyond that the ultimate nightmare--an election thrown into the political swamps of the House of Representatives.

But if Perot’s departure put strategists back on the familiar ground of a traditional two-man race, it left them with a welter of other conundrums. Indeed, his departure made some of the challenges even thornier than before.

Although it is far too early to be certain where Perot’s supporters finally will go, and much will depend on the course of the campaign in the coming months, two things already seem clear:

* Perot’s departure offers Democrats what they consider a golden opportunity to capitalize on the near-universal unhappiness with present economic and social conditions and the widespread belief that major changes in national policy are needed.

Now, they can clearly argue, theirs is the only candidate of “change.”

* To capitalize on that opportunity, however, the Democrats not only must break the GOP’s well-established lock on Electoral College votes in the South and Southwest but must successfully withstand what all agree will be a brutal assault on Clinton’s personal character and record.

A majority of voters will accept Clinton as the answer to their discontent only if they believe they can accept him as a man of good character, GOP strategists insist.

In the immediate aftermath of Perot’s jarring withdrawal, Democratic and Republican planners offered conflicting claims as to which candidate would benefit and which would suffer more. And the only sure conclusion was that the ultimate net benefit would go to the candidate who proved able to take maximum advantage of the changed order of battle.

Still, Perot’s withdrawal affected the two candidates in different ways and presented them with different sets of challenges.

The Republicans

For GOP strategists, the biggest thing about Perot’s withdrawal is that it returns them to familiar ground--winning ground: the basic two-man presidential races that have predominated throughout American history. Since 1968, the GOP has won all of them but one.

This, they have good reason to believe, is the kind of battle they know how to fight.

What the GOP high command has to worry about is the possibility that, in the current season of unprecedented discontent, the tactics that produced victory in the past will not yield the same result this year.

Shaken by a prolonged economic slump and disapproving of their incumbent President’s leadership in the White House, voters may react differently.

John Morgan, a GOP consultant brought to New York as part of a daily effort to counter the effusion of Democratic convention rhetoric, pointed out that in winning the White House three straight times since 1980, his party carried 38 states with 408 electoral votes--138 more than the required majority--in all three campaigns.

In a two-way contest, said Bush campaign pollster Fred Steeper, “we know how to pick out our base states and our target states. We also know what demographic groups give us our biggest vote. We know where to go with a two-way race in terms of who should be supporting us.

“We’ve been having a heck of a time coming out with replacement models for a three-way race. This makes everybody more confident in terms of what states have to be targeted,” he said.

In strategic terms, viewing the contest from the perspective of the 50 state battlegrounds, Perot’s departure appears to dim Democratic hopes of conquering traditional GOP strongholds because Perot will not be there to cut into the Republican vote.

Bush would regain a dominant position in the Southern and border states, where the Perot candidacy was thought to offer Clinton a chance to break through the Republican lock.

All that will prove true, however, only if--and where--dissatisfaction with Bush’s performance is not too strong.

“The economy is off,” conceded veteran Republican consultant Eddie Mahe, sent here to coordinate the GOP counteroffensive against the Democratic convention. “Nobody can argue that. But there are a lot of accomplishments and I would expect that at our convention we’ll do a good job and put out that record.”

Still, even Mahe’s enthusiasm was limited. Although insisting that “we think our guy has a lot better shot than the other guy, because he has a better record,” Mahe said that “maybe the choice comes down to ‘Hold your nose, which one am I going to vote for?’ ”

Also trying to look on the bright side of things, a senior White House official said the departure of Perot opens the way for the Bush team to woo the Texas tycoon’s conservative and moderate supporters. But he acknowledged that to make such an appeal effective the Bush campaign needs to offer a substantive incentive to potential backers.

“We still need to have an agenda for the next four years,” the official said. “That’s still kind of a problem for us.”

And a ranking Bush aide described a mood of unease among White House advisers who had hoped Clinton and Perot might split the support of disenchanted voters. “Look, we’re 17 points down,” the aide said. “We’re going to be 20 points down next week, and we’re in total torpor.”

At Bush campaign headquarters just a few blocks from the White House, senior officials said they felt a “sense of relief” after Perot withdrew from the race. But they said Bush would have to move quickly if he is to gather Perot’s army of volunteers to his banner.

The strategists acknowledged that Perot supporters tended in large number to hold unfavorable opinions of Bush. But they also share many Republican values, the GOP strategists said, and that fact could enable Bush to break through their discontent.

“They’re kind of angry with Bush,” said Robert A. Mosbacher, the former commerce secretary who is general chairman of the Bush campaign, “but they don’t have a low opinion of Bush. They think he’s a good sound man of honesty and integrity, but they think he hasn’t been paying attention to them. So our job is to reach out. You reconnect.”

The Democrats

On the Democratic side, having exclusive rights to exploit the national mood of discontent may constitute their best chance in years to overcome the GOP’s established advantage in electoral votes.

To prevail with their argument for change, however, they must get past the issue of Clinton’s character.

“About two-thirds of the voters don’t want Bush as President,” says Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, an adviser to Clinton’s running mate, Tennessee Sen. Al Gore. Mellman cited polls showing widespread disapproval of the President’s performance and a high negative reaction to his leadership.

“Now they can all unite behind Clinton,” the Democratic pollster said.

It was a theme that Clinton’s top aides quickly settled on as part of their message of the day. “All these people are out there calling for nothing but change. We’re the change,” said Clinton communications director George Stephanopoulos.

Some Republicans agreed. “If Perot drops out, then instead of being able to split up 60% or 70% disaffected, you’ve got them all against you,” former Education Secretary William J. Bennett warned in an interview.

But given the lessons of the 1988 campaign, Democrats have to worry about how well their candidate, with his scarified character profile, can withstand the intense scrutiny and criticism to which the Bush campaign will subject him now that he is the sole challenger.

“In the short run, Bush gains,” Clinton adviser Eizenstat said. “Now he can focus his guns on us. He doesn’t have to fight a two-front war.”

“The Democrats are right in that if you have a large protest vote you only want one protest candidate,” Steeper said. “The problem they have is that there are still lingering doubts about Clinton’s character which make him not the right alternative for many people.”

Rather than delve into new allegations of scandal against the Arkansas governor, who was damaged in his campaign for the nomination by charges that he had been unfaithful to his wife and manipulated his draft status to avoid service in the Vietnam War, the Bush campaign plans to target his record as governor, finding flaws and inconsistencies that they will contend raise doubts about his character, as well as his ability to keep his substantive campaign promises.

They began this week by distributing a 13-page document called “Bill Clinton on the Issues,” and another seven-page compilation of Arkansas ratings compared to other states in various fields ranging from child care and civil rights to education and the environment.

“All you have to do is look at the record,” claimed the GOP’s Mahe. “Arkansas ranks between 45th and 50th on everything good and first and fifth on everything bad.

“We are going to kill him” with this material, he said. “We are going to chop off his legs.”

“The Bush-Quayle campaign is likely to be the most negative political organization ever organized in this country,” said Paul Tully, political director of the Democratic National Committee and the national party’s chief liaison officer to the Clinton campaign. “We expect them to throw everything but the kitchen sink” at Clinton.

Tully contended that such a negative assault could backfire because of “the disgust factor” among voters weary of campaign attacks. But he conceded that such a Bush barrage could interfere with Clinton’s attempt to get his message across.

In terms of specific states and regions, Clinton strategists see a strong potential for success in California and the Pacific Northwest, where the weak economy has added to voters’ animosity toward Bush.

“A three-way race makes it possible for us to sweep the South,” a senior Clinton adviser said, “whereas in a two-way race, it’s tougher, based on the recent voting patterns.”

Democratic pollster Mellman argued that the loss of opportunities in the South would be more than made up for by strengthened Democratic chances in the West, particularly California with its 54 electoral votes--the largest total of any state.

“If Perot was going to do well, he was going to do well in California and Oregon and Washington,” Mellman said. “If he was taking California and Oregon away from us and making Alabama and Mississippi available to us, I’d trade California for Alabama and Mississippi any day in the week.”

In California, Eileen Padberg, an Orange County political consultant who was involved in Bush’s 1988 campaign, said she believes the Perot pullout “makes it tougher for President Bush and the Republican Party in California.”

Mervin Field, director of the Field Poll and a veteran California political observer and analyst, said “it is the clear fact that Perot was just eating Bush’s lunch in suburban areas. So with Perot gone, Bush is helped in that regard.”

But Field noted that the Democratic opposition is now much stronger and the economy far worse than in 1988, when Bush carried California by only 3.5 percentage points over Michael S. Dukakis.

“It’s not just the economy,” Field said. “It’s Bush himself and just a variety of things. Bush has really got to get it back together” to be able to win California.

Times staff writers David Lauter and Bill Stall contributed to this story.

THE TIMES POLL

Perot’s Support

The following responses, taken last week, are from those who supported Perot: If the race were between President Bush and Bill Clinton, for whom would you vote? Clinton: 48% Bush: 41% Perot*: 3% Someone else :1% Don’t know: 7%

What is your impression of Bush? Favorable: 27% Unfavorable: 72% Don’t know: 1%

What is your impression of Clinton? Favorable: 28% Unfavorable: 49% Don’t know: 23%

Thinking about Bush, Clinton and Perot, are there any of those whom you would definitely not vote for in November, or are you ruling no one out? Bush: 44% Clinton: 37% Ruling no one out: 23% Don’t know: 1% *Response volunteered

Source: Los Angeles Times Poll, taken July 7-9, of 364 registered voters nationwide who favored Perot. Margin of error is plus or minus 5 percentage points.