14 Governors, Acting Scrappy, Back Up Clinton : Democrats: The state leaders, still smarting over a passive ’88 effort, are heartened that the nominee plans to take the fight to the Republicans.

They arrayed themselves like a bunch of street toughs around the leader of the pack--14 Democratic governors standing with the party’s presidential nominee, Bill Clinton, to pledge Saturday their willingness to let their fists fly along with his through November.

As Texas Gov. Ann Richards put it in her distinctive Southern patois: “It really makes me feel good that when it really gets down to the lick log, we’re going to have somebody in the Democratic Party who is going to get in there and slug it out” with the Republicans.

In any other party and any other race, that would be a given. But Democrats still smart over the refusal of their last nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, to join the fray in 1988 against George Bush. And they are working overtime this year to let themselves and the Republicans know that things will be different this time.

So like latter-day Jets from “West Side Story” preparing for a roughhouse with the Sharks, his fellow Democratic governors gathered to proclaim their solidarity with Clinton--Arkansas’ chief executive for 12 of the last 14 years--and praise the ability to take a punch that he demonstrated in the presidential primaries.

While she was the only woman in the group, Richards managed to capsulize its sentiment with more bluster than her male peers.

“I don’t think you can pretend that this campaign’s not gonna get tough,” she said. “It is. It’s gonna be a real, real scrap and I am thrilled to death that Bill Clinton is the nominee of the Democratic Party, because he knows how to scrap.”

If the governors were defensive in tone, it was a posture spawned by several days of attacks by the Bush reelection team on Clinton.

Various GOP spokesmen have questioned Clinton’s foreign policy credentials and criticized his gubernatorial record on the issues of taxes and welfare reform. Bush himself, during a stop Thursday in Anaheim, Calif., warned that defense budget cuts advocated by Clinton would weaken the country militarily and economically.

The general Republican line of attack has been to castigate Clinton as the “failed governor of a small state,” a phrase many expect to recur in their television advertising.

Clinton, seeking to demonstrate the difference between himself and Dukakis, has come up with a ready answer to the gibe.

“Well, I think I’m running against a failed President of a big country,” he said Saturday.

Clinton also defended the progress that Arkansas has made under his governorship, saying: “I come from a state that has always been one of the poorest states in America, but the difference between my state and this country is that since I’ve been governor, we’ve been going in the right direction. And the country’s going in the wrong direction.”

He added, “The issue is not miracles--it’s direction.”

Clinton traveled to New Jersey from his home in Little Rock, Ark., to join the governors for their news conference and to hold private meetings with them. The governors were in New Jersey for the summer meeting of the National Governors’ Assn. in nearby Princeton.

Oddly, given that one of the aims of the governors was to portray Clinton--in the words of Hawaii Gov. John Waihee--as “the people’s President,” their get-together was held at a lush, secluded winery. The setting is a traditional meeting place for the Democratic chief executives.

Among those participating in the news conference was New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, who attacked the Bush Administration as incapable of leading the nation or of devising a coherent reelection strategy.

“What the Republicans are left to is to try to get the American peoples’ minds off the issue” of the economy, he said.

“These people cannot talk about the economy because they have nothing to say. Talk about failure--it is failure so monumental that they are not able to deal with it.”

Cuomo, who formally nominated Clinton at the party’s July convention, said the Bush campaign’s attacks on the Arkansas governor represented “a helpful kind of foolishness.”

“It is an admission by the Republicans of their utter, inevitable lack of efficacy in their efforts,” he said.

And he belittled criticisms of Clinton’s record in Arkansas by saying: “My goal? Fail like Clinton, in New York.”

While not all of the Democratic governors were strong Clinton allies early in the primary season, they have rallied around him since his nomination became evident as the primary season progressed.

Clinton described them and himself as foot soldiers in a joint, and not wholly successful, cause in their efforts to govern their respective states.

“We have struggled, often against all the odds, to deal with a national policy that was increasing the deficit and reducing investment in our country, our jobs and our future at the same time,” he said.

Other governors speaking on Clinton’s behalf were Roy Romer of Colorado, James J. Florio of New Jersey and David Walters of Oklahoma. Eight other governors applauded Clinton, but did not speak.

“All of us are absolutely committed for the next 94 days, each and every day, to defend the splendid record that Bill Clinton has developed in his years as one of the finest governors in the nation,” Walters said.

Clinton disputed Republican accusations that he has launched a negative campaign himself.

Referring to the 12 years of Republican control of the White House, he demanded, “Is it negative to say in 1980 we had the highest wages in the world and now we’re 13th?

“Is there anything false in saying that the census data that this government issued proves that most people are working harder for less money than they were making 10 years ago? Is there anything wrong in saying that this Administration’s economic policy is what it is--it’s trickle down, keep taxes low on the wealthiest Americans and do nothing else?”