Some Capitol Hill Allies Fear Clinton Is Stumbling : Congress: Early words of praise for Administration have turned into uneasy whispers about missteps.

Democrats in Congress had happily assured themselves that in President Clinton and his inaugural promise to “force the spring,” they could finally see the end of their own political winter.

But at the end of Clinton’s first week of dealing with Capitol Hill as President, hope is rapidly turning to chilly uneasiness, even dismay. In private, some lawmakers are beginning to draw parallels--certainly premature--with the disastrous relationship that former President Jimmy Carter had with his own party in Congress.

“Expectations were very high this time around because there was so much frustration in the past. Maybe they were too high,” said freshman Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D-Colo.). “So many things you talk about in a campaign you find aren’t so easy to do when you get here.”

Added Sen. J. James Exon (D-Neb.): “The President has come out of a very small state with a very small Legislature controlled by his own party. . . . I suspect that the President, with all his smarts, does not fully understand the workings of Congress.”

Comments such as these mark a dramatic turn from the days just after the election, when it seemed to lawmakers that the new President was doing everything right.

He had an impressive record working with the Arkansas Legislature, had surrounded himself with seasoned Capitol Hill hands and had even tapped some of the most respected members of Congress for his Cabinet.

And perhaps most important, as a campaigner, he was the first Democrat in more than a decade who could choose the chords that would stir the American electorate.

Even when Clinton stumbled by naming Zoe Baird as his nominee for attorney general, lawmakers gave him high marks after Baird withdrew her nomination for quickly extricating himself--and them--from the controversy over her hiring of illegal immigrants as servants.

But now, rather than forging ahead with his central agenda, Clinton found himself at loggerheads with one of his party’s most influential congressional leaders, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), over lifting the ban on gays in the military--a matter that, until last week, barely registered on the scale of public priorities.

Republicans, Exon said, have seized upon the controversy as “the beginning of the end of the Clinton Administration in the first week. . . . It’s very unfortunate, the way it was handled. Certainly the President has to take responsibility for the way it was handled.”

It may be too late to prevent that issue from jeopardizing one of the Democrats’ showpiece bills: legislation that would provide unpaid leave to workers who needed time off to care for a newborn or a sick family member.

With phone calls to congressional offices running overwhelmingly against lifting the ban, Senate Republicans are threatening that if Clinton makes any change in the military’s policy during the next six months, they will offer an amendment to the family leave bill that would write the current prohibition on gays in the military into law. Failing that, they would filibuster the bill.

Either way, they could force Senate Democrats to go on record on the sensitive and emotional issue, and leave Clinton with the difficult choice of standing in the way of the family leave bill or accepting the ban.

Meanwhile, on issues that dominated the campaign, Clinton has thus far sent only flickering signals. Administration officials are poised to put forward a fiscal stimulus spending package that falls short of many lawmakers’ hopes; at the same time, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen’s tentative moves toward an energy tax are picking up virtually no support.

Clinton “is not playing at the top of his game now,” said Rep. Fred Grandy (R-Iowa). “We (Republicans) are not interested in making the guy look bad. We are somewhat stunned to see how many ways he’s found to do that to himself.”

As a result, some Democrats are beginning to dismiss the abilities of the same appointees, particularly on the White House staff, whose selection had earlier been hailed as a tribute to Clinton’s savvy.

“He has a bunch of young, able, dedicated, sincere people in the White House, but they’re not schooled about the vultures in Washington,” said one source who has close ties to the House Democratic leadership. “It’s a question of how many blunders they make before they learn, if they can learn. I’m nervous.”

But it is, after all, only the second week. The Democrats, said former GOP Rep. William Frenzel, “are not giving Clinton enough time. . . . No rookie does well in his first week in the big leagues. Mr. Clinton has made a lot of mistakes that a veteran would not have made, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to continue to make them.”

Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) agreed that Clinton’s timing on the gay rights issue was “a mistake,” but he quickly added: “It’s not a fatal mistake. It’s a correctable mistake.”

The test, all sides agree, will come next month when Clinton presents Congress with his economic package--one, he has warned, that will inflict pain and sacrifice.

“What he has to do on the budget thing is he has to be tough and carry it out,” said one Democratic strategist. “People sense that he is (able to be shoved), that special interests can go at him, that he can be maneuvered by strong negative voices in Congress. He has to recognize that the President is a leader, that he cannot compromise.”