NEWS ANALYSIS : Clinton Could Be Setting Himself Up for a Fall : Politics: Claiming credit for positive economic developments means he must take blame for failures, particularly in hard-hit California.

It’s an old axiom of politics: You can never take too much credit or claim it too early. But the Clinton Administration may be setting itself up for trouble--especially in California--by taking responsibility for the few positive developments that have been brewing in the economy.

In full campaign style, the President is asserting that the Administration’s ability to boost business investment, bank lending, housing activity and job growth has put his Republican predecessor to shame.

“Since I became President, our economy has created more than a million private-sector jobs--more jobs in eight months than all those created in the previous four years,” he proclaimed this month. “And that’s just the beginning.”

By taking credit for the economy’s bright spots, however, Clinton is also opening himself to criticism for its weaknesses, which are many and may multiply. “If you claim to be a rainmaker, you’ll also be held responsible for the drought,” said Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University.

It could be particularly hard for Clinton to duck blame in lagging regions, such as California, where employment has grown hardly at all since Clinton took office.

“If I were unemployed in L.A. County, I’d hear these claims and wonder: What’s he doing for us?” said Kevin Phillips, a conservative political analyst. “Where’s our 12% of that million jobs?”

By making these claims, Clinton has laid the groundwork to take full credit if the economy finally begins to take off. That would strengthen his hand as Congress considers key parts of his domestic agenda, including the North American Free Trade Agreement and, further down the road, his health reform package.

White House aides said that they are not trying to play down the economic obstacles still ahead, or ignore difficulties. But to boost public confidence, “people need to have a sense that the President is in there grabbing the reins of government to get the economy charging again,” said Mark Gearan, the White House communications director.

Some analysts think the uncertainties inherent in the future course of the economy make this strategy too risky.

“Some things are just better left alone, and this is one of them,” said Greg Schneiders, a Democratic strategist and once an aide to former President Jimmy Carter. “Sometimes the political and communications gurus get carried away in their advice. . . . I don’t know why they’re trying to do anything to call attention to the economy right now.”

Ronald Reagan took the opposite tack when the economy went into a tailspin shortly after he became President in January, 1981. He fastidiously avoided accepting any responsibility for economic conditions until his 1983 State of the Union address, which he called “America on the Mend.”

This strategy did not fully insulate him from blame when unemployment ticked up to 10% in the fall of 1982. But it allowed him to point the finger at the low-growth, high-inflation years of Carter’s presidency.

Clinton, in contrast, has given away this opportunity. And in California, for example, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, still lagging the President by about 20 percentage points in public approval ratings, would be glad to cast the blame for California’s economic woes on the Democrats in Washington.

Next year, “the economy is going to be a defining issue in the election,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a California political analyst. And Clinton’s performance, she added, “is going to be made part of it.”

That apparently has not happened yet. A Los Angeles Times poll released this week, for instance, showed that 59% of Californians thought that neither Clinton nor Wilson was at fault for the state’s economic problems. (About 8% thought Clinton deserved blame, while 14% held Wilson responsible.)

In recent speeches, Clinton has asserted that his economic plan, by showing the financial markets that the Administration is serious about deficit reduction, helped bring long-term interest rates to their lowest point in 25 years. In turn, those declines helped stimulate housing, business investment, bank lending and job creation, he has said.

Yet most private economists believe that robust growth is still far off and many worry that the economy still could drift off course on the way.

The 51 economists polled each month by the newsletter, Blue Chip Economic Indicators, shows that private forecasters actually have been lowering their growth forecast each month since the spring. Now the consensus is for an anemic 2.6% domestic growth this year and a barely improved 2.7% growth in 1994.

Lower rates have stimulated housing growth but most of these economists said they believe that will not be enough to pull the economy from its doldrums. And consumer spending is too feeble to pull the economy from its trough.

Clinton already has witnessed the uncertainties of the economy. After his election he cited the growth in consumer confidence as a sign of the hope inspired by the new Administration’s arrival. But that spurt has since petered out.

And is the Administration entitled to take credit for the economy’s positive signs?

To politicians, the question is largely irrelevant. Since they are blamed for the economy’s failings, they believe, they are also entitled to take credit for its successes.

To economists, the answer to the questions is sort of.

The Administration did help bring down long-term interest rates through its deficit-cutting budget package. Last week the housing industry showed unmistakable signs of responding to the fillip of low rates.

But some economists dispute the contention that interest rate cuts have anything to do with increased bank lending or an increase in business investment. Noting that any positive developments probably had their origin in the George Bush era, they add that the economy has not yet felt the constrictive effects of the federal spending cuts in Clinton’s budget plan.

Moreover, many of the million jobs the President has hailed are the part-time, temporary or low-wage positions that Clinton and his lieutenants are forever inveighing against. Said Robert Dederick, an economist with Northern Trust Bank in Chicago: “They’re being a little premature in slapping their own backs.”