Whitewater Rains on Democrats’ Parade : Politics: At national meeting, the party mood drowns in a deluge of defensiveness over Clinton inquiry. Chairman points finger at 3 GOP senators.

Democrats who arrived in this city humming “Happy Days Are Here Again” departed Saturday fighting the Whitewater blues.

In the course of their national committee’s three-day spring meeting, they found that time and energy they had intended to devote to celebrating the successes of the Administration and laying plans for this fall’s midterm elections had to be spent rebutting accusations stemming from the Whitewater controversy and denouncing President Clinton’s accusers.

Democratic National Committee Chairman David Wilhelm led the assault on the GOP during Saturday’s closing session. He charged that three Republican senators who have been criticizing Clinton on Whitewater--Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, Phil Gramm of Texas and Alfonse M. D’Amato of New York--are themselves “experts on ethical misbehavior” whose own conduct should be challenged.

Wilhelm said questions should be raised about claims that Dole had urged a former campaign aide to make a series of campaign contributions that led to the aide’s conviction on federal tax charges; that Gramm had accepted a vacation home at half-price from the head of a failed savings and loan who later asked for help with regulators; and that D’Amato, when he was a local party official on Long Island, was involved in a scheme to force civic employees to contribute to the Nassau County Republican Party.

At the time of that investigation, D’Amato told a federal grand jury he knew nothing about the scheme, but documents discovered later suggested he did.

Gramm told the Senate Ethics Committee he did not know at the time that he was only billed for half of the 1987 construction costs of the home, and he received a ruling that he did not violate rules against receiving improper gifts.

Eleven months after the house was built, Gramm contacted S&L; regulators on behalf of the builder, but he has said he did nothing improper.

As for Dole, Wilhelm cited testimony in a Kansas trial alleging that Dole leaned on a political associate to make political contributions that are at the center of the former aide’s tax fraud trial.

David C. Owen is accused of improperly taking tax deductions for contributions to a 1986 Kansas campaign. A witness at the trial said Owen did not want to make the contributions but was pressured by Dole. But the GOP leader is not accused of any wrongdoing.

Wilhelm ruefully recalled that a few days earlier, bullish reports of declining unemployment and soaring economic indicators were “overwhelmed” by the announcement of the subpoenas issued to Administration officials by Robert B. Fiske Jr., the special counsel investigating the Whitewater real estate deal.

Fiske is looking into conflict-of-interest allegations against both the President and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton resulting from their partnership with an Arkansas businessman who established the Whitewater Development Corp. and also owned a financially troubled savings and loan.

Party leaders spent a good deal of time here proclaiming their confidence in the innocence of the Clintons and striving to distinguish Whitewater from scandals that have engulfed Republican presidents.

“We will emerge from this dilemma and it will not be an Irangate and it will not be a Watergate,” Ohio party Chairman Harry Meshel declared in a welcoming speech. “It will be an opportunity for the President to finally get this off the table and to return to the domestic and international issues that are important to Americans.”

A favorable reference to the embattled First Lady by Vice President Al Gore in an address to the meeting produced a standing ovation from the audience, some of whom wore lapel stickers saying: “Don’t Pillory Hillary.”

For the time being, party leaders say they don’t see the Whitewater controversy damaging their candidates’ prospects in November.

“I don’t think somebody is going to vote against (Texas Gov. Ann Richards) because of some real estate deal that went sour in Arkansas 14 years ago,” Texas party Chairman Robert Slagle said.

“It (Whitewater) is not on the radar screen in California,” said state party Chairman Bill Press. “Our races will be decided by issues like crime and health care.”

But others said they worry that they have a lot to lose if the Whitewater matter drags on or serious evidence of misconduct by Clinton or his aides comes to light. “The party’s fate is tied to Clinton,” Don Fowler, an executive committee member from South Carolina, said in an interview.

If they have not yet lost ground to the GOP, some Democrats said they fear that the controversy has already cost them the chance to make the gains they sought by emphasizing Clinton’s legislative victories, including approval of his economic plan and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“The worst part of Whitewater is that it’s distracting the President’s attention from some of the issues he is trying to push through Congress,” Slagle said.