POLITICS : Wofford Swept In on Health Issue, and May Be Swept Out With It : He won his Senate seat in 1991 on a platform of reform. Now that the debate has faltered, his reelection chances are sinking.

Democrat Harris Wofford’s stunning victory in the 1991 special Senate election in Pennsylvania not only buttressed his party’s majority in the Senate, but also put health care--Wofford’s No. 1 campaign issue--atop the national agenda.

Now, however, the drive for comprehensive health reform has faltered and both Wofford’s future and Democratic control of the Senate are imperiled. Two-term Republican Rep. Rick Santorum from Pittsburgh is waging an aggressive battle for Wofford’s Senate seat and is challenging Wofford’s view of health reform.

This is a race of sharp contrasts and high stakes. The 68-year-old Wofford is at the apex of a public career rooted in the liberalism that flourished in the 1960s, when he won distinction as a civil rights champion and one of the founders of the Peace Corps.

The 36-year-old Santorum brings to the campaign his own version of the militant conservatism forged by the Republican minority in the House, where he made his mark by helping to expose the House post office scandal and by becoming a spokesman for his party on welfare reform.

The outcome of this confrontation could help decide not only whether the Democrats will be able to maintain their party’s grip on the Senate, but also the future course of the national debate on health care reform.

Wofford’s approach to health care, Santorum declared at a campaign stop recently, exemplifies his overall belief “that we solve our problems in America by taxing you more, sending the money to Washington and hiring more bureaucrats to make decisions on how to run your life.”

By contrast, Santorum said, he believes “that what’s great about America is that we solve our problems by giving you the power to go out and solve those problems yourselves.”

Wofford sees the choice facing the electorate very differently, describing his opponent as “a right-wing ideologue who has been voting against what most people in Pennsylvania want.” He casts himself not as an old-fashioned liberal but as “a fighting senator,” battling to protect the interests of the middle class by sponsoring such measures as the National Service Act and the Family Leave Act.

As the campaign heads into its decisive stage, Wofford appears to be ahead, though Santorum’s aides claim that their polls show his margin has narrowed to 4 percentage points. And Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, who came here last week to help raise funds for Santorum, called the contest a “dead heat.”

Dole noted that the GOP’s hopes of making the net gain of seven senators it needs to transform its 44-seat minority into a majority have been buoyed by victories in recent elections around the country and by the almost palpable mood of public discontent with Congress.

The Republican opportunity in Pennsylvania reflects the nature of the battleground, with its evenly divided electorate. “It’s a tough state,” said Pat Ewing, Wofford’s campaign manager. “Getting out of bed in the morning, a Republican gets 45% of the vote and a Democrat gets 45% of the vote and you fight for the remaining 10%.”

In Senate races, Democrats have not won many of those fights. Wofford was the first of his party to win a Senate seat in more than 30 years, but his truncated term and his own nature seem to have combined to make his road to reelection a tough one.

A Millersville University poll last April that showed about 20% of Pennsylvanians do not even recognize Wofford’s name suggests that he has not established himself as strongly as his Republican colleague, Arlen Specter, whose name recognition rate runs close to 100%, or his Republican predecessor, John Heinz. It was Heinz’s death in an airplane crash that led to Wofford’s appointment in May, 1991, and his subsequent election to fill out the remainder of Heinz’s term.

“He’s the quintessential professorial type, relatively low key,” said Terry Madonna of Millersville University’s Center for Public Opinion. Wofford was once president of Bryn Mawr College and a law professor at Notre Dame University.

“He’s not a self-promoter,” said Paul Begala, a political adviser for President Clinton. Begala and James Carville, also a Clinton political operative, helped engineer Wofford’s 1991 special election victory, as well as Clinton’s election to the presidency. Begala now serves as a consultant to Wofford’s campaign.

But Begala contended that Wofford should be able to win the election just by reminding Pennsylvanians of his contribution to the national health care debate.

And Wofford himself asked that he get credit for his efforts, even if they have yet to yield the success for which he still aims.

“There hasn’t been a day in my life since I’ve been elected that I haven’t spent a significant part of it on health care,” he told a group of longtime supporters and potential converts gathered last week on the back deck of a home in Bala Cynwyd in suburban Philadelphia.

“I am the long-march type,” he said, recalling his active role in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. “I don’t give up.”

Wofford has long been committed to comprehensive health care reform, which under the proposals made by Clinton and other Democrats would guarantee universal coverage and require most employers to pay part of health insurance costs.

Although prospects for enactment of such a measure appear all but foreclosed in this Congress, Wofford offered his audience in Bala Cynwyd the hope that, when Congress returns from its summer recess, “we may take a major step forward” on health care reform.

For his part, Santorum conceded that almost any health care reform measure that gains congressional approval before Congress adjourns for the election probably would allow both Clinton and Wofford to claim a “political victory.”

On the other hand, the Republican lawmaker also might be able to claim credit for such a measure. Santorum pointed out that he has sponsored his own health care proposals, including insurance and malpractice reforms and a medical savings account to which employers would contribute and employees could use to pay medical bills or to save for a rainy day.

Overall, the proposal involves a far more limited role for government than the universal coverage concept backed by Wofford.

“As long as Congress passes the reforms I’ve talked about, my feeling is that I could go out and say that the things that passed are things that I have been working on and that Wofford trivialized,” he said. “It’s probably not the best scenario for me, but it is the best scenario for the country. And it’s certainly not a disaster for me politically.”

At any rate, just as the health care debate in Congress could influence the Senate race, the outcome of this contest is likely to influence what happens to health care reform when Congress convenes in 1995.

“The best way to know what the public thinks about health care is to see who they send back to Washington to solve the problem,” Santorum said.

A victory for Wofford almost certainly would give fresh impetus to the drive for comprehensive reform, while Wofford’s defeat likely would discourage others from investing significant political capital in the cause.

While the differences between the candidates on health care are significant, they are somewhat obscured by the broad-brush attacks each side has leveled against the other, as illustrated by Santorum’s initial television advertisement aired last week.

The scene is an expensive-looking restaurant where a group of diners who have obviously eaten and drunk to excess tell the waiter to give the check to another table. There a group of youngsters stare pathetically back at the viewers.

Then Santorum appears on camera, carrying his 18-month-old son, Johnny, and saying: “That’s exactly what Harris Wofford is doing. He’s wasting your tax dollars, running up the deficit and passing the bill on to your children and mine. That’s simply not fair.”

But Wofford and his team have also taken their share of hard shots at Santorum. At a campaign stop last week, Wofford likened Santorum’s use of “procedural tricks” to delay a vote on the crime bill, which Congress ultimately passed last month, to the way “criminals use procedural tricks to keep from serving their sentences.” He added: “I don’t think politicians should get away with procedural tricks to delay a bill.”

Santorum said he voted against the bill because he said it was costly and wasteful. “It provides money we don’t have for programs we already have and know don’t work.”