LANDMARK BUDGET BILL : They Scrambled for Limelight--and Constituents to Defend : House: As budget vote neared, lawmakers scurried about in effort to be seen as protectors of a broad array of citizens--as well as the Alaska porcupine caribou.

Never before, perhaps, have so many heroes championed so many causes all at once.

As the House neared a showdown vote Thursday on a massive GOP budget measure, members of Congress seemed to lurk at every turn, indoors and out, self-righteously defending the interests of a dizzying array of claimed constituencies: senior citizens, college students, hard-working middle-class stiffs, the unemployed underclass, helpless infants--even the Alaska porcupine caribou.

Shamelessly, in nonstop press conferences and speech-making, enlivened by colorful charts and occasionally imaginative props, Republicans and Democrats vied for the limelight, presenting themselves as the genuine protectors of the elderly, the young, the dispossessed, the unborn--while portraying the opposition as dastardly cowards unwilling to level with the public.

The carnival atmosphere and heated rhetoric showed how difficult it can be in politics to know who your true ally is. This was especially the case when it came to America’s seniors.

All year, the overarching point of contention in the battle of the budget has been the Republicans’ seven-year plan to wring $270 billion in savings from Medicare, largely by reducing the annual rate of growth in spending from 10% to 6.5%.

*

Even though that means an increase in the annual per-capita spending from the current $4,800 to $6,700, Democrats have doggedly characterized them as cuts because of the increasing numbers of people who will go into the program.

Little wonder then that, when Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), leaders of the congressional Democrats, appeared at an outdoor rally Thursday, they deployed a rocking horse and a rocking chair as props to drive home their point.

For those slow on the uptake, there was this accompanying placard: “Rocking Horse to Rocking Chair: GOP Budget Will Hurt Americans of All Ages.”

As Daschle and Gephardt spoke, supporters gathered around in a semicircle holding up signs that said, for example, that GOP stands for “get old people.” A second protest sign demanded the preservation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska--”birthing ground of the porcupine caribou herd”--which the Republicans would open to oil drilling.

Another sign read, in part: “No New Taxes; No Newt Axes”--a reference to the Democratic contention that the Republican Medicare growth reductions are designed largely to pay for a $245-billion tax cut.

“Sometimes revolutions claim millions of lives!” Gephardt thundered in the brilliant sunlight as tourists walked by with quizzical expressions.

But Republicans were not about to be outmaneuvered--on style or substance.

A small mob of GOP representatives and senators assembled early in the morning to announce yet another good deed for seniors. They promised enactment this year of legislation to allow working Social Security recipients to keep more of their earnings.

“For every $3 they earn over the $11,160 limit, they lose $1 in Social Security benefits,” fumed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “This earnings cap is a serious threat to the well-being of low- or fixed-income senior citizens,” he said. The GOP would raise the limit to $30,000 over a seven-year period.

“This is a defining issue” between Republicans and Democrats, said Rep. Tillie Fowler (R-Fla.).

In both legislative chambers, meanwhile, debate over national priorities raged throughout the day, with enough charts and easels cluttering the aisles to trip up a less-than-careful lawmaker.

But the frenzied activity and lofty rhetoric belied the cold reality that the budget measure, in its current form, does not stand a chance of becoming law--not with a series of presidential veto threats, the latest delivered on Wednesday.

*

So kindly excuse the occasional member who seemed oddly detached from the day’s momentous doings.

One was Rep. Sonny Bono (R-La Quinta).

As most of his colleagues were ensconced in important meetings or delivering floor speeches or appearing at a news conference or regaling quote-hungry reporters, Bono sauntered through the Capitol Rotunda enroute to the barbershop.

Approving the reconciliation bill “definitely is the most responsible act we’ve taken,” Bono allowed. “But I’ve got to get a haircut. I’m beginning to look like a hippie.”