POLITICS : Host of ‘Meet the Press’ a Self-Made Player on ’96 Election Scene : Timothy J. Russert has worked for liberal Democrats. But conservatives note his pit-bull style is applied to all guests.

It’s Sunday morning and the face on the television screen is just short of angelic. A middle-aged, ex-altar boy grins and welcomes viewers from more than 3 million sleepy households to NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Amenities done, the face changes. Eyebrows arch, the mouth tightens and the apple cheeks sour into “the weekend pit bull,” as one reviewer has called him. Or “Sunday’s top inquisitor,” as another columnist opined.

This is Timothy J. Russert, host of “Meet the Press,” Washington bureau chief for NBC News, a twice-a-week CNBC political commentator and a C-SPAN regular. On a good political week, he can also be seen on the “Today” show and the NBC Nightly News. In short, Russert, 46, is one of television’s political marathon men, counting his time on air in hours rather than minutes.

“What Tim has done is that he has used the force of his own personality on the air to make himself a player,” said Jack Germond, a newspaper columnist and himself a mainstay of political talk shows. “He’s not your conventional pretty face. He’s not a smooth article, but he knows his politics and he asks damn good questions.”

From a fellow media member, this is high praise, especially for someone who was not trained as a journalist. Russert learned his politics working the rougher precincts of Buffalo, N.Y., as a youth; he later was an aide to two prominent New York Democrats--Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.

Even with these partisan attachments, Russert also gets kudos from conservatives who see that the full force of his in-your-face grilling is used on all guests, no matter their political leanings.

Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh has defended Russert to his millions of radio listeners. “I know Mr. Russert and . . . he is the closest thing there is at any of the networks to an objective journalist, the closest thing we’ve got,” Limbaugh decreed last year. Or as Tony Blankley, press secretary to Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, said recently: “He asks questions that are tough but he carries it off without being obnoxiously aggressive. . . . It’s really hard to find anything to complain about in Tim’s performance.”

Still, some do complain, and once burned on “Meet the Press” by their own words, some politicians shy away from Russert’s hard spotlight. Presumed GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole has not been on the show since December when he created a stir with a confusing answer regarding his stand on abortion.

Within the media world, there are complaints as well. At NBC News, some colleagues have said Russert can be such a perfectionist about detail that he leaves frayed tempers in his wake. Others have suggested that Russert is, in the words of the trade, an “air hog” who overshadows other reporters and commentators.

But for many, such talk is faint criticism. When Don Hewitt, executive producer of CBS’ “60 Minutes,” was asked to assess Russert, he said: “I wish he worked for CBS.”

Russert comes across as a man who hungers for every political nuance, who devours every treat in the political candy store. Such cravings reap their rewards--Russert was first to predict on the airwaves that Dole would resign from his beloved Senate seat to focus full time on his presidential campaign.

Moreover, his expertise often prods the guests to make news. After one Gingrich appearance, there were front-page stories the next day in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today--each touching on a different subject the speaker had discussed.

What gives Russert credibility is that he does his homework. “I know he does a lot of the ground work himself. He doesn’t just read a few quotes in the paper,” Blankley said.

Friends say Russert’s firmest emotional connections, like his political instincts, stretch back to the Irish Catholic neighborhood where he grew up.

“Tim’s great strength is that he has never forgotten where he came from,” said Joe Klein, Newsweek’s political columnist. “He’s still got a working-class, Buffalo gut.”

On the air, Russert often poses questions with his father in mind--just as he did earlier this year when he asked then-GOP presidential candidate Steve Forbes about how his proposed flat tax would hurt “people who work with their hands.”

He was talking about 72-year-old Big Russ Russert, who worked two full-time jobs when Tim was a boy. Russert’s father was a garbage man in the morning, a driver for the Buffalo News at night. The memory of his father’s labor makes his own hectic schedule “seem like nothing in comparison” the younger Russert said.

Little Russ, however, was headed toward different--and more lucrative work--from an early age. He attended Buffalo’s top Catholic school, where Sister Mary Lucille nudged him in the direction of politics. She founded the school newspaper and Russert was its editor. They put out a special edition when President Kennedy was shot and sent it to the family. The Kennedys sent back letters of appreciation. Said Russert: “At that point, I was hooked.”

He went on to John Carroll University in Cleveland where he majored in political science and received the first college degree in his family. Then, a stint at Buffalo City Hall for a local politician helped pay for his degree at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.

After graduation, he began working for Moynihan, quickly moving to the senator’s Washington office. There, he became a press corps favorite--weaving jokes and politics into the powerful one-liners so crucial to the news media.

In 1982, he began to work for Cuomo, who once said of Russert: “He plays chess while others are playing checkers, and he is seven moves ahead.”

Most of Russert’s friends thought he would eventually become a candidate. Instead, he moved into the media. In 1984, he became a vice president at NBC News, serving as a kind of all-purpose promoter, producer and energizer for the network’s news operation. It was an ill-defined position that Russert, known at the time for his sharp elbows and open ambition, crafted into a major job.

By 1989, NBC wanted him to focus his energies on its Washington operation. As part of his hands-on approach, he began making appearances on the air and, in 1991, the then-president of NBC News, Michael Gartner, asked him to take over “Meet the Press.” The program was a distant third in the ratings behind the CBS and ABC Sunday interview shows. Now, “Meet the Press” jockeys with ABC’s “This Week with David Brinkley” for first place in ratings, as well as top headlines the next day.

Russert said he initially resisted the “Meet the Press” job as “high risk” for one unpolished in the television business. Encouragement came from an unlikely source--John Madden. Russert recalled watching Madden on the air, his bulky frame and nonprofessional voice instantly irrelevant as the football-coach-turned-analyst enthused about his sport. “And I said, ‘Dammit, if he can get away with being himself, so can I.’

“After I started, there were actual bets at NBC about how long I would last. But after awhile, I felt very much at ease,” Russert said. “I turn off the cameras in my mind and just talk to people.”

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The Players

A periodic look at the behind-the-scenes aides, consultants, media members and others shaping the 1996 presidential campaign.

Timothy J. Russert

Age: 45

Family: Married to Maureen Orth, writer for Vanity Fair magazine. They have a son, Luke, 10.

Education: Graduate of John Carroll University in Cleveland (majored in political science) and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.

Background: Former aide to Sen Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and counselor to New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. Joined NBC News as a vice president in 1984.

Downtime: Treasures time with family. Coaches son’s Little League baseball team; the two of them also try to watch “I Love Lucy” reruns every night on Nickelodeon channel. Season ticketholder for Baltimore Orioles baseball team; devout fan of Buffalo Bills football team.