Political Operatives Work to Shape Campaign Reform Bill : They’re looking to protect their livelihoods. But they’re far from unanimous as to how the system should be corrected.

For once, the dozen or so campaign consultants gathered in a downtown hotel here recently had something on their minds besides the fate of a client-candidate.

Instead, the agenda for these members of the breed who redesigned U.S. politics in their own image was devoted to protecting their livelihoods. Their goal--to influence the shape of much-publicized campaign reform legislation brewing on Capitol Hill.

“We basically said that if you couldn’t write health care legislation without talking to doctors, why are we letting them write campaign legislation without putting forth our ideas,” said Republican consultant Thomas Edmonds, one of the leaders of a task force on election reform formed by the American Assn. of Political Consultants.

Because they are entrepreneurs at heart, most of these hired political guns tend to resist efforts at government rule-making. The steady stream of revelations about fund-raising excesses by both parties that have shocked many Americans and given impetus to the drive for reform seems only to have reinforced that attitude.

“I am confident that the vast majority of our members feel that the political system is completely broken, but the way to fix it isn’t through more regulation,” said Adam Dubitksy, spokesman for the consultants group.

Still, as consultants concede, opinion in their ranks is far from unanimous on these thorny issues. One member of the task force, Democratic media consultant Gary Nordlinger, favors abolition of “soft money”--the largely unregulated contributions to political parties from corporations, labor unions and individual fat cats that have become the major focus in the current uproar over financing.

Whatever the outcome of the debate among consultants, their arguments command attention because their rise has been both symptom and cause of the maladies afflicting U.S. politics.

Two major developments boosted the status of consultants: the declining influence of political parties and the increasing importance of technology in politics, notably involving television, polling and computerized mailings. This latter factor created a market for operatives with expertise. Almost unknown a generation ago, consultants now dominate U.S. politics, with some 7,000 practitioners serving about 50,000 campaigns a year, from the city council to the White House.

Critics argue that consultants contribute to the soaring costs of campaigns (which in 1996 reached an estimated $2.7 billion) in part to line their own purses. The focus of this criticism is TV advertising, the biggest single item in campaign expenses. Consultants who plan the ad programs generally get a commission ranging from 5% to 15% of the cost of the spots.

“Consultants are as greedy as anybody else,” said David Keene, veteran GOP political operative who has done occasional consulting. “And some get paid an awful lot for very little.”

Dick Morris, the chief consultant to President Clinton’s reelection campaign until he quit because of a sex scandal, was suspected by some of cost boosting when he persuaded his client to launch a massive TV ad campaign in 1995. The barrage, in turn, helped spur the notorious aggressiveness of the Democratic fund-raising effort.

“It’s fair to say that my constant pressure to raise money to be on television was a significant factor in the demand to raise money,” Morris said. “But my personal profit motive was more apparent than real,” he added, noting that he was paid a flat fee for his campaign job rather than a commission.

Morris’ own reform program would eliminate soft money, which he thinks would hurt Republicans, while also doing away with political action committees, which would handicap Democrats dependent on labor union money. He also recommends removing the spending ceilings imposed on presidential candidates who, when they agree to such limits, receive federal matching funds. This change, Morris contends, would make it harder for a multimillionaire such as Steve Forbes to potentially walk away with the nomination through a self-financed campaign that does not face spending limits.

Morris recalls that after the GOP’s South Carolina primary last spring, Bob Dole was well ahead in the delegate race but nearly broke. “What would have happened if Forbes had written out a $20-million check that day and said: ‘Buy me all of California, Illinois and Michigan?’ ” Morris asked.

Regulation opponents say it only leads to subterfuge.

The best remedy for abuse, Edmonds contends, is a disclosure process that supposedly would alert the public to the danger of influence buying by well-heeled special interests.

“A candidate should be free to take money from a special interest group if he wants to, and if there is a consequence to be paid, he should pay it.”

But Democratic pollster Mark Mellman contends disclosure is ineffective because the data about campaign contributions don’t reach enough people. “The fact that it’s available at the Federal Election Commission doesn’t mean that voters are going to know and understand it,” Mellman said. “The only way to get it out is for one candidate to spend a lot of his money telling people where the other candidate got his money.”