Democrats Target D’Amato, New York’s Own ‘Comeback Kid’ State’s liberal tradition could work against him. But rivals may play into his hands.

“How is it,” state Assembly Majority Leader Michael Bragman recently asked delegates to the New York Democratic Convention, “that a state that gave us Al Smith and Franklin Roosevelt and Mario Cuomo elects Al D’Amato?”

That question has tormented New York Democrats ever since 1980 when Alfonse M. D’Amato--then an obscure Republican county supervisor from Long Island--first won his U.S. Senate seat. His two reelections have rubbed salt in his foes’ wounds; the Democrats have a hard time reconciling their state’s liberal tradition--forged by Govs. Smith and Roosevelt and bolstered by Cuomo--with the staunch brand of conservatism that D’Amato espouses.

Now, with D’Amato seeking a fourth term this fall, Empire State Democrats again have him squarely in their sights. And one doesn’t have to be a New Yorker to care whether they can end their frustration by beating him.

Nationally, Republicans are hoping in this election to add to their 55 seats in the 100-member Senate. They want to get closer to, if not achieve, a filibuster-proof majority--i.e., the 60 votes needed to overcome the delaying tactic that is the main weapon left to Senate Democrats. The political fate of D’Amato, whom polls show to be among the most vulnerable of GOP incumbents, is key to this larger battle.

But as New York Democrats recall only too well, D’Amato resembles President Clinton, the self-styled “comeback kid,” in his ability to overcome adversity. In 1992, having been rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for allowing his brother to use his Capitol office as a lobbying base, his reelection bid at the start of that year’s campaign seemed doomed.

“I was 26 points behind in the polls,” he blithely recalls.

But, in part because of intraparty warfare among state Democrats, D’Amato bounced back to win--even as Clinton was carrying New York by a huge margin in his presidential race. In the process, D’Amato established himself as arguably the dominant political figure in the state, two years later launching the gubernatorial candidacy of former GOP state legislator George Pataki, who is expected to easily win a second term in November.

And the worry among Democrats is that history will repeat itself in 1998. As was the case six years ago, there is fierce competition for the right to take on D’Amato.

Geraldine A. Ferraro, who as the 1984 Democratic vice presidential candidate made history as the first--and so far only--woman to appear on a national ticket--is the early front-runner. But primed to fight her for the nomination in a September primary are U.S. Rep. Charles E. Schumer and Mark Green, who as New York City’s elected public advocate investigates complaints by citizens who feel they’ve been treated unfairly by city agencies.

D’Amato, for his part, professes confidence that he will defeat whomever the Democrats pick.

“Nobody else has the energy, nobody else has the stamina, nobody else works as hard as I do,” he asserted last month as he stopped off in Newburgh, about 50 miles north of New York City, to give another in a series of speeches announcing his candidacy.

Having started that day at 5:30 a.m., the 60-year-old lawmaker already had visited five other cities. He would fly back to Washington to cast a vote in the Senate, then return to the campaign trail for one more stump speech on Long Island before he was finished that night.

D’Amato concedes he was hurt in New York--where voters remain friendly toward Clinton--by his sometimes heavy-handed stewardship of 1995 Senate hearings into the Whitewater land deal. Rather than reveal any damning information about the involvement of the president and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in that deal, the hearings left many observers with the impression that D’Amato was hounding the Clintons.

“The White House has some pretty good spin doctors,” he said.

But as he strives to put that episode behind him, he continues to display a gift for turning his foes’ criticisms to his advantage. Referring to the claim that he lavishes disproportionate attention on relatively mundane local concerns, he proudly told his audience in Newburgh: “They call me Sen. Pothole, but let me tell you something, people’s problems are not small and the people who have them are not small.”

It helps D’Amato’s prospects more than a little bit, of course, that he has collected $18 million-plus to fund his campaign, more than any other Senate candidate in the country. He has been abetted, his critics contend, by contributions from the financial industry that he attracts as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

But D’Amato deflects that charge by noting that he is championing legislation to strengthen credit unions in competing with banks for customers.

Given D’Amato’s political adroitness, few Democrats are sanguine about current polls that show him trailing Ferraro.

Backers of her Democratic rivals claim Ferraro’s candidacy is based on little more than name recognition, and predict she will fade before the September primary. That’s what happened in 1992, when after leading the pack early in the year she faded as she came under assault because of controversies about her past, in particular an alleged family link to the Mafia.

But Ferraro, 62, insists she is better able to withstand the political storms than either of her rivals. “Neither one of these two guys has ever struggled to get anywhere they wanted in life,” she said. “I’m a street fighter . . . I got to where I am because I’m tough.”

Schumer--probably the least known of the three Democratic contenders--claims his strong point is his performance in the House, where he has served since 1980.

“I have the strongest record of passing legislation that makes people’s lives better,” the 47-year-old lawmaker said. He cited his key role in passage of such gun-control measures as the Brady Act, which imposes a five-day waiting period on gun purchases.

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Aides say Schumer will use his opposition to GOP efforts in Congress to cut student loan programs to appeal to voters concerned about education, which in New York, as elsewhere, is viewed as the issue of the day.

But Schumer’s most evident asset is not his record, about which voters know little, but his campaign treasury. His $11-million intake, including more than $5 million transferred from his House campaign committee, ranks second only to D’Amato in the nation among Senate candidates and is well above what Ferraro or Green have raised.

As for Green, his strong points are his appeal to liberals as a result of his career as a consumer advocate (he once was a key aide to Ralph Nader), his base of support in New York City and the seasoning he gained running a losing race against D’Amato in 1986.

This time out would be a different story, the 52-year-old Green contends, because he is better known and has more to brag about. “If D’Amato says he is the pothole senator, well, I am the pothole advocate,” Green said. “As New York City ombudsman, I answer 20,000 complaints a year against the bureaucracy. I can match him story for story.”

What worries many Democrats, however, is what the three contenders might do to each other that would make D’Amato’s task easier in November.

Some think hard blows and hard feelings are inevitable. “They are three good candidates,” said Democratic consultant Dick Starkey, “and they are going to spend a lot of money and beat each other up.”

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