The Democrats Southern Fried Feuding

By LAURENCE I. BARRETT NASHVILLE

Good chemistry, Paul Tsongas liked to say when asked why he and his rival Bill Clinton got on so well. Clinton would point out that he and Tsongas were the two candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination offering broad, serious economic plans. That was in New Hampshire barely a month ago -- a lifetime in the compacted nominating calendar. By last week the chemistry had turned combustible as each struggled to define the other in negative terms, an exchange that revealed as much about themselves as each other.

After last Tuesday's contests, the former Senator from Massachusetts and the Arkansas Governor emerged as joint front runners. Bob Kerrey, losing badly everywhere, quit the race, and Tom Harkin's war chest is empty. Jerry Brown's narrow win in Colorado will allow him to continue receiving federal matching funds to wage a guerrilla operation.

Tsongas' victories in Utah, Maryland and Washington demonstrated that he could prosper outside New England. Clinton's big win in Georgia was his first victory of the year, but the nominating process puts him in a strong position for this week's Super Tuesday contests. His treasury is the plumpest of all, his organization the most robust -- and with seven of the 11 contests in Southern and Border states, he has the home-field advantage.

Last week's outcome, however, left Clinton and Tsongas, both cerebral candidates with a strong sense of purpose, scrapping like ward pols. In Florida Tsongas' best hope in the South, Clinton aired a commercial questioning Tsongas' commitment to maintaining Social Security benefits. When Tsongas accused Clinton of misstatements and scare tactics, Clinton's aides distributed a fact sheet showing that Tsongas had in fact proposed an amendment eight years ago that would have frozen cost of living increases in benefit programs for a year.

Then a suddenly bellicose Tsongas attacked Clinton personally as a "cynical and unprincipled politician," a "pander bear" eager to promise everything to everyone. Jetting around the South, Clinton told reporters at a late-night press conference in Nashville that Tsongas was the real panderer, with Wall Street the prime beneficiary, and that Tsongas had belied his image as a "truth teller" by lying about the impact of Clinton's position on a middle-class tax cut. A Tsongas ad had implied that the reduction would worsen the deficit. Clinton's plan would offset the loss with a higher rate for affluent taxpayers.

But the fact that Clinton's camp has been striving for weeks to undermine Tsongas' credibility is testimony to the way the ostensibly cool Clinton is suffering from the pressure of the campaign. The furor over his alleged romance with Gennifer Flowers and his draft status during the Vietnam War nearly sank Clinton's candidacy. Though he staged a gutsy comeback, neither his campaign nor his image has fully recovered from the trauma. Says his campaign manager, David Wilhelm: "Because of what happened to us, we lost for the time being the aura of the serious, thoughtful candidate."

This loss was particularly damaging in caucus states like Washington, which became an ideal target for Tsongas because his constituency consists mainly of upscale, educated voters. Tsongas' Mr. Candor persona allowed him to benefit from the attacks on his opponent's character. Clinton and his assistants have since admonished reporters to give Tsongas' own record deeper scrutiny.

Clinton's need to fight off doubts about his character is leaving its mark on his message. His intense efforts in New Hampshire and Georgia forced him to divert time and money from other states he might have won. Further, Clinton has adjusted the emphasis of his message in subtle ways. He started as a new- wave centrist disdainful of traditional liberal nostrums. But against the fiscally conservative Tsongas, Clinton has had to find other points of contrast in their philosophies. He has reached out to traditional Democrats -- minorities, working-class families, older voters still enamored of the New Deal. Without changing any of his positions an iota, Clinton has inched rhetorically toward being the compassion candidate. Tsongas, he says, "wants to make life harder for ((working people)). We want to make life somewhat easier for people already paying the bills."

Clinton understandably feels threatened by his plodding, sober rival. An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey last week found that only 5% viewed Tsongas as an unacceptable nominee, while 17% rejected Clinton. Says pollster Peter Hart: "Tsongas' greatest advantage is that he repels no one."

Whether Tsongas can build on that asset is uncertain. In New Hampshire he had a year to campaign at his leisure. As the nominating contest goes national, Tsongas has not been able to expand his austere message. "We're going to have to broaden the appeal," he conceded last week, while giving no evidence that he knew how. Nor is it clear that Tsongas can keep up effectively with Clinton's tireless pace. During a televised debate in Dallas last week, Clinton was feisty, Tsongas wan. "I was just exhausted," he said later. His lean campaign organization, which he began to enlarge only after New Hampshire, also has difficulty competing with the far larger team Clinton assembled last fall.

Tsongas sometimes gives the impression of being as surprised as many of the pundits that he has made it to the Democratic finals. Now that he has been euchred into negative slugging with Clinton -- an exercise for which Tsongas seems ill equipped -- his ability to demonstrate leadership will be further crimped.

Still, Tsongas is gritty enough to put up a stiff fight, and Jerry Brown's continued presence will nibble some votes from both front runners. That will prevent any candidate from winning a critical mass of delegates soon. For months party leaders had hoped to have a consensus candidate in place by mid- March so that the Democrats could target George Bush, the most vulnerable incumbent since Ronald Reagan challenged Jimmy Carter 12 years ago. But the chemistry for that accomplishment may be as transitory as the chemistry between Clinton and Tsongas.

With reporting by Walter Shapiro with Tsongas