Democrats Watch Yer Back

By Sam Allis

On a day last week when Bill Clinton took his campaign uptown to deliver a sober foreign-policy address, Jerry Brown and Jesse Jackson were downtown in Greenwich Village behaving like a couple of overactive children. They planned to march together to the city's board of elections and deliver 100,000 new voter applications. The mayhem potential in this maneuver was high, even by the chaotic standards of New York City.

Sure enough, Brown lurched along carrying the American flag in an eddy of reporters and supporters. Then he and Jackson, flanked by his own entourage, linked up in the middle of a street like the two construction gangs completing the Union Pacific Railroad. The significance of this union was unclear, but all hell broke loose anyway. Both men were delighted with the media frenzy they had ignited. "Everything is perfect," intoned Jacques Barzaghi, Brown's spooky alter ego, clad in his trademark black beret.

The New York primary has always been surreal. Front runners get squashed there. Jimmy Carter was up 27 points four days before the 1980 voting but got flattened by Ted Kennedy. That is why Clinton arrived with a huge delegate lead (1,021 to 164) and much dread. He wanted to put Brown away in convincing fashion. This was not to be. In the last days of the campaign, a quarter of New York voters remained undecided, and Clinton's healthy lead in the polls had the feel of crepe.

In some other life Jerry Brown must have been born in New York City. Unlike Clinton, he immediately navigated the city's politics with the Zen of a cabdriver weaving his way around potholes. "California is the hurly-burly closest to New York," he explained. He defined his constituency and mauled his opponent. He grafted disaffected strains of labor, minority and environmental blocs with those voters who are simply furious at everything. "Someone like Jerry Brown is the future of politics in this country," says Michael Manza, 31, a New York Stock Exchange clerk.

For Clinton, New York was a must-win state. A loss to Brown would reignite efforts among Democratic insiders to find another candidate. But Brown's slashing street attacks have eroded Clinton's claim to be the agent of change against Bush's ancien regime. "Clinton is the personification of a system and a politics that don't work," Brown barked. "I constitute a challenge to the failed status quo." Only in the last few days of the campaign, when Clinton loosened up and displayed more passion on the stump, did he seem to hit his stride.

At least initially, Clinton also confronted the ominous silence of Governor Mario Cuomo, who professed neutrality the way a cobra claims no interest in a passing mouse. Clinton, after all, called Cuomo a "mean son of a bitch" in the now famous taped telephone conversation with Gennifer Flowers. Cuomo is a man who holds a grudge, and it was no surprise when he and Brown had their picture taken together nine critical days before he met with Clinton. After meeting Clinton in Albany at week's end, however, Cuomo not only said their differences had been buried but paired glowing praise for the Arkansan with an extremely tepid mention of Brown. "As a package, Bill Clinton will make in my opinion a superb President," said Cuomo. "Jerry Brown, I will support if he is the candidate, given the alternative."

Finally there was the ghost of Paul Tsongas, whose name remains on the New York ballot despite the suspension of his candidacy last month. In one poll, Tsongas retains a higher favorability rating (40%) than either Brown or Clinton.

Both Clinton and Brown got caught in the jaws of the New York media, which seemed determined to trap them in a game of trivial pursuit. CLINTON ON THE S- POT, blared the New York Post about his recent admission that he tried marijuana as a graduate student. The Daily News chimed in about Brown's lack of support for New York City during its fiscal crisis in 1975: HE MOONBEAMED BIG APPLE. Appearing on Donahue, which is taped in Manhattan, Clinton was subjected to a half-hour interrogation about his sex life that seemed endless. The next day Brown came on the program and was asked if he was gay. "If you want to know, Do I go out with girls? Yes, I do."

The worst self-inflicted wound was Clinton's marijuana confession. The damage flowed less from the admission than from the way Clinton phrased it. In the past, when asked if he had ever used drugs, Clinton replied that he had never broken any state or federal laws. Only when a reporter crafted a surgically worded question asking if he had ever broken the laws of another country did Clinton finally acknowledge trying pot "a time or two" while a graduate student in England more than 20 years ago. He added that he hadn't enjoyed it and "didn't inhale it" -- touching off skeptical guffaws from baby boomers across the land.

Brown has credibility problems of his own. A New York Times poll showed that 59% of voters think he says whatever voters want to hear. His opportunistic shifts on issues over the years led one local writer to conclude that he has more positions than the Kama Sutra. Clinton sought to exploit Brown's reputation for shiftiness by harping on his rival's plan for a 13% flat tax to replace the current tax code. The flat tax has been pilloried by most economists as regressive and disastrous to the poor. It would be especially costly for New Yorkers because deductions for state and local taxes, which are hefty in the state, would not be allowed in Brown's scheme. Clinton says that what he calls "Jerry's tax" is "the most reactionary proposal in a presidential campaign in my lifetime." Even Brown's supporters have problems with it. One sign at a Brown rally read, JERRY, I'M VOTING FOR YOU BUT PLEASE DROP THE FLAT TAX.

While Brown hectored voters like Savonarola about the corrupt political system in Washington, Clinton worked two key blocs of Democratic primary voters -- blacks and Jews. At the end of last week he held a 2-to-1 lead over Brown with both groups. Clinton stands to benefit among Jews, who constitute about 30% of the Democratic primary vote, from Brown's offer to Jackson to be his running mate (an offer Jackson has coyly avoided accepting thus far). Brown felt the heat when he addressed the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York two days after Clinton had received a warm reception from the group. The mere mention of Jackson, who offended Jews by referring to New York as "Hymietown" in 1984, triggered boos, hisses and outbursts from the audience. "This is good," observed Brown, who craves conflict as much as Clinton avoids it. But he had no comeback when a member of the audience stood up and told him, "We are certainly not opposed to a black Vice President. We are opposed to the person. We think you have not chosen wisely."

Clinton's fears about his campaign unraveling under Brown's relentless assaults were reflected in a startling reversal of debate strategy. After avoiding a rich diet of face-to-face confrontation with Brown, Clinton suddenly challenged Brown to six debates. Two of the resulting showdowns, earnest discussions of urban problems, showed how close both men are on most domestic issues. They agree that Bush has abandoned the cities. Both nod vigorously to virtually any question about increased funding for urban needs.

But the similarity between the two candidates on some issues is a mirage. There is, in fact, a huge gap between Clinton's laundry list of proposals on the economy, education reform, foreign policy and other issues and Brown's mercurial tendency to invent policy on the fly. In New York those differences were often overwhelmed by campaign hoopla and media sideshows -- useful training for the general election in the fall.