From: clarinews@clarinet.com (NED KILKELLY)
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Subject: N.Y. primary to test Clinton's frontrunner status
Keywords: politics
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 92 12:17:43 PDT
Location: new york city
ACategory: usa
Slugword: clinton
Priority: major
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	NEW YORK (UPI) -- On television and the streets of Manhattan, Bill
Clinton Monday used the waning hours before New York's primary to
persuade wavering Democrats that his campaign represents the best chance
of bringing positive change to Washington.
	The Arkansas governor, after taping the last debate of a bruising
primary battle with former California governor Edmund ``Jerry'' Brown,
took a meandering walk through Midtown Manhattan, stopping to buy a T-
shirt for his daughter and a cup of coffee from a curbside vendor.
	``My dad went to New York, and all I got was bashed by the press and
this lousy shirt,'' quipped James Carville, the campaign's chief
strategist, about what message the candidate might choose to bring home.
	Carville later backed off, saying he thought coverage of the primary
was as fair as past campaigns, in contrast to the candidate who has said
he thinks the New York press has been extra tough on him.
	``It's always been rough in New York. They didn't make it tougher in
1992 for Bill Clinton,'' Carville said.
	Trailed by a horde of reporters, photographers and television news
crews, Clinton shook hands with potential supporters, occassionally
stopping to answer questions, recite political positions or just plain
chat.
	The frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination -- at least
until New Yorkers vote in Tuesday's primary -- appeared at ease as he
lived up to his reputation as a candidate who thrives on the stump.
	Political analysts agree that a Clinton win in New York, however
narrow, would virtually lock up his nomination, while a victory for
Brown would throw the campaign into chaos and threaten to deadlock the
convention when the party returns to Manhattan in July.
	The wild card in Tuesday's voting was former Massachusetts Paul
Tsongas, who despite having ``suspended'' his campaign, won the
endorsement of New York Newsday and the support of voters dissatisfied
with Clinton and Brown.
	Tsongas said Sunday he would announce Wednesday whether he will re-
enter the race.
	``It's up to him,'' Clinton said before an afternoon rally at
Syracuse University that attracted about a thousand people adding that
Tsongas's message hadn't sold in primaries in Michigan, Florida or
Texas.
	While declining to offer a prediction, Clinton did say, ``If the
people of New York think as much of me as I think of them, I will win
here tomorrow.''
	Most who crossed paths with the candidate in Manhattan Monday said
they thought a lot of the candidate.
	``I like him. I think he means well,'' said Jim Kurz, of Long Island,
a steamfitter at work on a Midtown job site. ``Anybody would be better
than Bush. We need change.''
	``You go with the record, and he's got the record,'' said Gil
Kashkin, the manager of the Stage Deli, the famed Manhattan eatery
Clinton visited as patrons ate breakfast.
	``It's good luck. You want to be elected, you come to the Stage Deli,
'' Kashkin said.
	Shelly Blackburn, of Atlanta, Ga., on vacation with her husband and
parents-in-law, told the governor that her mother went to high school
near his hometown, prompting a warm reaction from the man dubbed ``Slick
Willie'' for evading straight answers.
	``I told him I was from Arkansas, and he grabbed me and gave me a big
bearhug,'' she said.
	``He has what it takes,'' said her father-in-law Brady Blackburn Sr.,
of Nashville, N.C.
	Earlier, both candidates appeared on the NBC ``Today'' program and
then taped a ``Donahue'' show without an audience in which both
emphasized the need for a change in who occupies the White House.
	``I would say the fundamental lynchpin of difference is the extent of
challenge that you think is necessary to the reigning leadership in both
parties,'' Brown said.
	``The Democratic Party is about to be transformed into an engine for
change at the national level,'' Clinton said. ``The question is, who has
the better ideas?''
	Not everyone was ready to be swept up in the winds of change. The
Stage Deli still won't name a sandwich after a candidate, regardless of
who wins Tuesday's primary or November's election, said owner Paul
Zolege.
	But what would a sandwich named after a politician be made of?
	``Tongue, ham and lots of bologna,'' Zolege said. ``What else?''
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