Campaign Field Clear For Clinton - At Least So Far White House Has Discouraged Potential Challengers

The White House calculates that President Clinton already is on the verge of winning the first critical contest in his bid for re-election: He apparently has succeeded in heading off a serious challenge for the Democratic nomination.

The 1996 election still looks like an uphill climb, with the president’s approval rating only occasionally bumping 50 percent and Electoral College arithmetic showing how difficult it will be for him to win. But having a clear field in next year’s primaries will give him precious time, money and running room to get ready for next November.

“If you just look at history, presidents don’t have primaries, they win,” senior White House adviser George Stephanopoulos declared. “They do, they lose.”

If no opponent emerges - and there’s still some time left for one to get organized, though not much - Clinton will be the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt not to be challenged for renomination. That’s no accident, aides say; for months the White House has waged a campaign to discourage potential challengers from embarking on the sort of intra-party battle that wounded President Carter in 1980.

The president moved to undercut a potential primary challenge from the Rev. Jesse Jackson by delivering an emotional endorsement of affirmative action this summer, though only after months of wavering on the issue. (The civil rights leader says he is still weighing an independent bid, however.)

In an impressive display of political muscle, Clinton already has raised more than $15 million for his reelection campaign. The full $29 million the Clinton/Gore ‘96 committee aims to raise probably will be in the bank by the end of the year. His biggest fund-raising swing of the year - a four-day, five-city tour - starts in two weeks.

And Clinton got some unintended help from congressional Republicans when summer hearings failed to make any major damaging disclosures in the Whitewater affair. Some analysts had speculated that only serious charges implicating the president could have triggered enough Democratic discontent to persuade Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey or House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt to make the race.

Now all Clinton has to do is win in November ‘96.

“Everybody is realistic saying this is going to be a tough campaign,” said Ann Lewis, a veteran Democratic consultant who on Friday started work as Clinton’s deputy campaign manager. “The American public has made quite clear their level of dissatisfaction with political institutions … and they are not feeling calmer or more confident about their lives.”

“He has to draw an inside straight in the Electoral College,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of a nonpartisan Washington-based political newsletter. But Rothenberg cited two possible developments that could help: A third-party candidate who drained off some anti-Clinton votes from the Republican nominee; and a fratricidal Republican primary.

Clinton’s political team is older and potentially more fractious than the close-knit band that helped engineer his campaign in 1992.