Democrats Watch Yer Back

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."