Hard Sell

By MICHAEL DUFFY WASHINGTON

The son and stepson of salesmen, Bill Clinton can do the soft sell. And he can do the hard sell.

Senator James Exon got the velvet treatment last week, when the White House began to worry that the tightfisted Nebraska Democrat might not back the $5.7 billion extension of unemployment benefits that is the first step in Clinton's economic-stimulus plan. Clinton wanted the votes of all 57 Democratic Senators, and Exon, who had made it known in recent weeks that Clinton's economic plan cut too little from federal spending, was withholding support.

On the eve of the vote, Clinton invited Exon to the White House for a rare, ! hour-long chat over coffee in the Oval Office. A pipe smoker, Exon wasn't allowed to light up in the White House. But Clinton listened quietly while his guest talked, and encouraged him to spell out alternative cuts in spending, explaining that "nothing is locked in concrete." The next day, Exon voted for the extension.

The President used a different technique with Senator Richard Shelby. White House officials were furious when the conservative Alabama Democrat criticized the Clinton program's lack of cuts in a meeting chaired by Vice President Al Gore on Feb. 18 -- even though one of Shelby's most treasured pork projects, the $31 billion space station -- was left virtually untouched by Clinton's budget trimmers. "Inexcusable," said a steamed Clinton strategist. Two weeks ago, the empire struck back, shifting from Alabama to Texas a 90-person space- shuttle management team long protected by Shelby. Five days later, Shelby quietly joined 55 other Democrats and 10 Republicans and voted for the unemployment bill. "Mr. Shelby's vote was appreciated," said an Administration official wryly.

Nearly three weeks after Clinton unveiled his controversial plan, public support remains high. Thanks in part to the shot across Shelby's bow, few Democrats are misbehaving. By daring them to propose additional cuts, Clinton has thrown Republicans on the defensive. Superstitious White House officials refuse to admit that their strategy is working. But as one senior official said last week, "This is going extraordinarily well right now."

One reason for this is that Clinton and his team are emerging as adroit behind-the-scenes operators. For two weeks House Democrats such as Tim Penny of Minnesota, Charles Stenholm of Texas and Dave McCurdy of Oklahoma had been pressing party leaders to consider an additional $82 billion in cuts, including $20 billion in Clinton's new "investment" programs. The moderates want to gut the space station, the supercollider and a number of weapons projects, such as the V-22 Osprey and remnants of the Strategic Defense Initiative and apply the proceeds to deficit reduction. The centrist faction was bolstered by a report from the Congressional Budget Office that revealed that Clinton had overestimated the deficit savings in his own plan by $16 billion. Echoing a growing chorus of lawmakers who believe Clinton underestimated the public appetite for cuts by merely nicking programs he should have killed, Penny said, "We figure we have to go after at least one big-ticket item or we won't look credible."

Late last week White House officials quietly signaled their willingness to accept some portion of the deeper cuts in the House Budget Resolution. In exchange, the backbenchers agreed to a request from White House chief of staff Mack McLarty that, win or lose, they will support the President's proposal in the end. "McLarty is our secret weapon," said one Administration official. "He kept Penny, McCurdy and Stenholm completely on the reservation."

White House officials add that additional cuts are fine as long as Clinton's new spending on education, training and technology are protected. Besides, they note, additional cuts in space and defense don't need to be adopted -- at least not yet. One reason is that many of the programs on the moderates' chopping block are based in Texas, where a special election for Lloyd Bentsen's Senate seat is set for May 1. Once that contest is behind him, many lawmakers believe, Clinton may consider additional cuts. But for now, Clinton is protecting such big programs in public in order to keep key lawmakers on board. "The balance of this package is so fine," said one White House official, "that if one thing gets pulled out, there's a possibility that the whole thing will fall apart."

Clinton's lobbyists on Capitol Hill have received a big assist from public- opinion polls. "It's a security blanket," said one official. "It just reinforces your arguments when you go to the Hill. You can say, 'By the way, you're not going out on a limb if you support us.' " One particularly encouraging sign, Clinton aides say, is that voters who since last November's election consistently told White House pollsters they voted for George Bush or Ross Perot have begun to insist that they were part of the Clinton Revolution.

Largely left out of this equation are the divided Republicans, who under Senate minority leader Robert Dole's guidance are lying low. The strategy is to propose "defining amendments," which will expose the weaknesses of Clinton's programs, but stop short of proposing an alternative. "We're not going to clutter the field," said House minority leader Bob Michel. "We need to keep criticizing his proposal."

The snipers' strategy has White House officials scratching their heads in confusion. Administration officials note that the Republicans have chosen to level most of their fire at the new spending programs, which are, according to White House polls, the most popular aspects of the Clinton proposal. "From a purely political point of view," said one official, "it doesn't make a lot of sense."

Younger Republicans like Representative John Kasich of Ohio believe the G.O.P. cannot beat something with nothing. "We can't be a bunch of naysayers," said Kasich, who is preparing his own list of cuts. "We need to have a plan of our own." But that is proving easier said than done: Colorado Senator Hank Brown unveiled a proposal to hack $679 billion from the deficit over the next five years, but his cuts in entitlement programs are so deep that he has yet to win a co-sponsor. Texas Senator Phil Gramm's "plan" -- its specifics fit on a one-page fax -- eliminates Clinton's new taxes and investments and restores spending caps created by President Bush. In effect, however, Gramm's plan is a recipe for doing nothing at all, which is what got the Republicans in trouble in the first place.

Certainly there is room for improvement in Clinton's plan, particularly in its credibility. Many detect a widening gap between Clinton's plan and his rhetoric. Ross Perot brought his traveling road show to a joint House and Senate panel and complained that Clinton's effort to call a new tax on Social Security benefits a spending cut was too sneaky by half. "Just call a spade a spade," said Perot. "It's not a savings, it's a tax." Similarly, the President denounced government waste last week, but he is not above rolling the pork barrel himself. He found $500 million for displaced defense workers during a recent trip to Southern California. His vow to create a network of more than 100 "manufacturing extension centers" seems smart only if he intends to take credit for killing it later on.

How much Clinton revises his plan will depend on how successful Republicans -- or for that matter, Democrats -- are at calling attention to such contradictions. Some Republicans believe it may already be too late. "Bill Clinton has overcome the chief flaw of Democrats of the last generation: they talked 'left,' legislated 'left' and were therefore 'left' with no appeal to most Americans," said Wayne Berman, a former Assistant Secretary at the Commerce Department under Bush. "What Clinton is doing is feinting to the center but legislating to the left."

For the time being, Clinton is working all sides to good effect, as public support reinforces his private lobbying of Congress. His one risk is that ) having raised expectations so high, the credibility problem that haunted his campaign could come back with a vengeance -- especially if voters one day conclude that the economic package he sold so skillfully contains something very different from what they thought they were buying.

With reporting by Nancy Traver/Washington