Attention Nafta Shoppers!

By MICHAEL DUFFY WASHINGTON

It's hard to imagine that someone as freewheeling as Bill Clinton could become a disciplined guerrilla warrior. Yet the President has deliberately gone underground in his battle for congressional approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement. That pact, which would tear down most trade barriers between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, is faring poorly under the damaging "air war" of television ads, talk-show appearances and telephone banks designed by labor unions and Ross Perot. So Clinton is fighting back in defilade -- in the congressional districts of 100 undecided lawmakers whom he believes can be won over with special attention and favors.

Laura Tyson, the top White House economist, was dispatched to Atlanta last Wednesday to drum up support for NAFTA among two groups of business leaders. Tyson's trip was designed, in part, to put pressure on Democratic Representative Buddy Darden and other members of the Georgia delegation who are still not sure how they will vote.

Transportation Secretary Federico Pena spent Thursday in Baltimore, Maryland, touting the benefits NAFTA would shower on a dredging-equipment firm that exports 80% of its products overseas. Not coincidentally, Pena spoke not far from the home district of Representative Ben Cardin, another Democrat who remains undecided about NAFTA.

Later that day, Treasury chief Lloyd Bentsen told Texas Instruments workers in Representative Sam Johnson's north Dallas district that the firm would add 2,000 jobs if NAFTA is approved. Johnson's vote too is up for grabs.

Such targeted hits have helped Clinton halt the progress of anti-NAFTA forces since September and begin to pick off votes in the House of Representatives, where NAFTA faces a make-or-break vote Nov. 17. But a more important ingredient in this campaign is that Clinton himself has moved to a concerted "inside game" in which he concentrates less on public appearances than on behind-the-scenes lobbying. "We now have the momentum on our side," says Representative Bill Richardson, a key House vote counter. "I would not have said that two weeks ago."

One sign of Clinton's seriousness is that the NAFTA campaign has taken on % the frenzied quality of the previous do-or-die efforts on behalf of the budget and health care. Every Tuesday or Wednesday in the Roosevelt Room, Clinton meets for at least an hour with 10 to 20 undecided House members from both parties. The goal is to meet all waverers by the end of October. Once a week, Bentsen, Vice President Al Gore, Trade Representative Mickey Kantor and economics counselor Bob Rubin invite to Washington 100 business and opinion leaders -- mostly handpicked by undecided House members -- to learn more about the pact. Every visitor receives a follow-up note from the President and a call from someone in the NAFTA "war room."

White House lobbyist Howard Paster, meanwhile, has drafted Cabinet officers into a "shadow whip" system aimed at turning the undecided around. On "even" weeks, agency chiefs meet with three undecided members; on "odd" weeks, they are deployed to at least one fence-sitter's congressional district to make speeches, attract local press and provide "cover" for the lawmaker to vote yes.

The Cabinet chiefs are also gathering information on the handouts for which the holdouts might swap their votes. "We're not trading yet," said an Administration official. "But is the bazaar open? Absolutely."

Most members are looking for concessions that would minimize the local impact of exports from Mexico. California lawmakers want to delay lifting the wine quota. Martin Frost of Texas is worried about flat-glass imports, and has asked for a study on how many jobs will be lost and won in his district. Republican Dan Miller is worried about the impact of Mexican produce on vegetable growers in his Florida district who specialize in the "winter tomatoes" that spruce up salads between late fall and early spring. "I've got a major tomato problem," said Miller last week. "I'd like to be for it," he said, but added, "I'm switching to leaning against."

Not all the fence-sitters are getting what they want. A handful of lawmakers from districts that produce household broomcorns have been told they will get no help from the White House. On the other hand, Labor Secretary Robert Reich announced this week that the Administration will propose spending an additional $100 million over the next 18 months to workers who lose their jobs as a result of NAFTA -- even though nearly everyone at the White House, including Clinton, opposes the idea as ineffective and thus a waste of money. And the White House is willing to redress problems that have nothing to do / with Mexican imports: it is trying to earn a few votes in Pennsylvania and Ohio by promising to "adjust" steel imports with Japan.

The dealing has some Republicans who favor NAFTA hinting that they might bolt. Last Friday Representative Tom Ewing of Illinois asked Clinton to forgo a new $5-a-seat tax on overseas air travel to help offset lost tariff revenues. New taxes, said Ewing, could be NAFTA's "death knell."

But NAFTA's fate next month will probably turn on 20 votes among Congressmen from Florida and Louisiana, who insist that sugar and citrus producers in their districts should continue to be protected from free-market competition, and that U.S. consumers should be protected from buying less-expensive Mexican imports. The treaty provides for a 15-year adjustment period on sugar imports, but it also allows the Mexicans to export sugar freely after seven years if that nation has a surplus. Sugar-state lawmakers are worried that the Mexicans will substitute corn syrup and other sweeteners for domestic use and divert cane and beet sugar for export, thus creating an artificial surplus. "If it's not fixed," says Louisiana Senator John Breaux, " NAFTA cannot pass in the House. Period."

Such adjustments in the name of free trade are frowned upon by free-traders, but that does not trouble the White House. "Trade agreements are never perfect," Tyson said last week. "They always require compromises and balancing of interests. So I don't think it undermines the principle of free trade."

Besides, Clinton believes he had little choice. With less than four weeks left before the vote, House leaders say they have only 156 firm "aye" votes, a total that includes 93 Republicans. That leaves Clinton 62 votes short of victory. The count is a sad commentary on his Democratic Party: no one on Capitol Hill can recall the last time the opposition party was expected to provide more votes than the ruling party on a White House piece of legislation.

Clinton will soon beef up the "outside game," making more NAFTA-specific speeches as the vote nears. This week he will be host of an "American Products-American Jobs" fair on the South Lawn, featuring workers who stand to benefit from NAFTA. White House officials say miniature versions of the event will be repeated in key members' districts in the coming weeks. It's a measure of the Administration's aggressiveness for the sake of NAFTA that Clinton quietly turned to former Bush aide Craig Fuller, now a vice president at Philip Morris, to organize the South Lawn affair. It is also a bit ironic: Fuller organized the 1992 Republican Convention in Houston that was designed to sink Clinton's campaign.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett and Dan Goodgame/Washington