'Scar Tissue All Over the Place'

Bella Abzug: He's Nixon's favorite Democrat.

Pat Moynihan: She stands for the politics of ruin.

Abzug: He's a political opportunist, an intellectual mercenary.

Moynihan: No one is good enough for her, unless it's her.

New York's Democrats are doing what comes naturally: cutting one another up in the U.S. Senate primary, ensuring that it will be a tattered, exhausted survivor who faces the G.O.P. nominee (almost certain to be Incumbent James Buckley) in November. With the primary vote set for next week, the two flamboyant front runners--former United Nations Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 49, and Manhattan Congresswoman Bella Abzug, 56--are providing most of the bite and bile. The three candidates who appear to be lagging--former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, 50, New York City Council President Paul O'Dwyer, 69, and Builder Abraham Hirschfeld, 58--are running less cantankerous campaigns. Moynihan and Abzug, complains O'Dwyer, are leaving "scar tissue all over the place."

More Jobs. Like a jeweler who inspects a gem for the subtlest flaw, New York Democrats quickly spot the slightest deviation from accepted liberal doctrine. For the most part, the candidates give the purists little to worry about. All five call for more jobs in the public sector, passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins full-employment bill, national health insurance, a U.S. takeover of welfare, and federal assistance to New York City--all multibillion-dollar programs that would sharply increase budget deficits or taxes or both. In heavily Jewish New York City, moreover, the candidates cannot do enough for Israel.

On other issues, the candidates--especially Moynihan--part company. Though a committed liberal on domestic matters, he believes in a strong and assertive America. He accuses his opponents of hypocrisy because they demand all-out aid for Israel at the same time they insist on trimming the Pentagon budget. "Bella has never voted a dollar for American defense," he claims. "Never one single dollar. It is against this kind of demagoguery that I'm running."

Moynihan's combination of scholarly pursuits and public service is almost without parallel in America today. Along with ground-breaking books on ethnicity (Beyond the Melting Pot, co-authored by Nathan Glazer) and the Great Society (Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding), he served as a White House Counsellor to Richard Nixon and persuaded him to support an income-maintenance program. Later, Moynihan was named Ambassador to India by Nixon and Ambassador to the U.N. by Ford. He was expected to be no great shakes as a campaigner, but he seems to be catching on. With his polka-dot bow tie, his artfully rumpled look, appearing a mite donnish and inevitably puckish, he cuts a rare figure on the campaign trail. But then, no one ever accused him of being conventional. Bubbling over with ideas, he sometimes lets his thoughts race ahead of his prudence. But so far he has not made another gaffe on the order of "benign neglect," the phrase taken from one of his memos to Nixon and gleefully misinterpreted by his enemies. Moynihan was urging a moratorium on harsh racial rhetoric, but his words were twisted to make it appear he was recommending the neglect of blacks. For this and other dubious reasons, most black leaders in New York oppose his candidacy.

Doing her best to paint Moynihan as a Nixonite in Democratic clothing, Abzug stresses her six years in Congress. She quotes the often lavish praise of colleagues and pulls out a survey showing that she is regarded as one of the most effective members of the House. Following a schedule that would tax the stamina of a Sherpa, she has the advantage of instant recognition. Her floppy, broad-brimmed hat signaling her arrival, she evokes gasps and squeals wherever she goes. "I may not look like a Senator," she likes to say, "but I think I'm what a Senator should look like."

If Bella has seemed less abrasive lately, it is obvious that she still knows how to use her elbows. Asked whether she would support Moynihan if he won the primary, she exploded: "I draw the line at going out and campaigning for a man who undermined the liberal tradition of the Democratic Party. He supported Nixon and Ford policies and has not yet repudiated those policies." Though 33 Democratic county leaders, not all of them Moynihan supporters, called on her to withdraw her statement, she would not budge.

A Good Day. Considered third in the contest, Clark is hoping for a rerun of his surprise victory in the 1974 senatorial primary. He still roams the streets in his Hush Puppies and narrow ties, chatting with voters if they are in a mood to listen, blending into the crowd if they are not. "You can't communicate very well on the street," he admits. "All you can say is, 'Hello. Have a good day.' " He has churned out position papers on every conceivable issue to appeal to thinking liberals, but their hearts mostly belong to Bella.

O'Dwyer, with his shock of white hair and Irish brogue, is a familiar figure. Nevertheless, he is trying to change his image. Identified as far back as anyone can remember with every possible liberal-left cause, he is casting himself as a "middle-of-the-road ethnic" in the probably forlorn hope of cutting into the Moynihan constituency. For all his radical past, he is also supported by the regular Democratic organization--showing that any renegade who stays around long enough eventually acquires respectability. The question is how much good this backing will do.

Hirschfeld is definitely a self-starter. He has no tangible support, no campaign organization, no issues, but plenty of gall and, more important, lots of money, which he earned from building parking garages.

Bella is considered ahead in the race. She starts with a militant following among New York's Jewish voters, who customarily cast almost 40% of the Democratic primary ballots. But Moynihan has cut into the Jewish vote with his impassioned defense of Israel at the U.N. Beyond that, he is more popular than Bella among moderate-to-conservative Roman Catholic voters, one of the state's largest voting blocs.

The incumbent, who faces a not-too-serious primary challenge from moderate Republican Congressman Peter Peyser, is no pushover. Thoughtful and engaging, he will base his campaign on the belief that voters are fed up with Government interference in so many aspects of their lives--just what his Democratic opponents want to increase.

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