Four Democratic Presidential Prospects Sketch Their Positions at Midwest Rally : Politics: Harkin, Tsongas, Rockefeller, Clinton create a climate of ideological diversity in Wisconsin appearance.

MILWAUKEE —  A rough outline of the ideological order of battle for the 1992 Democratic presidential competition emerged here Saturday from the first so-called candidate cattle show of this late-starting campaign season.

Based on their records, their rhetoric and their potential appeal, the four presidential prospects who addressed more than 800 delegates to the Wisconsin state party convention can be classified under four different labels:

--Traditional Liberal--Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who made an impassioned populist appeal for support from the constituencies who still make up the Democratic power base.

--Ideological Hybrid--Former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, the only officially declared candidate, presented himself as an unashamed liberal on such social issues as civil rights but nevertheless argued that Democrats need to be friendlier toward business if they are going to be credible on economic policy

--Pragmatic Problem Solver--West Virginia Sen. John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, who stressed the need for a solution to one of the nation’s biggest domestic problems, health insurance.

--Southern Moderate--Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton who showcased his potential for regaining party support from white middle-class voters, particularly in his native Dixie.

One factor that has fostered a climate within the party receptive to such diversity is the late start of the campaign, which measured in terms of candidate activity is lagging nearly a year behind previous quadrennials. Conspicuous by their absence from the convention sessions which began Friday and conclude today at Milwaukee’s venerable Marc Plaza hotel were the traditional buttons, banners or posters proclaiming loyalty to one candidate or another.

“This isn’t like 1984 or 1988 when we were at war with ourselves over different candidates and beliefs,” state party chairman Jeff Neubauer said in an interview. “So the way is open for new ideas and new faces.’

Still, the pull of what for the Democratic Party is tantamount to that old-time religion, the faith in liberal activism, still runs strong here in Wisconsin, a longtime stronghold of the left, going back to the days of Fighting Bob La Follette. And Harkin, with his Iowa farm-boy twang and his rough and ready delivery, exploited this to the fullest.

Noting that he has been referred to as the inheritor of the tradition of the late Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, he declared: “Amen, brother, and I am proud of it.”

He had the crowd on its feet, whooping and hollering with his denunciation of the Reagan-Bush era. “In the 1980s the rich got richer and they did it with your money and they did it with debts that your children and grandchildren will be paying for years,” he declared.

For those Republicans who like to boast that they are creating a conservative opportunity society, Harkin offered a one-word barnyard epithet.

Compared to Harkin, Tsongas was tame stuff. He got a big hand when he proclaimed his liberalism on social issues. “On human rights and women’s rights and civil rights it is the liberal positions of the Democratic Party which makes us a great nation,” declared Tsongas, who announced his candidacy last April after winning a six-year bout with cancer.

Then he revealed his conservative side when he talked about economics. Warning that “the Democratic Party does not have an economic policy on the national level,” Tsongas said “we have to do better.”

“You cannot redistribute wealth, if you don’t create it,” he said. “If you are going to be pro-jobs you can’t be anti-business.”

Rockefeller leaned hardest on his expertise and devotion to the health-care issue. “Our system is an outrage,” he said of the present health-care situation that leaves 34 million Americans without insurance and under which costs are skyrocketing.

Pointing out that Democratic congressional leaders had recently unveiled a plan based on the approach recommended by a national commission which he had headed, and aimed at curbing cost increases and broadening insurance protection, Rockefeller declared: “We challenge--we dare--the President and the Republican Party to join us in making this bill law and solving our country’s health care crisis.”

At a beer and bratwurst picnic at nearby Zeidler Park on Saturday afternoon, moderate Southerner Clinton said it was not enough for Democrats to put themselves on the side of the underdog, as liberal Harkin had done. They also need “to offer a program that responds to real people and real needs,” he said, citing education and welfare reform as examples.

As for Democratic chances in the South, Clinton told reporters that depended on easing tensions between the races so that the party could attract whites who have been hurt by GOP economic policies. Clinton was asked if a Southerner would have an advantage in solving the South’s racial problems.

“Those of us who grew up with it, know it,” he replied.