The Political Interest The Voters' Latest Ailment: Health Care

Harris Wofford is the luckiest of incumbent U.S. Senators. He has the title and the perks that go with it, but he hasn't been around long enough to be tarred as a Washington insider -- a decided plus given the current political environment.

Whether or not Wofford upsets former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh in this week's special election in Pennsylvania, the magnitude and reasons for his comeback from near oblivion offer significant lessons for those unlucky enough to be seeking re-election in 1992, including, especially, George Bush.

From the moment of his appointment last May following the death of Republican John Heinz in a plane crash, Wofford, a Great Society liberal, began transforming himself into a Huey Long-like Democratic populist. In one early move, Wofford rejected the $150,000 he was supposed to receive for mass mailing expenses. In another, he renounced the $23,200 pay raise the Senate had voted itself. "There's a national recession out there," said Wofford. "Now is no time for us to be paying ourselves more of our taxpayers' hard- earned dollars." Wofford gave the extra money to a charity for injured gulf war veterans.

Those actions won Wofford editorial praise, but he still trailed Thornburgh by 44 points when the campaign began in September. His anti-Establishment pledge to "shake Washington up from top to bottom" contrasted with Thornburgh's defense of the status quo, and marginally improved his standing. His call for the Democratic Party to end its preoccupation with programs targeted to the poor in favor of a renewed emphasis on middle-class relief moved the needle a bit more, but Wofford was still considered a certain loser.

What finally made the race competitive was Wofford's constant carping about America's sorry health-care system. "The Constitution says that if you are charged with a crime, you have a right to a lawyer," Wofford intoned endlessly. "But it's even more fundamental that if you're sick, you should have the right to a doctor." Thornburgh claimed that national health insurance is too expensive, and rightly blasted Wofford for a lack of specifics. But the G.O.P. counterattack failed to resonate, and even Thornburgh was forced to admire Wofford's latest stunt, a bill the Senator introduced three weeks ago that would deny to himself and his congressional colleagues the free medical care they now receive unless and until the Congress enacts a national health-coverage program.

While many political analysts have focused on Louisiana (where David Duke, the racist former Klansman, is locked in a tight race for Governor), the White House has been worrying about Pennsylvania. "Win or lose, there are 1 1/2 crucial things to learn from Wofford," says a senior Bush adviser. "The half is about how a sagging economy can be played to advantage by Democrats and about how easily a candidate perceived as an outsider can play the desire-for- change theme against an insider. The more important signal involves the sudden saliency of the health-care issue."