IT'S MIDDLE-CLASS WARFARE

JUST BEFORE THE SENATE VOTED last week on its welfare-reform bill, New York's Daniel Moynihan, who had engineered his own revision in 1988, demanded a bit of rare institutional solemnity. Since most of his fellow Democrats would be embracing what he considered a historic betrayal of the poor, the Senators should rise in turn from their desks to announce their votes aloud. But Moynihan was one of the few who bothered to stay at his seat during the voting. Democrats milled around. Republican Senators engaged in a round of celebratory backslapping with the 20 or so House members, including Speaker Newt Gingrich, who made a rare visit to the Senate chamber. Moynihan sat there with the pinched expression of a man watching the old certainties of his party expire without so much as a moment of silence.

And it was a moment worth marking--a clear signal that when it comes to protecting the poor, the party of the New Deal and the Great Society can't and won't do much anymore except trim the rough edges from G.O.P. plans. Though the Republican welfare bill was far harsher than the reform Bill Clinton proposed last year, which envisioned billions of dollars in new spending for job training and child care, the President pronounced the Senate plan acceptable. All but 11 of the 46 Senate Democrats voted for it.

Effectively cutting loose the poor was just part of an effort by the Democrats to remake themselves in the face of a Republican juggernaut that is now racing through Medicare. As they prepare for a bitter battle over that crown jewel of the Great Society, Democrats are determined to refashion themselves as defenders of the middle class against the G.O.P. raiders. It was the foul mood of the middle class that made welfare a losing issue for Democrats. And for the same reason, with pocketbook issues dominating the final weeks of the congressional budget fight, the latest items on the Republican agenda could now play in favor of the Democrats.

Sensing their chance, Democrats are showing an unaccustomed unity. Whether it's Medicare, Medicaid, student loans or the earned-income tax credit, which lets the working poor keep more of their paychecks, the usually fractious Democrats in Congress are arguing in unison that the G.O.P. doesn't just want to balance the budget. Rather, the Republicans want to rob the middle class to pay for a tax cut that will give most of its benefits to people who already have plenty of money.

Meanwhile, on a combined speaking and fund-raising tour last week, Clinton spent most of his time playing up his differences with Republicans on the same issues, always emphasizing the costs to middle-class voters. As a Clinton aide put it, "He's road testing new material.'' Even on Medicaid, the health-care program mostly for the poor that Republicans propose to hand back to the states, Clinton has been warning that the G.O.P. plan threatens government support for long-term care, leaving baby boomers to contend with their parents' nursing-home bills. "I don't think that's right'' is a big applause line.