CLINTON PREPARES FOR TUSSLE ON HILL IN FAST-TRACK PROCESS.

Byline: Robert A. Rankin Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Once again, the biggest obstacle standing between President Clinton and a major victory is the opposition of his fellow Democrats in the House.

This week's showdown is hardly the first time. One year after Clinton became the first Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to win re-election as president, he faces stronger opposition from his own party - especially in the House - than any president in memory.

On Friday the House will vote on Clinton's top legislative priority this year: winning authority to negotiate trade deals under the fast-track process. That permits a president to submit trade treaties to Congress for up-or-down votes without allowing changes, a power Clinton insists is essential to America's economic future.

Every president since Gerald Ford has had that power. Most Republicans want Clinton to have it too. To win in the House, however, Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., insists that Clinton also needs votes from a respectable minority of Democrats, and he is having a devil of a time finding them.

Clinton faced similar Democrat rebellions on big tests such as his balanced-budget and tax-cut deals and on granting China Most Favored Nation trade status.

Why is Clinton's grip so weak on the loyalties of House Democrats? Lawmakers, White House officials and independent analysts cite four reasons:

Big Labor is dead set against this fast-track bill, and most House Democrats are loath to cross the unions because they need their help, and their campaign donations, to win re-election next year.

House Democrats, especially their leaders, resent the way Clinton has shut them out of negotiations on big bills ever since Republicans took control of Congress in 1995.

Most House Democrats are liberals, reflecting the working-class and inner-city people who elect them, while Clinton's centrist approach to politics draws in suburbanites and business interests. One result is honest differences of opinion over which policies are ideologically acceptable for Democrats.

House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri wants to beat Vice President Al Gore as the Democrats' presidential nominee in 2000, and many of his legislative troops see the fast-track fight as, in part, a test of loyalty to him.

``The biggest factor is labor money,'' said a House aide working to round up Democratic votes for fast track. ``The threat of withholding campaign money is taken very seriously. The individual unions are strong-arming people, especially the freshmen. You're looking at people who will lose up to $100,000'' in contributions, enough to make a big difference in many House campaigns, said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Unions are working all-out to beat fast track because labor leaders see it, correctly, as an extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement that Clinton struck with Canada and Mexico in 1994. For Big Labor, NAFTA is poison - a one-way ticket south for thousands of U.S. jobs and a green light for U.S. managers to make union workers compete against Third World wages.

A second sore point dividing Democrats is their relationship with Clinton.

``The House Democrats, in particular our leadership, have felt the president has not worked closely with them,'' said one top House Democrat who asked not to be identified.

Citing last year's welfare-reform bill, the budget and tax-cut package this year, and now fast track, the lawmaker said ``the president negotiated with Republicans more than with Democrats. And the Democrats he did negotiate with were the Blue Dogs'' and other conservatives and moderates, not the liberal majority.

``I think that's what's going on in all of this to a large extent,'' this Democrat said, noting that House Republicans used to feel similar resentment when George Bush ignored them to cut deals with Democrats, who then ruled the House.

The lesson is that, to achieve anything, presidents must compromise with whoever runs Congress.