Congressional Race Is South Fork Priority

All was quiet on the Presidential front here this week, while the race for the seat in the House of Representatives from the First Congressional District drew most local attention.

In East Hampton, there are no headquarters for President Clinton and Vice President Gore or their Republican challengers, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, and other signs of grass-roots activism - signs on front lawns, posters in shop windows, brochures in the mailbox, telephone solicitations at dinner time - only have begun popping up in the last week or two.

Called Important

With the 1994 and 1995 Republican victories as a prologue to Tuesday's election, both Democratic and Republican organizers are concentrating on the Congressional race. The district is made up of the five East End towns, Brookhaven, and a piece of Smithtown.

"It's an underground movement," Christopher Kelley, the recently renamed chairman of the Town Democratic Committee, said humorously. He quickly added that East Hampton's was the only committee in the district to mail Nora Bredes's campaign literature to every registered Democrat in town and that supporters here had started her off by raising $50,000 of the nearly $300,000 deposited in her campaign account so far.

Ms. Bredes, a County Legislator, is seeking to unseat U.S. Representative Michael P. Forbes, a one-term incumbent who has powerful friends in Washington, a strong Republican voter base at home, and about $750,000 in campaign donations so far.

"It's an important race for us here. Mike has been good for the East End and has done good constituent service here, and we'd like to send him back to Washington," said Perry B. (Chip) Duryea 3d, the East Hampton Republican party leader.

Other Spaces

A phone bank operating out of a borrowed office at Riverhead Building Supply in East Hampton and Mr. Duryea's seafood distributorship in Montauk will start ringing up "prime Republican voters" tonight to promote the candidate, with strategists from the County Committee guiding them, said Mr. Duryea.

Mr. Kelley said his law office on Main Street in East Hampton Village is being used by campaign workers running a phone bank to get out the vote for President Clinton, Ms. Bredes, Harold Bennett, their Town Trustee hopeful, and other Democratic candidates. Mr. Kelley is a partner in the firm of Twomey, Latham, Shea & Kelley.

"The bulk of the voters are in the west end so there's no money for a headquarters in the east," said Mr. Kelley of the Presidential campaign. "Anyway, a headquarters is high visibility, but it doesn't accomplish much unless it's a working space," he said.

Seen As Vulnerable

Nationally, the Democrats are targeting four G.O.P. House seats they consider ripe for the taking and essential to regaining the majority position. Mr. Forbes's seat is among them. Fearing there is truth to the theory that an incumbent is most vulnerable after his first term, and mindful of criticism that Mr. Forbes is farther to the right than the average Republican in his district, his supporters have likewise flocked to give Mr. Forbes extra help.

Of the 333,653 persons eligible to vote in the district on Tuesday, the largest bloc, 142,054, are Republicans, compared with 80,403 Democrats. While that might indicate Mr. Forbes has his second term in the bag, the 90,634 voters who are not aligned with a party cause serious doubt.

"If you look at the geographics of this district, it's huge, from Montauk to a corner of Smithtown. And it varies in terms of demographics, with the bulk of the voters between Riverhead and Smithtown. It is considered a swing district. . . . It could go either way," said Mr. Duryea.

Balance Of Power

According to the County Board of Elections, the number of registered East Hampton voters eligible to enter the booth on Tuesday is up by 942 from last year, to 13,698.

The traditional balance of power continues to be weighted for the G.O.P., which this year has 4,921 voters, but the Democrats had the greater increase over last year, increasing their ranks by 405 to 4,397, compared with 225 more for the G.O.P. That gives the G.O.P. a 524-vote advantage.

The unaligned, known in Board of Elections lingo as "blanks," continue to represent a powerful and much-courted bloc in East Hampton, as they do across the First Congressional District and the nation. This year there are 3,730 unaligned voters in town.

Fewer "Blanks"

"We always consider them strong Democratic prospects. However, there was a time when it was said that most of the newly registered were blanks, but that's not true anymore. Most new registrants are choosing to be Democrat or Republican," said Mr. Kelley.

The unaligned showed an increase over last year of 180, proportionately similar to the growth in registration for alternative parties. This year, there are 203 eligible Conservatives, 163 in the Independence Party, 46 Right-to-Lifers, 121 Liberals, and 4 in the Freedom Party.

Local Democrats also will be tapping voters "with certain demographic characteristics and with a sensitivity to those issues that Nora Bredes's record is most in tune with," said Mr. Kelley.

Women And Seniors

That translates into women and seniors, who are considered most likely to find fault with the incumbent's stands on abortion, gun control, and Medicare, and find Ms. Bredes's more liberal positions on those matters and her record on the environment attractive.

As a result, volunteers will be ringing up all the Democrats in town, all the independents, and "targeted" Re publicans, meaning women and seniors.

On the Republican side, getting out as many party regulars as possible for two other incumbents, State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., is the second priority for the phone bank.

Senator LaValle is seeking his 11th term, and Assemblyman Thiele is seeking his second. Mr. Thiele has been elected to office easily in the past, becoming Southampton Supervisor and County Legislator with votes from across the spectrum.

"Realistically, they're in pretty good shape," added Mr. Duryea.

Lots Of Choices

Altogether, voters in East Hampton and Southampton Towns will share 13 choices for elected officials - President, U.S. Representative, State Senator, State Assemblyman, seven State Supreme Court judgeships, and two for the County Court - and five decisions on identical or nearly identical referendums.

In East Hampton, there is additional competition among three candidates for one seat on the Town Trustees. In Southampton voters also will decide on three local referendums related to open space and the town budget cap.

The race for Town Trustee is the only town contest this year. Voters will choose among Mr. Bennett, the Democrat, Gregg de Waal, the G.O.P.'s candidate, who ran two years ago as a Democrat without success, and Stuart B. Vorpahl Jr., running on the Independence Party line.