FRONT-RUNNERS often have a hard time recognizing that they are not the centers of the universe. This is what helped doom Gary Hart's campaign when he invited the press to follow him around to see if he was up to any hanky-panky. And it's what helped do in Michael S. Dukakis when he rolled his eyes and ignored his staff's advice to counter the Willie Horton ad directly.

And now, as Bill Clinton responds to near-weekly allegations with little more than a made-for-TV smile, some voters seem to think that his response typifies easy Southern charm and resilience. My inkling is that Clinton is just a candidate who can already smell the velvet drapery of the Oval Office.

As the apparent dog-fight between Bill Clinton and Paul Tsongas degenerates into barb-trading and negative campaigning, they've begun to ignore real issues.

But former California Governor Jerry Brown has talked directly about the issue of power--the only real issue.

IN A WORD, it comes down to money. The 800 number, the $100 cap on contributions, the grass roots style--Brown has based his campaign on refusing to accommodate the powerful elite in America.

This strategy has been scorned by many pundits and media consultants alike. But it's working. Long after Senators Bob Kerrey and Tom Harkin dropped out, saddled with millions in debt, Brown is still alive.

And although he cites his 800 number every time you turn around, earning him derision as the most annoying candidate in the race, such tactics deserve to be the centerpiece of a campaign.

Throughout the primary season, the Democratic contenders have railed against Brown's assertion that they are part of a corrupt system that is rigged in favor of "big-money interests." Yes, it's the stuff of stump speeches, but corporations, political action committees (PACs) and wealthy individuals do have an unparalleled impact on the way the public chooses its leaders.

And although a congressional effort to reform campaign finance in 1974 limited personal contributions to $1000, the move was a simple palliative which did little to curtail the prohibitive costs of campaigning for national office.

The one characteristic that large campaign donors seem to have in common is that they are wealthy--and intend to say that way. They tend to be conservative, which is why centrist candidates like Bill Clinton, a former chair of the conservative Democratic Leadership Council, often attract the most money.

BUT THE OTHER candidates just don't get it--or pretend not to get it. The most chilling moment of the campaign occurred in a recent debate when former Sen. Paul E. Tsongas tried to dispute Brown's point about how monied interests influence the system.

Tsongas lamely claimed that even without an artificial limit, his average donation remained about $100. But a recent USA Today article on fat-cat financing showed that fully 30 percent of Tsongas' funds came from contributors who gave $1000. The figure for Bill Clinton was higher, 41 percent, and, as expected, still higher for President Bush at 70 percent.

The problem is that these candidates refuse to acknowledge that the people from whom they accept big donations and PAC funds are the same ones who demand disproportionate influence in Congress. The average voter can probably give $100, but when the stakes start getting much higher, they've become too great for the average citizen to participate.

And there are other problems. The current tax code, for example, is over 4000 pages long and is unintelligible to the average American because it is riddled with so many loopholes and tax breaks for various corporations and even wealthy individuals. Tax reform in the '80s closed some of these loopholes, but the system is still an unfair one.

The second part of Tsongas' rebuttal to Brown was that, as he rather proudly asserted, he had only had one Wall Street fund-raiser--just three days before, in fact. But that was precisely the point.

Tsongas admitted that he raised more money in the three days after New Hampshire than in the nine months leading up to it. One might think that his pro-business message would have been a natural for corporate donors.

But if they were so impressed by Tsongas' message, they had plenty of time to give money in the year-long period that Tsongas had been stumping. What changed wasn't the message, but that Tsongas won New Hampshire. Suddenly, he looked electable. Suddenly, it was his influence the Wall Streeters were after.

The point is that big money follows the front-runner. Bill Clinton's huge war chest proves that. As G.W. Dumhoff documented in The Powers That Be (1978), it doesn't matter whether the candidate is a Democrat or a Republican--fat cats want a stake in the winner. In fact, a 1972 study showed that 36 percent of contributors who gave $10,000 and up contributed to candidates of both political parties.

The point of Jerry Brown's focus on money and power is that he wants to empower regular people and pull them back into the system. Voter participation rates have followed a declining trend, and voter apathy appears to be reaching an all-time high--either because people are unimpressed by the candidates or feel that they can't influence them.

Money has a lot to do with that. It has dead-locked the political process and stacked it in favor of the wealthiest interests. Ineffectual policies regarding the environment, tax reform, health care, energy and campaign finance all result from the undue influence of these interests.

But Brown has attempted to show that telephone technology (of all things) can actually circumvent the conventional channels for reaching out to the public. And laugh as much as you want--it's kept him in the race.

ONE REASON THAT Brown may have been ignored or characterized as flaky by the media--even after winning three states and finishing a close second in several others--is that he has refused to play by their rules. Television stations have received millions of dollars from the other candidates for paid advertisements, but much less from the Brown campaign. Brown has rejected $1000-a-plate dinners and eschewed most 30-second commercials.

Discounted by the media with the two-word epithet "Governor Moonbeam," Brown was relegated to the second tier from the start. He doesn't have wellpaid publicists, speech writers or pollsters. With only seven paid people and all the rest volunteers--unheard of in a national campaign--he managed to outlast many rivals.

But even many of those who understand Brown's message of political stagnation stop short of supporting him. Some claim that they'd vote for him if only they thought he was electable. That's something I've heard again and again--and it's part of the process that Brown's talking about.

We have come to a point in our history where ideas may languish because of overzealous political punditry. People feel that elections are decided in advance by political consultants and media commentators. Indeed, as the drama, is played out--in a series of out-takes and sound-bites--these commentators have a vested, professional interest in making sure the outcome coincides with their predictions.

Others claim that Brown is disingenuous because as the chair of the Democratic Party of California, he was a master at fundraising who even opposed limitations just two years ago. Indeed, Brown raised millions of dollars during his period in office. And it was because of that experience that he realized how pervasive a hold money has on the system. If from his experience Brown doesn't have the right to expose the system and try to reform it, who will step forward?

It certainly won't be George Bush. Or Bill Clinton.