"There's always a story line in politics," Nassau County Democratic Chairman Stephen J. Sabbeth said the other day over lunch at the Davenport Press in Mineola.

"Of course, this week there's the primaries. Then there's the upcoming local elections, Carolyn McCarthy, and what unfortunately looks like a runaway Republican ticket."

If Sabbeth's press -- particularly the reports of a certain daily newspaper -- and enemies were to be believed, one would have expected to arrive at the popular Mineola restaurant only to find the chairman to be a shell of his former self.

In this case of a prominent Democrat under fire, however, to believe anything the naysayers told you would have been to be deceived.

Sabbeth, in fact, looked better than he has in years. Trimmed down by a new work-out regimen and diet, he appears now to have the energy to run marathons -- just the kind of energy he'll need to rescue the moribund local organization from itself.

Two years after the party rode the Bill Clinton/Carolyn McCarthy coattails to unexpected good fortune in a series of judicial races, the Nassau County Democratic Committee is once again roiled by infighting.

Last year, that infighting erupted into open warfare with the quixotic bid of Lewis Yevoli to unseat County Executive Thomas S. Gulotta.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Yevoli, then Oyster Bay town supervisor, spent more time assailing his party chairman than the competition.

As a result of that, the organization dissolved into factions; the net result being, in Sabbeth's words, "we beat ourselves."

This year, even without the overt infighting, the local Democrats have a tough row to hoe. Even the most noncommittal, nonpartisan pundits are predicting something very close to a Republican juggernaut.

"Our biggest problem -- and it is something that's key in every election -- is that at present there just isn't excitement at the top of our ticket," Sabbeth said. "That's one big reason why so many organizational Democrats chose to support a Betsy McCaughey Ross or a Geraldine Ferraro early on.

"They are the kinds of candidates that generate interest in a race, and those who understand politics realize that that could translate into votes further down the ballot."

As the salad and seafood arrived at the table, Sabbeth spoke at length about the need for certain candidates to generate excitement and also about teamwork.

"I can remember, two years ago, saying to Carolyn McCarthy, 'You are the closest thing we have to a saint, but in politics, sainthood means nothing unless you are on either the Democratic or Republican line in the voting booth.

"Without that, sainthood goes nowhere in this business. You have to begin to think of yourself as something other than that; you have to think of yourself, always, as a member of a franchise. That's something that was forgotten somewhere along the line by people like Saint Ben [Zwirn] and Saint [Fred] Brewington.

"Yevoli's biggest mistake in the county executive race was that he operated under the philosophy of 'If I lose, I lose.' But the truth was -- and always is when you are talking about someone at the top of a ticket, that if he loses, we all lose."

Mention of Zwirn, the perennial prodigal son of local Democratic politics, elicited a query as to whether the Port Washington resident will ever get out of certain party people's doghouses.

"Let me tell you this about Ben Zwirn," Sabbeth said, placing his fork upon the table. "Ben Zwirn is the only guy who can save North Hempstead.

"What we are witnessing now up in town hall, a town hall where the Republicans managed to regain two seats last year, is the unraveling of the Ben Zwirn phenomena in North Hempstead.

"I guess, in all candor, you'd have to say that Richard Korn created the pinhole in the wall, but it was Ben who sledgehammered his way through the wall and brought Democrats to power there.

"To my mind, he's the only Democrat up there who creates the kind of excitement this party needs to be successful. He's the only guy I've seen in North Hemsptead over the past decade who provides the kind of leadership and vision that can help this party.

"Frankly, Ben Zwirn is one of the best candidates we ever had anywhere in the county," Sabbeth continued.

"The problem with the North Hempstead portion of the Nassau Democratic Committee is they don't look at the big picture. It's the end result you have to look at. In that light, look at a Ben Zwirn. Unelected, he gives us zero. But if he is an elected official, he gives us a lot in terms of the things I've just talked about.

"The only other major Democratic candidate that we have who even comes close to approaching that is [Glen Cove Mayor] Tom Suozzi, who espouses fiscal integrity, is extremely loyal to the people he serves, knows how to promote a city and has proven that he'll fight for the things he believes in - so long as he believes that it's in the best interest of the people of Glen Cove."

Asked if Zwirn might have a future in the party, Sabbeth said yes, "but it wouldn't be an overnight process. The first thing I'd do is spend six months rehabilitating him, making him part of the franchise again. Then we'd have to sit down and look at the options."

[Reporter's Note: After speaking with Sabbeth, this newspaper contacted Zwirn, who expressed surprise about the chairman's comments. "Geez, during the primary [against incumbent town supervisor May Newburger] he just wanted to kill me.

"You never know what can happen though," Zwirn allowed. "Right now I'm very happy being a businessman, but, you know, if the right set of circumstances developed and I for some reason got out of being a businessman, I could see having the time to be in politics again."]

Because the meeting at the Davenport Press came just days before the New York primary, during which the Democratic spots for both the governor's race and the U.S. Senate would be contested, the various candidates in contention were very much on Sabbeth's mind.

Though he remained, to the last, high on Betsy McCaughey Ross, who was hoping to be the Democrat's gubernatorial candidate this year, he had a decidedly uncharitable view of a man considered by many to be the area's favorite son in that race, former Long Island Association President James L. Larocca.

"It's really unfortunate that Betsy has the reputation she does; that people perceive her as a flake, because in my experience in dealing with her, not only have I found her to be extremely intelligent and sincere, but she's also an outstanding candidate.

"In terms of generating the kind of attention we need to bolster other candidates' chances, Peter Vallone and Charles Hynes, both good men, can't hold a candle to her.

"Ultimately, in a year like this, when Republicans are expected to do very well in the general election, we need candidates at the top of the ticket that will interest Democrats enough to bring them to the polling booth.

"Even if they might ultimately vote against that candidate in the end, at least by inspiring them to go to the polls we have a chance of getting their vote for one or more of our other candidates."

But what of Jim Larocca, whom Sabbeth had at one time tacitly supported.

"Jim Larocca is a phony bum," the party chairman said. "He is the worst of politics, and the reason I say that is two-fold. First of all, he doesn't seem to believe he needs to take anybody's advice, despite his being new to politics.

"On top of that, in terms of his personal fundraising, he gave us assurances that proved to be completely untrue.

"Frankly, my advice to Larocca was that he run for lieutenant governor this time. I said, 'You're a nice guy. Get your message out there. Get people to know who you are.'

"In addition, I tried to impress upon him the importance of using the capitol, the contacts, he made during his years with the Long Island Association. I said, 'You know all of the rich people on the Island. In fact, you've done a lot for them. Reach out to them and try to get their support.'

"I mean, he just had to do that in order to be a credible candidate. After he committed himself to the gubernatorial race, I said, 'Okay, if you want to be governor, you've got to raise money and you've got to raise your percentages in the polls.'

"What happened instead was, he misfocused. He spent too much time upstate, in my opinion. So in the end, I think what you had in Larocca was a candidate who couldn't raise money and who couldn't put the tools together that he needed to win.

"The other thing was that he tended to put too much weight in the blips that occur in a campaign. Yes, he did experience a few blips along the way, a few up-ticks in his fortunes, but in politics, a blip is nothing on its own.

"Nothing is going to happen for you unless you take advantage of a blip and turn it into something."

Perhaps the most surprising of all the things Sabbeth said over the course of an hour-and-a-half interview was that Geraldine Ferraro was "politically naive."

"The former vice presidential candidate politically naive?" The reporter asked.

"Yes," Sabbeth said. "And I'll tell you why. Because a campaign is about more than name recognition and talking about the issues. Yes, those things are extremely important. And you have to have to be able to convince people that if elected, you have the potential to do something in the individual voter's interest.

"But beyond all that, in order to wage a successful campaign, you also have to understand basic neighborhood by neighborhood politics. You have to know, for instance, in a statewide race, what your bottom-line, must-have vote is in Westchester County.

"You have to know those numbers and have a strategy to achieve them -- or have someone working with you that has that knowledge. Ferraro just didn't have that."

Closer to home and with a relevance beyond this years' election, the Nassau County Board of Elections will soon be computerized.

"It's going to occur in two components," Sabbeth said. "This first component is the digitization of buff cards, a process that will be implemented in 1999.

"The other component is somewhat more involved and relates specifically to election night reporting from the polls. The way things are now, after the polls close at 9 p.m., polling inspectors take the results off the machines, fill out these cumbersome sheets, and then call us at the board of elections and read us the results.

"It's needlessly time consuming and is the reason the outcomes of elections in Nassau take so long to figure out. Ultimately what we hope to have in place, within the next two years, are computerized sheets which can then be taken to the local police precinct, fed into a master computer, and then released from here. The whole process could then be done in a matter of minutes, rather than the hours it takes now.

"As the Democratic Board of Elections commissioner, the other hat I wear, I'm committed to making this happen. More than anything, I want to see our elections held in a cost-effective, efficient manner, and in such a way as to benefit all the people of Nassau County," Sabbeth said.