LAST MONTH The Seattle Times reported, "It might be hard to tell the two top Democratic U.S. Senate candidates apart on the issues, but the differences in their campaign styles and personalities are obvious.... State Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn has spiky, short black hair.... Dot-com executive Maria Cantwell wears a chin-length bob." Spare us. Yes, two women are running. But who cares about their stylistic differences?

The race between high-tech multimillionaire, former U.S. Rep. Maria Cantwell and Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn is interesting precisely because of the candidates' divergent politics--something the Times inexplicably had trouble discerning. These competitors represent the clash of Democratic wings. For example, one superficial but telling distinction between the two is how they pay to play: Cantwell cashed in stocks and put in $1 million to finance her campaign, while Senn has raised that much from individuals. Cantwell is a new corporate Clintoncrat. Senn is an old-guard, pro-labor Michael Moore Democrat.

However, both candidates are trying to slip out of these definitions. Why? Because it's election time.

Cantwell, 41, was elected to the federal government on Patty Murray's soccer mom coattails in 1992's "Year of the Woman." She won with 148,844 votes against Republican Gary Nelson's 113,897. Then she lost her seat to Rick White in the 1994 Republican sweep. Cantwell has raised $1,268,820. Senn, 51, was first elected to the State Office of Insurance Commissioner in 1992. She captured more than one million votes and was reelected in 1996. Senn has raised $1,155,163.

Cantwell is a "New" (read: conservative) Democrat. She earned that classification during her two-year term in the U.S. House of Representatives. For instance, she crossed her working family constituency when she co-sponsored legislation that would have cut Medicare spending by $34 billion and eliminated 252,000 civil service jobs. Today, Cantwell's campaign biography boasts that "Maria was characterized in Congress as a 'New Democrat,' whose social liberalism was tempered by a hard streak of realism."

But now Cantwell cringes at that label. Ellis Conklin, Cantwell's communications director, is saying Cantwell is a classic social welfare liberal. "On some things she is a New Democrat," Conklin says. "On other issues, she might be considered a classic Hubert Humphrey Democrat, a Lyndon Johnson Democrat." This is a ridiculous characterization. Remember, Cantwell supports "free" trade and was eager to destroy working-class jobs in order to cut spending.

However, Cantwell is smart to try on a new hat. It's a strategic move to lure traditional Dem voters away from Senn in the September primary. Recent polls show Cantwell with a slight lead against her Democratic opponent.

Senn is also trying to shed her identity. But unlike Cantwell, Senn is tacking center. Her reputation comes from waking up the insurance giants with her working-class avenger regulations. She spent the past few years reeling in wily insurers and making them cover victims of domestic abuse, seniors, and sick people, as well as healthy consumers.

Now, Senn doesn't want voters to think she's too bossy toward the powers that be. "Incremental change" is the way to go, she says.

Let's face it, though, if anyone's a Lyndon Johnson Dem, it's Senn. In the vein of Johnson's extravagant 1960s Robin Hood social welfare programs, Senn won health coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, raised the dollar amount insurers paid out from thousands to millions, and armed Washingtonians with the right to sue their HMOs. However, in an era when the winning Democratic formula is to vote like a Republican, running as a classic "tax-and-spend" liberal won't propel Senn to the U.S. Senate. "You've got to be able to move to the middle," says David Olson, a political science professor at the University of Washington.

Clearly, the primary is turning out to be a great training ground for both pols to hone their shape-shifting skills. Despite its crassness, political morphing is a requirement for candidates hoping to make it to D.C.