William T. Martin, a black insurgent Democrat, is challenging him.

Mr. Klotz, who has been aligned with insurgent Democrats, could broaden Ms. Backal's political base.

The Mayor, an insurgent Democrat who was elected as an independent in 1950, lost his re-election bid to Robert F. Wagner.

An insurgent Democrat named Dominick Fusco therefore sued to disqualify 12 candidates for public office in the Sept. 11 primary along with several candidates for political positions like state committee member.

He engineered the election of a governor and a mayor, and even had access to the White House before insurgent Democrats turned on him in the era of reforms, municipal union power and television.

"There is no way that there's a single standard," said Vincent Marchiselli, an insurgent Democrat in the Bronx who once served as chairman of the Assembly election law committee.

He had run for Congress himself a few years earlier, as an insurgent Democrat in Philadelphia, and had performed quite respectably against the entrenched machine incumbent.

Mr. McGovern, the last insurgent Democrat to run for president on an antiwar platform, sees parallels between the 1972 race and the current campaign.

La Follette began working to unite insurgent Democrats to form a broad coalition.

Yet, the president's men were mowed down by insurgent Democrats.