Prospects Dim for Baird Nomination : Cabinet: Clinton aides privately recommend that the attorney general-designate step aside. Seven senators say they will oppose confirmation.

WASHINGTON — Zoe Baird’s prospects for becoming the nation’s first woman attorney general dimmed Thursday as advisers to President Clinton recommended privately that she withdraw from consideration and seven more members of Congress announced opposition to her.

“It’s going down,” predicted one senior Clinton adviser who asked not be identified.

Baird’s confirmation is in trouble because she hired a Peruvian couple for domestic services--even though she knew that they could not work legally in the United States--and did not pay their Social Security taxes. It is an issue that could lead to serious political damage for Clinton if Baird does not withdraw, the adviser said.

The issue has drawn widespread criticism, with the Senate switchboard receiving a tidal wave of telephone calls from angry constituents and with radio talk-show hosts across the country keeping up a steady drumbeat of criticism.

“People can understand this,” the Clinton adviser said. Voters see Baird, a corporate lawyer earning $507,000 a year, as part of “a class of people who think they are above the law. The average guy gets that.”

Telephone calls were running heavily against Baird. The office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), for example, said late Thursday that it had received 2,872 calls against the nominee and 208 in favor. Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) said his Arizona offices had received 305 negative calls and only four in support of Baird.

But Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), the only Republican speaking out strongly for the nominee, said she is the victim of a telephone “smear campaign” that should not be allowed to derail her confirmation.

As White House officials huddled late Thursday to debate Baird’s future, four Republican senators declared that they would vote against Baird and three Democrats demanded that she withdraw.

“I think it would be in the interest of the country if she would voluntarily withdraw,” said Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.). “I am afraid she would be under too much of a cloud if she were confirmed.”

Sen. Richard C. Shelby (D-Ala.) agreed, saying: “In accepting her as the country’s No. 1 law enforcement official, the Senate would, in effect, be sanctioning her (unlawful) conduct.”

Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.), a widely respected moderate Democrat and early Clinton supporter, also said Baird’s name should be withdrawn.

Even if Baird could win 51 votes in the Senate, which White House vote counters say remains possible, “it’s the court of public opinion that matters,” the Clinton adviser said.

At the White House, Clinton aides asserted that the President had not known the details of Baird’s conduct when he announced her nomination last month.

Baird told transition officials about her actions, Clinton spokesman George Stephanopoulos said, but did not discuss them directly with Clinton. And although transition officials did tell Clinton about the problem, “I do not know what level of detail he knew about the situation,” Stephanopoulos said.

Asked if Clinton continues to support Baird, Stephanopoulos said: “President Clinton continues to believe she’ll make a good attorney general.” But he unmistakably qualified his support by saying that Baird is Clinton’s designee “right now.”

Asked if Clinton would have appointed Baird if he knew at the time what he knows now about her conduct, Stephanopoulos repeatedly demurred, saying: “I can’t answer that.”

But the 40-year-old Baird remained calm in her second long day of questioning by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and rejected any suggestion that she give up hopes of running the Justice Department after a rapid rise as a corporate lawyer.

“I think that my overall record gives me the potential to be a great attorney general,” she said. “The power of my overall record and the potential I have to serve this country . . . should override the particulars” of her violation of immigration law.

She even smiled when Senate Republican Whip Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), a co-author of the immigration law that she violated, said he reluctantly would be voting against her because of her misdeed.

“I appreciate your candor,” she told Simpson, expressing a hope that Simpson, like the 23 senators who voted against confirmation of Griffin B. Bell as attorney general in 1977, would say at the end of her term that she had done a great job.

The only time Baird’s voice seemed to quiver was when she described the “tensions” she encountered while trying to balance her roles as the mother of an 8-month-old son and as general counsel of Aetna Casualty and Life Insurance Co.

There was a strong division over the Baird nomination when the Senate Democratic caucus met behind closed doors for a midday lunch. Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.), who supports Baird, said there is “considerable controversy” over her actions.

Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.), often a swing member of the Judiciary Committee, said the President faces a dilemma. “He’s going to have to make a decision” on whether to withdraw Baird’s name, Heflin said. “If she stays, he will be in a major battle--you can sense that.”

DeConcini, who also serves on the committee, said Baird’s confirmation problems were serious. “There are several of us (Democrats) certainly not committed for her, including me.”

Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-Kan.) and six female House Republicans said in a letter to the Judiciary Committee that they had deep concern over the selection of Baird.

“Given her sterling legal reputation, it is particularly troubling that Ms. Baird knowingly employed two illegal aliens and failed to pay their Social Security taxes,” Kassebaum wrote.

Earlier, Barbara Jordan, a former member of Congress from Texas and the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention that nominated Clinton for President, voiced opposition to Baird’s confirmation.

“The ethical high ground for Zoe Baird is to request that her name be withdrawn,” Jordan said during a CNN interview.

Baird’s prospects fell hour by hour as senators disclosed their opposition in news releases that arrived at the Judiciary Committee hearing room even as Baird tried to fend off critical questions.

After Kassebaum’s letter, Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Ida.) was one of the first to announce that he would vote against Baird.

“My constituents really do see a difference between lawbreaking by their neighbor and lawbreaking by a sheriff or judge trusted with the responsibility of enforcing the law,” Craig said.

Even Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who joined in presenting Baird to the Judiciary panel Tuesday, acknowledged that the nominee faces major opposition.

“I think she’s a very qualified individual, but what she did was more than jaywalking,” Dodd told a reporter.

Times staff writer William J. Eaton contributed to this story.