Sen. Terry Lister's bid to lead the Progressive Labour Party failed because he sits too far outside the party's mainstream.

While it is true the party's "old guard'' rallied around Opposition Leader Mr. Frederick Wade, interviews suggest many others in the PLP had serious doubts about the wisdom of backing a relatively untried challenger with dubious labour credentials.

And while it is equally true that transforming an unelected Senator into Leader of the Opposition presented Constitutional problems, they were ones that could easily be overcome had the party decided that Sen. Lister should be their man.

As one prominent member of the PLP put it, "when the arithmetic was finally done, the numbers just weren't there''.

Sen. Lister did have strong support among the roughly 50 delegates elected to the conference. They were elected at the branch levels, their numbers varying from one constituency to another depending on the size of PLP strength in the area. When Mr. Wade said there were those in the party who were "mad at'' him for his vote to decriminalise gay sex, he could have been referring to many of these delegates.

But with Sen. Lister planning to take over as leader in the House of Assembly, "I think it would have been important to him to have support at both the Parliamentary level and the delegate level,'' a source said.

Tactically, Sen. Lister tipped his hand too soon. The writing was on the wall when his challenge was exposed and not one party member, let alone an MP or Senator, spoke out in his favour.

Why not? At first blush, a Lister leadership looks appealing.

Mr. Wade received credit for major gains the PLP scored in the 1989 general election and brought the party within a whisker of power last year, but many feel the party could present a more dynamic and sophisticated face. The PLP believes its prospects are good in the next vote under Mr. Wade's leadership, but the right challenger likely could have toppled him this week.

At 40, Sen. Lister is a young family man who is active in his church and in Bermuda's top black school, Berkeley Institute. As a partner in Deloitte & Touche he has not only succeeded in business on his merits, but is free of charges of Government patronage that blacks in the United Bermuda Party face.

And unlike Mr. Wade, Sen. Lister was on the "right side'' of the vote to decrimalise gay sex -- the controversy that sparked the move to push out Mr.

Wade in the first place.

But with all those credentials, Sen. Lister was still the wrong candidate.

Having held no high party office outside of campaign co-chairman, he had something of the upstart about him. What he had achieved in the PLP was through the benevolence of Mr. Wade.

More importantly, the PLP was shocked by comments he made in the run-up to the last general election, some of which are now known as "Listerisms''.

He said the PLP's economic policy was to support international business "to the hilt''.

More surprising, he proposed a tax freeze on international business until 2016.

But the kicker was Sen. Lister's statement that "the PLP policy is to bring ex-pats into the Country'', and hoped to have 3,000 more guest workers in the Country by the year 2000.

PLP strategists balk at the notion that with the party seemingly close to winning Government for the first time, it should move in the direction of the UBP in an effort to gain white and middle class black votes.

The UBP is able to virtually ignore white voters, they argue, because those votes are largely guaranteed. And while whites feel they are losing privilege under the UBP, they fear they would lose them much more quickly under the PLP.

"Our day will come,'' said one party stalwart. "I don't believe our political party should try to hasten that day by pulling down the very important principles of social and economic justice.

"If we got more moderate, as you call it, leadership, more blacks wouldn't show up to the polls,'' he said. "The gain in white support wouldn't offset the loss in black support.''