PERSONALITY IN THE NEWS : Clinton, New Aide Have Career Parallels : Transition: Personnel director Riley is a centrist Southern Democrat and served two terms as South Carolina’s governor.

WASHINGTON —  In naming Richard W. Riley as personnel director for his transition team, President-elect Bill Clinton draws on the talents of someone much like himself: a centrist Southern Democrat who was the first person to win two terms as governor of South Carolina by tempering his instincts as a reformer with an ability to compromise.

Indeed, for many years the political careers of the two governors proceeded along remarkably parallel tracks.

Both were elected in the same year, 1978, as governors of Southern, predominantly rural states. Both made health care and educational reform their major priorities. Longtime friends, both men were early activists in the Democratic Leadership Council, a group of centrists trying to check the influence of the Democratic Party’s liberal wing.

Widely praised by Democrats and Republicans alike as one of the nation’s best governors, Riley was elected to a second term after, in 1980, he gained approval for a constitutional amendment that expanded the governor’s term limit from four to eight years. And despite clashes with conservatives over tax increases, he remained popular with lawmakers from both parties during his eight years in office.

Frail in appearance because of a spinal condition, Riley nevertheless became an activist governor after coming from behind in a field of four to win his first gubernatorial race. He successfully campaigned on a pledge to wage “war on the Good Old Boy system” that dominated South Carolina politics.

Once in office, he quickly gained a reputation as a conciliator with the powerful state Legislature long ruled by conservative Democrats.

One of his biggest legislative victories was passage of an educational reform program that had been opposed by conservatives because it included a 1-cent state sales tax increase for school construction and teachers’ salaries.

Riley ran afoul of the state’s business interests, however, with a 1983 “tax equity” plan that would have lowered property taxes but increased income taxes for upper-bracket wage earners. The plan eventually was defeated in the Legislature.

The son of a prominent state Democratic Party activist, Riley, now 59, grew up in politics and sought to cultivate a populist image, first in the state Senate and later as governor, when he made a point of eschewing some of the perks that even his subordinates received.

One former aide recalled, for instance, that Riley stood in line to get his driver’s license renewed, whereas other officials pulled strings to speed the process.

Now a Columbia, S.C., lawyer, Riley has remained active in state politics and in health care reform, and his name has been raised as a possible candidate for a senior post in the Bill Clinton Administration. Although he has dismissed the rumors, Riley has not ruled out a job as education secretary, the post for which he is most often mentioned.