By M. CHARLES BAKST

Journal Staff Writer

Once she was an aspiring star in the state political firmament, and so was her husband. But when investment adviser Marlene McKenna, 54, made a public appearance last week it was not amid the glamour of a fancy State House office or an elegant campaign fundraiser.

Instead, looking drained and at times trance-like, the woman who entered the 1992 race as the favorite to be elected Rhode Island general treasurer was in federal court, accused of stealing more than $120,000 from clients. She has entered an agreement to plead guilty to mail fraud.

She is undergoing mental health treatment and is now divorced from Keven McKenna, 56, but he came to watch the court proceedings anyway. Over the years, he was more of a presence on the political scene than she. He was a state representative and president of the 1986 Constitutional Convention. He once seemed to have major electoral promise but lost bids for lieutenant governor, attorney general, and Providence mayor.

He was close to tears as last week's court session ended, but true enough to his snarly self to denounce me as a "media parasite," an echo of his performance years ago at the ugly demise of his then-wife's political career.

Marlene McKenna's lawyer last week was Democrat Jim O'Neil, 62, whose tenure as attorney general crashed when Republican Jeff Pine defeated him in 1992, the same year Marlene McKenna blew her race against the GOP's Nancy Mayer.

Downstairs, before court started, I asked O'Neil about twists of fortune. In '92, he and McKenna were high-flying ticket-mates, and now look where fate had brought them. "I'm just an attorney out here trying to do the best I can for my client," he said. "That's my mission of the day."

Marlene McKenna's saga is an interesting commentary on our elections, a sharp contrast, say, to Ed DiPrete. He ran for governor as "The Change We Need" and tricked people into thinking he was a reformer. Actually, he was a crook. Yet he won three times; we were slow to catch on.

But the voters balked at embracing McKenna even once. In the back and forth of a slam-bang election that included aggressive Journal reporting, a skilled Mayer campaign and revealing joint TV appearances, enough doubts were raised about McKenna's honesty and financial expertise to do her in.

On election night, the McKennas were graceless.

Early on, as McKenna supporters gathered in a Biltmore suite and TV was projecting Mayer the winner, Keven McKenna barked at reporters, "Get the [expletive] out of here before I stone you. I don't want any sluts from the media here."

Later, Marlene McKenna told backers that the Republicans had run a "filthy" campaign and had had the "complicity" of The Journal. "I have one message to a Democratic governor who has to work with a Republican treasurer: 'Give her hell, Bruce.'"

Usually, a race for general treasurer would not draw headlines. It would be crowded out by top-of-the-ballot contests, notably U.S. Senate and governor. But there was no Senate race that year, and the November election for governor was a dud. Mayer-McKenna, along with Pine-O'Neil, was the big news.

Last week, Marlene McKenna was doing her talking to a federal magistrate/judge. To reporters, she offered a blank stare.

As for Keven McKenna, who has been the lawyer in John Hawkins's marathon suit to win back his job as lottery director, he was accusing me of being interested only in "personal attacks." He said, "You like to kick people when they're down."

He added, "I resent your column. It's a waste of space. You're no James Reston. Put that in the paper."

Done.