An exhilarated President Clinton dived into the cheering crowd after a late-afternoon speech Sunday. Up on his toes, stretching his arms, moving laterally with Secret Service in tow, he shook a hand here, another there, touching nearly 100 people in 17 minutes; his obvious relish was voracious.
The president clearly loved wading into the throng at a small banquet hall, even lifting up one woman and hugging her, and the crowd of 350, like so many others over a 26-year political career, embraced him.
“It’s inspiring! it’s wonderful!” said Dallas Ponder, a Rison, Ark., bartender who came with her 8th-grade daughter, Erica. Wearing a St. Louis Rams football shirt, the mom stood on a chair, waved madly and lost her balance before she got the president’s attention.
And yet, if this was quintessential Clinton, the time, place and stakes made it starkly different.
With two days to go before the general election, the greatest campaigner of his era was in a small city of 57,000 people, in a state with a mere six electoral votes, helping a candidate in the congressional district that includes Clinton’s hometown of Hope.
He wasn’t in an A-list battleground state such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida or Oregon, which is exactly the way his protege, Vice President Al Gore, wants it. It’s as if home-run slugger Mark McGwire had been ordered to bunt with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth.
Still, the man who repositioned his party ideologically, became the first Democratic president re-elected since Franklin Roosevelt, and has taken 53 foreign and more than 1,000 domestic trips, has vigorously exhibited the skills even many die-hard enemies acknowledge as he outlines the “clear differences” confronting voters Tuesday. Clearly, he will not depart the scene quietly.
Whether in a steamy, small church in New York’s Harlem, a Los Angeles mall parking lot or a Louisville high school gym, the central figure in American politics has performed with gusto during the past week, mostly in places where Gore will likely win or lose. And because “my party’s got a new leader and my home’s got a new candidate,” as he said in Harlem, he will finish Monday evening by assisting First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate race in New York.
“We love you, Bill!” they shouted at a convention hall rally in San Francisco. “We want Bill, we want Bill” has been a frequent refrain when his arrival is imminent.
One can see how Clinton dearly, even desperately, loves the job. For 18 or 20 hours every day, he is up and about, traveling, phoning, speaking, issuing directives, giving interviews, planning overseas treks and plotting strategy for sensitive foreign negotiations. On Sunday, for example, he played golf at 7 a.m. in Little Rock on a few hours sleep, then went to church and to Gore-Lieberman headquarters.
One day last week, he awoke early to work on the budget impasse, then did a radio interview before traveling across the country to L.A. He spoke for a half-hour at a party fundraiser, anchored a big outdoor rally in a largely black neighborhood and then did three evening fundraisers for congressional candidates. He quit about 11 p.m.
Each was a full-dress performance, as if a Broadway actor had done a matinee, then three evening shows. There were no shortcuts, no Cliffs Notes version of a basic speech and, except for mistakenly thinking he was in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts when he wasn’t, no sign of the fatigue and fumbling that most mortals, such as Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, routinely display.
“It’s as if he is trying to squeeze every last minute of his presidency that’s left. He hates to sleep since he considers that time wasted. He is sucking every bit of marrow out of the bone of the presidency,” said Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter who has covered every day of the Clinton presidency and keeps such meticulous daily logs that the White House has borrowed them.
Clinton always seems “on.” He seamlessly interweaves generic comments about the presidential race with thoughts tailored to, or playing off, each specific group and venue. His eyes catch a Starbucks and McDonald’s near an Oakland rally and he nonchalantly weaves their success into his general riff on the robust economy.
At times, he is more personal and droll. Before backers of Gerrie Schipske, a nurse practitioner and lesbian running for the House in the Long Beach area, he recalled his own mother being “hung up” over his appearance on the cover of the Advocate, a gay and lesbian weekly magazine that Schipske said had mentioned her on Page 56.
“I’ve just got to say it, if we do our job, by less than a week from now, you’ll be on Page 1 of the Advocate and I’ll be lucky to be on Page 56,” he said to the laughs of all assembled Thursday.
He finished that evening at a fundraiser for former Rep. Jane Harman, competing for the congressional seat she gave up to run a failed governor’s race. He stood patiently, though exhausted, as Harman gave a long address, even showing no reaction when she lingered over Clinton’s impeachment.
Then he took center stage and made everyone think his words were new and fresh and that Harman was a critical player in American politics who had to be returned to Washington.
With his conversational style, constant use of the pronoun “we” and physically welcoming gestures, Clinton has for most of the final week made the case for a Gore election that seems in many ways more concise, engaging, focused on past accomplishments and perhaps more effective than the case Gore makes for himself.
Do you want to keep this booming economy going and keep low interest rates for your home mortgage and college loan payments, he asks. Do you want to build on declining dropout and teen pregnancy rates, safer food, fewer toxic dumpsites? And do you want to preserve diversity but preserve “our common humanity” through equal pay for women, affirmative action, employment non-discrimination laws and judges who will protect women’s right to have an abortion?
“Now, on all these issues bringing us together, our friends in the Republican Party have a different view,” he said, eschewing potentially harsher rhetoric. “They disagree with us on every issue I just mentioned. So if you want to keep building one America, you only have one choice.”
The president agreed to stay away from key locales in Gore’s fight with Bush despite what is thought to be Clinton’s chagrin and disagreement. The Gore camp felt that lingering disdain for Clinton’s personal behavior would irk supposedly undecided voters, especially suburban women.
For sure, the final week of what is likely his last national campaigning has included moments of nostalgia and a hint of self-pity, notably during a low-key, reflective appearance a week ago in a Baptist church in Washington. But such moments have proven to be exceptions as Clinton displays extraordinary discipline, stamina, oratorical finesse and an upbeat air.
Everywhere he goes, he takes on the coloration of his audience. Whether in the morning sun outside a federal building or at a late-night fundraiser in a nondescript ballroom, he has employed the improvisation skill of a great jazz artist, modulating his voice to give differing emphasis to different lines, depending on the group.
At Harlem’s Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ, 300 people were jammed into a sanctuary as long and narrow as a swimming pool. He rocked in his seat behind the pulpit Tuesday, knowing the words of the spirituals sung by the choir; it was a scene that suggested why some have joked that he is the nation’s “first black president.”
“Look where we were eight years ago and where we are now,” he said with utter informality. The economy was in bad shape, the society was divided, with rampant drug use and teen pregnancy. No group can perceive the stakes more than blacks, he said, and those assembled had to go out “and tell the young people that people died so they can vote.”
He places his hands on the tips of the lectern as if he was gently grasping a friend’s shoulders. “This is a biiiiig dealllll,” he says of Tuesday’s vote, drawing out the two words, clearly connecting with the assembled. If he is frustrated to be relegated to rousing the party’s “base” of longtime partisans, he doesn’t show it.
In Washington, he gives thumbs up to a singer in a church choir. In San Francisco, he slaps the palms of Mayor Willie Brown. In Louisville, he spies retired Sen. Wendell Ford (D-Ky.) in the gym rally, makes sure he follows him out to the airport after and, at the foot of Air Force One, spends 15 minutes talking shop near the glistening Boeing 747.
“We talked about old times, . . . ” Ford said. “But, for sure, he has still got the touch, able to explain difficult issues without going into a lot of gobbledygook. Al Gore’s an old friend of mine, but my judgment is that they should have used him [Clinton] wherever they could.”
“He’s the smartest and most politically astute politician I have ever seen in American politics,” said Democratic consultant Frank Greer, who met Clinton in the late 1980s when he was governor. “He’s phenomenal. He knows that people have lives and other concerns, and he connects with them. He reads a crowd, listens to it, educates it. There is a connection.”
And there are the crowds. They provide the most vivid image of Clinton’s last campaign, surrounding him as if they were a carwash and he a sedan. He does not keep a protective distance, like most politicians, making life miserable for security personnel and forever running late because of these forays.
At a San Francisco rally, hundreds reach for his French blue cuffs and gold cufflinks. He tries to touch them all–a nurse, a teacher, a horticulturist, a private security guard–and even goes face-to-face with one man who claims both parties are lying about the budget. He is undaunted, not wanting to stop, which explains why he is forever behind schedule.
“My lord, I shook his hand! It didn’t seem real. I love him,” said Evelyn Moore, 65, a retired Veterans Administration worker who, like many seeing Clinton in action, wondered why he couldn’t run again.
It was the same in Pine Bluff after the banquet hall rally for state Rep. Mike Ross, who was Clinton’s volunteer driver during a 1982 gubernatorial campaign. Dog tired, Clinton shook hands, signed autographs, engaged in banter and left many with a smile.
“Oh, lord, it was exhilarating,” Jeannie Epperson, a local public housing manager, said after she shook his hand for a fleeting moment. “I just regret Gore didn’t get him out more often,” she said.
