Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post
Newsgroups: americast.wpost
From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com
Organization: American Cybercasting
Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com
Subject: Clinton Barnstorms in South;Democratic Nominee Seeks to Recapture a Republican
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 04:28:31 EST
Message-ID: <46.1992Oct28.042831@AmeriCast.com>

Clinton Barnstorms in South;Democratic Nominee Seeks to Recapture
a Republican Bastion<By Edward Walsh=Washington Post Staff Writ-
er=

TAMPA, Oct. 27 - Bill Clinton barnstormed across his native South
as the self-described leader of "a new Democratic Party" today in
a final drive to recapture a region that has been a Republican
bastion in presidential elections for more than two decades.  Be-
ginning with a bus trip across central North Carolina Monday, the
Democratic presidential nominee swept through Georgia and Florida
and headed for Louisiana and Texas late today, challenging
President Bush in states that gave Bush some of his biggest mar-
gins in his 1988 victory over Michael S. Dukakis of Mas-
sachusetts.

That Clinton began the final week of the campaign in the South
provided powerful testimony to how much the appeal of two south-
erners, the Arkansas governor and his running mate, Sen. Albert
Gore Jr. (Tenn.), has transformed presidential politics in the
region and forced Bush on the defensive.

The last two Democrats to capture the White House were south-
erners, Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas in 1964 and Jimmy Carter of
Georgia in 1976.

In 1980, when he was defeated by Ronald Reagan, Carter carried
only his home state of Georgia in the South, and the region has
been solidly Republican in presidential elections since.

While public opinion polls have shown Clinton to be in relatively
good shape in key southern states, his margins have dropped over
the last week, with the race especially tight in Georgia, North
Carolina and Louisiana.

"We're not going to any states we don't have a chance to win,"
Dee Dee Myers, Clinton's press secretary, said on the flight here
from Augusta, Ga.

Noting that the Republicans "have yet to lock up their base in
the South," Myers added that Bush "has to win both Texas and
Florida," with 32 and 25 electoral votes, respectively, to have
any hope of reelection.

Clinton also voiced his hope to breaking the GOP grip on the
South. Asked if he was campaigining late in the region to force
Bush to do the same, he replied, "No, it's trying to win the
South."

When the Ivy League-educated Clinton tours the South, his drawl
grows thicker, his manner becomes more country.

"I'm in the South, so I guess I can say this one more time," he
told a large crowd in an amphitheater on the banks of the Savan-
nah River in Augusta this morning.

"When it comes to farmin', Bush and Quayle don't know the differ-
ence between 'come here and sic 'em.' "

He regaled his audiences with tales of how "three political
hacks" in their "$600 suits" went searching through a dusty ware-
house, trying to find damaging information in his mother's
passport records.

"There was a good side to it," he said at a downtown noon rally
here. "It was the only time since Bush has been president that
those three hacks worked to 10 o'clock at night."

But amid the laughter, there was a seriousness to Clinton's mes-
sage to fellow southerners he is trying to lure back to the Demo-
cratic Party. Tailoring his message to the conservative voters of
the South, he declared that he has remade the party in his
moderate, centrist image.

"I have tried to build a new Democratic Party that believes in
growth in the private sector, that believes in not bigger govern-
ment but more effective government, that believes in a partner-
ship between government and business and labor and education," he
said in Augusta.

Continuing that theme here later today, he described the Bush ad-
ministration as "divided against itself, with no firm convic-
tions, in total disarray."

Flordia's economy "is in a shambles," Clinton said. "If we carry
Florida, it is over for trickle-down economics," he said. "If we
carry Florida, it is over for cynical politics . . . .  If we
carry Florida, it is a new day for all Americans. This state has
always been a great engine of change. I'm asking you to be in the
vanguard."<02:35 10-28C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor-
poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)