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 Stretches for the Finish Line With Stubborn Rival Shadowing Him;
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 92 09:14:31 EST
Message-ID: <55.1992Nov1.091431@AmeriCast.com>

Clinton Stretches for the Finish Line With Stubborn Rival Shadow-
ing Him; Walsh<Washington Post Staff Writer<

DAVENPORT, Iowa, Oct. 31 - Like an exhausted runner at the end of
a marathon, Bill Clinton pushed himself through another punishing
campaign day today, stretching for the finish line he can now see
and fighting the temptation to look back over his shoulder at a
stubborn rival who continues to shadow him.

His voice growing hoarse as he hopscotched from the Atlanta
suburbs to this aging Mississippi River town before going on to
Milwaukee tonight, the Democratic presidential nominee declared
that Tuesday's voting would resolve another battle in "the age-
old American conflict between change and the status quo, between
people having the courage to vote their hopes or falling back and
voting their fears." According to campaign aides, Clinton is po-
sitioned to win that battle, with their internal polls showing
him holding a steady lead of about 7 points over President Bush
and independent Ross Perot's support slipping.

But this is the most agonizingly uncertain time of the campaign
for the front-runner, filled with doubts about tasks undone and
fear of a sudden, unexpected shift in the mood of a restless
electorate.

"He's obviously nervous," said Bruce Lindsey, Clinton's campaign
director, at a rally in Decatur, Ga., this morning. "We'd rather
be where we are than where they are, but this has been a very
volatile year," he added.

In the final hours of the campaign, Clinton is engaged in a deli-
cate balancing act, trying to rally his supporters with cries of
impending victory without appearing overconfident.

Late Friday night following a televised "town meeting" in Dear-
born, Mich., he lingered to chat with the studio audience, relat-
ing how his campaign bus trips with his running mate, Sen. Albert
Gore Jr. (Tenn.), had "taught me about America," and how he
planned to continue the bus trips after he is president. Then he
caught himself and began to laugh. "I hope I get a chance," he
said. "That's up to you."

But with the election so close, he did not stop there. He contin-
ued to talk about the danger of isolation in White House and how
he would try to avoid that, allowing himself a rare look beyond
Election Day and setting a standard he will surely be held to if
he wins on Tuesday.

"I want to do the town hall meetings, but I also want to find a
way to be more accessible in the White House on a daily basis,
and I've given a lot of thought to that," Clinton said.

"And that doesn't mean just who does the president meet with.  It
is what is the atmosphere of the White House, how do you organize
the White House, what is the job of the people in the White
House, how do they return phone calls, how do they bring in peo-
ple from the grass-roots level, how do people get called and con-
sulted before policy decisions are made.

"There is a whole open culture that I want to try to establish so
the American people feel they have some input into this govern-
ment that, after all, we're paying for. If you elect me
president, I'll just sort of be a temporary tenant at the White
House."

But such thoughts and plans must still be held in check, and so
today Clinton began his day not in the White House but in a pan-
cake house in Decatur talking about the nervous energy that pro-
pels him and his bleary-eyed staff forward.

"He's impossible," he said to a woman who inquired about the
state of mind of James Carville, his chief strategist who is
hunkered down in the Clinton campaign headquarters in Little
Rock, Ark.  "He's nervous as a cat. He's swinging from the ceil-
ing."

And, yes, Clinton acknowledged, he, too, is a "little bit" ner-
vous. "But I've got to just keep working," he said.

"I'm with you, buddy, all the way," Wayne White, a retired
federal employee, told him in the pancake house. "Stay with me,"
Clinton replied as he grasped White's hand in both of his, "and
we'll bear down."

At a sun-drenched rally in the Decatur High School football sta-
dium this morning, Clinton made his final appeal to the people of
Georgia who helped revive his candidacy in the Democratic primary
there following his second place finish in New Hampshire.

He attacked Bush, but as he has in recent days, Clinton also
spoke seriously about the country's need to change, of his prom-
ise to provide "empowerment" but also demand "responsibility"
from its citizens, and of what he and Gore "hope to do with you -
not for you - but with you."

From the warmth of the Georgia rally, Clinton flew here, where he
was greeted by raw, windy, overcast weather but also a large,
friendly crowd along the streets of a revitalized older section
of the river town.  Clinton's last-minute visit to Iowa and
Wisconsin underscored the still-uncertain nature of the election,
which appears likely to break many of the patterns of recent
presidential contests.

Four years ago, Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis carried
both states against Bush, and because of that the Clinton organi-
zation largely ignored them early in the campaign. But the econo-
my has improved in this region since 1988 and the Bush campaign
targeted the two states, pouring resources into them and forcing
Clinton to fight for what he once thought was safely his.

Nevertheless, Clinton aides remained outwardly confident today,
insisting that any unexpected losses in the Midwest can be made
up elsewhere, particularly in the South, where a Democratic tick-
et headed by two southerners expects to crack the once-iron grip
the GOP has enjoyed on the region.

"They cannot count on a rock-solid South this time around and
that hurts them," said Dee Dee Myers, Clinton's press secretary.
"They've got to make it up somewhere and that's why they're going
after states like Iowa and Wisconsin."02:51 11-01C9999-----

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)