Clinton, Brown Trying to Reach Out to Voters : Campaign: Handshaking Arkansas governor changes recent pattern. His rival launches two-day state bus tour.

With the presidential primary campaign moving into its final hours, Democratic candidates Bill Clinton and Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. engaged Sunday in an increasingly endangered political rite--addressing potential Southern California voters in person rather than by television.

Clinton crossed Los Angeles from Crenshaw to Fairfax, stealing a march on Brown--his last remaining Democratic rival--who launched a two-day bus tour of the state hoping to contrast what he terms his “grass-roots” campaign with the more prevalent “campaignless campaign” of politicians running by seeking money for television advertisements, but not venturing out into the public arena.

“This is the last grass-roots campaign in California,” Brown told supporters at a rally in the City of Orange. “Let’s shock ‘em.”

During his stop in Orange County, a traditional bastion of the Republican Party, he reminded supporters that he was California’s last Democratic governor and urged them to regain the state. “Take it back,” he shouted.

Later, at Venice Beach, Brown heard echoes of his campaign slogan from the crowd. “Take it back, Jerry!’ a muscle builder shouted.

“Go for it, Jerry,” a roller-skating woman urged.

Brown and his campaign workers then jogged along the coastline, led by a man carrying an American flag and trailed by an assortment of sunbathers, tourists and beachcombers.

Despite Brown’s rhetoric about the grass-roots, for most of the last five months, person-to-person campaigning has been a great strength for Clinton. The Arkansas governor has sought voters incessantly, roaming from shopping malls to talk shows in search of hands to shake or questions to answer.

But in recent days, with the primary season drawing to a close, Clinton, too, has slipped into the current California style--prominently on display in campaigns for the state’s two Senate seats--of staying mostly out of sight and letting his television advertisements do the talking.

Sunday, Clinton changed that pattern at least for a while, speaking and shaking hands with voters at the West Angeles Church of God in Christ and then at the Los Angeles Jewish Festival, touching base with two key elements of the Democratic coalition--blacks and Jews.

To each group he delivered largely the same message--quoting the late boxer Joe Louis’ saying that “you can run, but you can’t hide” and warning that the country must face its problems and unite across racial and economic lines to restore a sense of community.

“I love America, but it’s not working today,” he said. “I can’t remember a time in my lifetime when so many have worked so hard for so little.” After World War II, he said, Americans helped rebuild the world, and now “after the Cold War, we’re going to have to rebuild America.”

But mixed into his basic pitch, Clinton added a few special lines for each of the two constituencies.

At the Jewish festival, Clinton spoke of his support for Israel, saying that after the Gulf War, President Bush “badly squandered” a chance to bring peace to the Middle East by applying “unbelievable one-sided pressure” on Israel in the Middle East peace talks.

“America has always been a strong friend of the state of Israel,” Clinton said. “Let us rededicate ourselves to the elemental proposition that we must seek peace in the Middle East on terms that maintain our fair and deep devotion to democracy in Israel and to the survival of the nation of Israel.”

To the overwhelmingly black congregation at West Angeles, Clinton talked about the judicial system. “Justice should be colorblind. When someone breaks the law they ought to be punished whether they are African-American, Hispanic, Asian or white.

“Whether they are in or out of uniform, people should have colorblind justice,” he said, drawing loud applause from about 2,000 people packed into the church.

Clinton also stressed what has become a major theme for his campaign--that Republicans “talk about family values” but have created a government “that doesn’t value families.”

A society that valued families would “provide health care for mothers and their children” and “leave from work when a child is sick before somebody loses their job,” he said.

“The other party talks about welfare all the time,” he said. “I think people on welfare should work, but first, give them the education and skills and child care” they need to get into the job market. “Most poor people work. They’re not on welfare,” he added, terming as “the great unsung heroes” those people “who work and raise their children for little reward.”

Today, Clinton plans to close out the campaign with a flurry of appearances around the state, speaking to rallies in Fresno and the Bay Area before returning to Los Angeles.

Brown, for his part, urged an estimated 400 supporters at the get-out-the-vote rally at a union hall in Orange to each phone 20 people on his behalf for Tuesday’s primary.

The rally was one stop on a two-day bus trip intended to rally interest in a flagging effort whose populist, anti-Establishment thunder has been stolen almost completely by likely independent candidate Ross Perot.

Although Brown concedes he has no real chance of denying the nomination to Clinton--he has 394 delegates to Clinton’s 2,050--he still hopes to win his native state. Aides hope that by making “whistle-stops” in Southern California on Sunday and in the Bay Area today, they can generate one last “free media, photo opportunity” to remind dispirited Brown supporters to turn out and vote.

“I believe, if you’re going into the race in November and you want something different from Bush, you have to get down into the roots. You don’t want to take an insider-financed (candidate), fed and fueled by the very people who got us into the mess we’re in,” Brown said at the Orange rally. “You’ve got to get back to the grass-roots, and that’s what this campaign is all about.”

Clinton is “stumbling across the finish line” without the support of grass-roots Democrats, Brown said, arguing that Clinton’s appeal is based largely on the fact that he has been able to raise money for television ads.

“That’s the final end of democracy, if you let them get away with it,” said Brown, who campaigns against the effect of big money on politics and refuses to accept contributions of more than $100.

The country, Brown said in Orange, must concentrate its resources on its domestic problems. “We have so many unmet needs. There are so many people out of work.”

The federal government, he added, should make an emergency effort to rebuild riot-damaged areas of Los Angeles. “I think Bush ought to send (retired Gulf War commander Gen. H. Norman) Schwarzkopf up there and in 120 days, rebuild every single building that was torn down and to hire the people from the community to do the work.”

Later, in Venice, Brown waded into the afternoon beach crowd wearing jogging shorts and a black sweatshirt inscribed with his campaign’s famous 800-number. A crowd surrounded him, begging for autographs, handshakes and photographs.

A 20-mile-a-week runner, Brown mixed his two favorite pastimes--politics and exercise. Then he took to a bandstand to thank the more than 1,000 people assembled for the campaign rally. Once more, he pitted his populist message against Congress, the White House and Washington’s political insiders.

“This is a campaign you have supported, just ordinary people. No big shots. No insiders. They don’t dominate (this campaign),” he said. “It’s the American people. It’s the grass-roots against the experts and against the hierarchy of this party and the people in Washington who think they know everything.”

Brown acknowledged that he is trailing Clinton but implored his followers to stick with him through Tuesday.

“We may not have all the delegates, but we can have enough to go back to the New York (Democratic National) convention and speak for you, to have your voice heard,” he said.

All told, there are 348 Democratic delegates at stake in California, and another 352 up for grabs in the other states voting Tuesday--Ohio, New Jersey, Alabama, Montana and New Mexico.

Clinton needs 95 to reach the 2,145 necessary for a first-ballot nomination.

Although Brown’s whistle-stop tour idea is rather old-fashioned, his vehicle is not. The customized bus is equipped with such high-tech touches as a bedroom, kitchen, bath, shower and multiple television sets.

Before leaving San Diego, Brown participated in Mass at St. Vincent de Paul-Joan Kroc Center and greeted residents of the center’s homeless shelter. His other whistle-stops included a rally with labor unions at the Todd Shipyards at the Port of Los Angeles.

Today, Brown plans to campaign at the Marin Headlands and in Santa Rosa before returning to Los Angeles.