Clinton, Brown Try to Reach Out to Voters

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.

Speaking to a friendly crowd of 400 at the Carpenter’s Union Hall in the city of Orange, Brown called for a renewed political will to rechannel technical expertise and tax money away from military hardware to domestic issues such as health care, education, energy and transportation.

The United States, he said, should “apply the same genius that sent a Tomahawk missile down a shaft in Iraq to getting a kid through high school or getting the poison out of the air.”

At one point, he suggested that Bush should send in retired Gulf War commander Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf to enlist community members in rebuilding the parts of Los Angeles razed by recent rioting.

“Schwarzkopf conjures up the image of what the U.S. used to do . . . ,” he said. “America could rebuild every burned-out building from the Bronx to Los Angeles in 120 days if the will was there.”

Clinton, meanwhile, 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 the rally in 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.

Despite Brown’s rhetoric, for most of the last five months, grass-roots campaigning has been a great strength for Clinton, who 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 the supporters at the get-out-the-vote rally in Orange to each phone 20 people on his behalf for Tuesday’s primary.

Introduced as “the soul of our party” by Tim Carpenter, the Orange County volunteer coordinator for the Jerry Brown for President campaign, the candidate looked cool, sporting a red AIDS awareness ribbon on his tweed suit.

The overflow crowd, dressed mostly in shorts, T-shirts and sandals, responded with applause and by waving “We the People Take Back America” placards and chanting “Jer-ry, Jer-ry.” At one point, they also chanted his 800 hot-line number for people to call in with concerns.

“I came to see what he has to say,” said an 87-year-old woman who said she was undecided and unlikely to vote Tuesday. “We’ll see.”

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

Although Brown’s whistle-stop tour idea is rather old-fashioned, his vehicle is not. The customized bus is equipped with a bedroom, kitchen, bath, shower and 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. He also planned rallies with labor unions at the Todd Shipyards at the Port of Los Angeles and on the boardwalk in Venice.

Times staff writer Lynn Smith contributed to this story.