Clinton Uses His Victory Speech to Sharpen Campaign Themes : Politics: To counter Bush, the Democratic candidate emphasizes the need for change. He touts his experience as a contrast to Perot.

Democrat Bill Clinton claimed his party’s nomination Tuesday night and sought to reclaim the mantle of change that his campaign lost during four bruising months of primary elections.

“The election for America’s future begins tomorrow,” he told a large and enthusiastic group of supporters crowded into a ballroom in the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles.

Clinton said he now faces “one opponent who says he’ll do whatever it takes to hold onto the White House” and another “who says he’ll spend whatever it takes to get the White House.” He laid out several of the themes that he and his advisers hope will, in the end, allow him to prevail over both.

To compete with the first of those opponents, President Bush, Clinton will emphasize the need for “profound change” in the country.

Describing the problems the nation faces, Clinton cited several of the individuals and families he has met during his months of campaigning--stories the American electorate likely will hear many more times before November.

Clinton talked of a father in New Hampshire who cannot get a job because his son had open-heart surgery and employers do not want to take on his health care costs.

The Arkansas governor spoke of another father, an immigrant in New York, who talked to him about his fear of letting his son play on crime-ridden streets. And he described an elderly couple he met in a senior citizens’ center who broke into tears as they talked of having to choose between buying medicine and buying food.

The 1980s, he said, brought the country more inequality than any decade since the 1920s. And to those who prospered disproportionately during that decade, Clinton said: “The party’s over. We’re in for a change.”

“We want to take our country back,” he added, stealing a line from the man who became his final rival for the nomination--former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr.

To counter the second opponent, Texas tycoon Ross Perot, Clinton emphasized his experience in making government work.

“Change is never easy,” he said, but “I have worked hard” and “learned a bit about it.” To bring about the changes the country needs, “you have to know that, in the end, words have to give way to deeds,” he said.

Clinton and his advisers hope those two themes--change and experience--will allow him to strike a chord with voters who appear to be ready to reject Bush but who may come to fear Perot as too much of an unknown.

Essentially, Clinton is seeking a middle path. But even aides concede that he could end up caught in between--failing to offer enough stability to appeal to one side or enough change to appeal to the other.

For now, however, Clinton faces a more immediate problem--getting voters to listen to his message. “I’ve got to develop some way of reaching to the American people,” he said after his speech as he participated in a call-in show with CBS-TV anchorman Dan Rather that was seen live in much of the country, although not in Los Angeles.

“What I need to do is let people know what my record is,” Clinton told one caller.

The call-in program provided one such opportunity. Both Perot and Bush declined to participate in the CBS show, but Clinton jumped at the idea.

Strategists for Clinton believe such formats play to his strength--his detailed ideas and proposals for domestic policy.

Over the course of the program, Clinton answered questions about his stands on abortion (supports abortion rights), legalization of marijuana (opposes), tax breaks for parents who send children to parochial schools (opposes), and allowing homosexuals to serve in the military (favors).

Clinton even took one question asking what was the funniest thing that had happened to him in recent days. He answered by describing a walk he had taken along the beachfront in Venice over the weekend, saying he was surrounded by people shouting advice, one-liners and jokes.

“It was like being caught in a carnival atmosphere,” he said. “If you’ve never been to Venice Beach on the weekend, you need to go.”

On a more serious front, Clinton also took a few more questions on Perot, stressing the difference between his willingness to provide specifics and Perot’s desire to stick to generalities.

The Texas billionaire “has enough money to buy his way around having to answer all these questions,” Clinton said. Eventually, Perot will “have to stand on the stage,” debate other candidates and show if he actually “has a plan for the future,” Clinton said.

Responding to a caller who spoke in favor of Perot, Clinton stopped short of directly criticizing the presumed independent candidate. Instead, he said that he agrees with Perot’s criticism of Washington, but he indicated another line of attack that Democrats likely will use against Perot: “If you look at the records, and you ask yourself which of these three people has really fought the Washington system the last 12 years and the way it works,” that record will show “only one has, and that’s Bill Clinton.”

As the campaign develops, Clinton likely will argue that Perot profited by many of the policies of the 1980s and was deeply involved as a political insider despite his current outsider image.

Clinton’s campaign hopes to produce several of its own call-in shows later this month, expanding on an idea Clinton employed to good result during the New Hampshire primary in February. And judging by some of the comments during the show, such programs may do Clinton some good.

One caller, a woman from New Jersey who described herself as a “lifelong Republican” called to compliment Clinton, saying that of the three candidates he was “the only one who has the guts to appear live before the American people.” Clinton responded with a broad smile.

The Delegate Tally

The delegate count, according to the Associated Press, from all contests to date.

DEMOCRATS: 2,145 needed for nomination Delegates Bill Clinton: 2,517 Jerry Brown: 602 Uncommitted: 498 REPUBLICANS: 1,105 needed for nomination Delegates George Bush: 1,811 Patrick J. Buchanan: 76 Uncommitted: 26