Perot Quits Presidential Race : Clinton’s Goal: the Revitalizing of America : ‘Join Us,’ Democrat Urges Perot’s Backers

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, vowing to be an agent of change, formally accepted his party’s presidential nomination Thursday in the name of “our forgotten middle class” and appealed to supporters of Ross Perot to “join us--together we will revitalize America.”

“A President ought to be a powerful force for progress,” but President Bush has refused to use his office to address the country’s problems, Clinton said. He issued a challenge that he hopes to make a centerpiece of his fall campaign--”George Bush: If you won’t use your power to help America, step aside. I will.”

Aware of the importance of Perot’s voters to his future, Clinton reached out to Americans who have rejected his party in the last three presidential elections: “We are, in the words that Ross Perot, himself, spoke today, a revitalized Democratic Party.”

As he sought to demonstrate that revitalization, Clinton’s 55-minute speech was far different from those common to Democratic conventions of the past. The speech struck many populist notes and used frequent religious allusions, something recent Democratic politicians have shied away from. And it abandoned many liberal orthodoxies as Clinton continued his effort to redefine the Democrats as a party of the center--middle class, middle American and in the middle of the ideological spectrum.

“It is time for us to realize that there is not a government program for every problem,” he said. “If we really want to use government to help people, we’ve got to make it work again.”

And he employed President Bush’s own words, uttered four years ago, as he sought to portray the President as a failed leader who has lost his ability to move the country forward.

In 1988 Bush told the Republican convention that he was the right choice to build on Ronald Reagan’s policies and create a “kinder and gentler” America. “I am that man,” Bush declared.

Now, said Clinton, “10 million Americans are out of work.”

“Four years ago, candidate Bush said America is a special place, not just ‘another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, between Albania and Zimbabwe,’ ” Clinton said. “Now, under President Bush, America has an unpleasant economy stuck somewhere between Germany and Sri Lanka. And for most Americans, Mr. President, life’s a lot less kind and a lot less gentle than it was before your Administration took office.”

“Unemployment only has to go up by one more person before we can start a real recovery,” Clinton said, “and Mr. President you are that man.”

As he spoke, his wife, Hillary, seemed to be fighting back tears, particularly when Clinton praised her for her work on behalf of children. Clinton also recognized his mother, who had cast Arkansas’ votes for him in Wednesday night’s roll call, saying he received his “fighting spirit” from her.

Clinton’s speech came at a moment of political drama so intense that a work of fiction with such a plot would almost certainly be considered implausible: A candidate who has struggled for months to resolve voters’ doubts about his character faces a vast audience, hoping to grab a chance for a defining moment on the national stage.

Haunted by memories of a disastrous convention speech four years earlier, he spends days wrestling with his text. And just as he completes editing the last lines of his address, one of his two rivals unexpectedly announces his departure from the race, throwing weeks of strategic guesswork into chaos.

Predictably, strategists for the two parties split along partisan lines in their assessment of how Perot’s departure would affect the race. Republicans stressed how the news would help Bush regain strength in the South, where Perot seemed likely to take away many conservative white voters from Bush. That, they said, might allow Clinton to win with a combination of more liberal whites and minority voters.

Democrats, by contrast, stressed how Perot’s departure would allow them to attract voters who have turned against Bush, particularly in Western states where Bush’s popularity is extremely low but where Clinton so far has had considerable difficulty.

The one thing both sides appeared to agree on was that Perot’s departure would only heighten the amount of attention to Clinton’s already widely anticipated speech.

“People have been paying attention. Over the last four days, we’ve been moving upward. And now, Perot cracks open the firmament just as we are about to ascend,” said Clinton’s communications director, George Stephanopoulos. “It’s the perfect moment.”

Clinton used that moment to advocate his “New Covenant--a solemn commitment between the people and their government--based not simply on what each of us can take but what all of us must give our nation.”

Saying that “we Democrats have some changing to do,” Clinton called for “an America with the world’s strongest defense; ready and willing to use force when necessary” and an “end to welfare as we know it.”

“We need a new approach to government,” he said, a system that offers “more empowerment and less entitlement” and a “government that is leaner, not meaner, that expands opportunity, not bureaucracy, that understands that jobs must come from growth.”

Clinton stressed several of the key elements of his platform: a guarantee of health coverage for all Americans, a college loan fund that would allow all students to borrow in return for two years of community service and increased incentives for business to invest in ventures that create jobs domestically.

“We offer our people a new choice based on old values,” Clinton said. “We offer opportunity. And we demand responsibility. The choice we offer is not conservative or liberal, Democratic or Republican. It is different. It is new. And it will work.”

As Clinton prepared to speak, convention producers aired a video biography of him, a moving portrayal featuring footage found in the John F. Kennedy archives showing Clinton, then 17, shaking hands with Kennedy during a visit to the White House in 1963, and the candidate talking about the father he never knew and his feelings for his wife and daughter.

The 12-minute video, created by television producers Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, both longtime friends of Clinton’s, is a key part of the campaign’s attempt to address character questions about Clinton by emphasizing to voters his small town roots and his difficult childhood.

“Tonight,” Clinton said in his speech, “I want to tell you, as plainly as I can, who I am, what I believe in and where I want to lead America.”

Clinton went on to talk of the influence of his mother and credited his grandparents for teaching him “to look up to people other folks looked down on.” He said his wife was responsible for his commitment to “children and their futures.”

He spoke proudly of his record in Arkansas, saying Bush had “never balanced a budget. I have. Eleven times.”

Bush, Clinton said, would not “take on the big insurance companies to lower costs and provide health care to all Americans” nor “break the stranglehold special interests have on our elections” nor fight “a real war on crime and drugs.”

To each statement, he added, “I will.”

Bush, Clinton said, “took the richest country in the world and brought it down. We took one of the poorest states in America and lifted it up.”

“There is no miracle in Arkansas,” he added. “But there are a lot of miraculous people.”

Clinton also challenged Bush on abortion. Bush “won’t guarantee a woman’s right to choose. I will,” he said. “Hear me now,” he added, “I am not pro-abortion. I am pro-choice--strongly. I believe this difficult and painful decision should be left to the women of America.”

Some delegates seemed impatient with the length of Clinton’s speech. “Is he near the end yet?” one asked. “It was a good speech . . . but it was also way too long,” another said.

But Clinton clearly engaged the crowd, which erupted in applause 122 times during the address, chanting “we want Bill” and waving miniature American flags and blue and white Clinton pennants.

When he told the packed hall that Democrats can “seize this moment” to make it “exciting and energizing and heroic to be an American again,” the delegates and guests exploded into chants of “we can do it, we can do it.”

And when it was over, and Clinton and his vice presidential nominee, Tennessee Sen. Al Gore, raised their arms in victory, the arena turned into a sea of fluttering flags as thousands of colorful balloons that had been suspended in nets from the ceiling cascaded down upon the cheering crowd.

Michael Davis, a delegate who lives in the mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles, said he was glad Clinton talked about jobs, health care and equal opportunity.

“It was clear to me the speech really presented hope and change in the direction of leadership in our country,” Davis said.

“He was talking about creating an environment for the American dream. That was good.”

Afterward, a choir of Democratic leaders ranging from Jesse Jackson to New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley joined Clinton, Gore and their wives and children on the podium, where they joined hands as singers Jennifer Holliday and Reggie Jackson, and Clinton’s half-brother, Roger, led the crowd in a specially written song, “Circle of Friends.”

Earlier in the evening, the convention formally nominated Gore as the ticket’s vice presidential candidate.

Gore chose several congressional colleagues to make speeches placing his name into nomination. They stressed Gore’s record on the environment, arms control and civil rights in praising him as a nominee.

“For more than a decade, Al Gore has been leading on foreign policy issues,” said Sen. Timothy E. Wirth of Colorado. “As early as 1982, American and Soviet leaders were talking about his innovative ideas for arms control--and his creativity has marked our foreign policy.”

Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a hero of the civil rights movement, praised Gore for being “committed to the building of an interracial democracy in America.”

“As a son of the South, he has consistently spoken out against bigotry and discrimination . . . . He cannot only talk the talk, he can walk the walk.

Gore, accepting the nomination, joked about the nickname reporters and staff members have given Clinton. He said, “I’ve been dreaming of this moment since I was growing up in Tennessee: that one day, I’d have the chance to come here to Madison Square Garden and be the warm-up act for Elvis.”

Gore brought the convention to life with a repeated refrain early in his speech, attacking the Republicans’ record and leading the thousands of delegates in chants of “it is time for them to go.”

A few minutes later, he brought the huge crowd to a hushed silence as he described the accident that almost took the life of his young son a year ago. The experience “changed me forever.”

“The cynics are having a field day because across this country, millions of American families have been betrayed by a government out of touch with our values and beholden to the privileged few,” Gore said. “But you can’t kill hope that easily, not here, not in America, where a cynic is just a disappointed idealist in disguise, a dreamer yearning to dream again.”

And although Clinton and his advisers have been skeptical of the idea, Gore also leaned again on the theme of generational change, a message Gore believes can help the ticket appeal to younger voters.

“Throughout American history, each generation has passed on leadership to the next,” Gore said. “That time has come again. The time for a new generation of leadership for the United States of America to take over from George Bush and Dan Quayle.”

As he has been throughout the convention, Quayle once again was a foil for Democratic barbs.

To open the final night of the convention with the Pledge of Allegiance, Democrats chose William Figueroa, the Trenton, N.J., 12-year-old whose spelling of “potato” Quayle erroneously tried to correct last month.

“Letterman was more fun, but this is fun, too,” Figueroa said, referring to his appearance last month on David Letterman’s “Late Night” television program.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Endicott Peabody, pursuing his Quixotic quest to have the vice president chosen in primaries, rather than by the presidential nominee, also bashed Quayle, saying his distinguishing characteristics were “a low golf handicap and the inability to spell the word potato.”

But while Democrats have few sports they like more than Quayle-baiting, nearly all the aisle chatter on the convention’s last night involved Perot.

As delegates began flooding into Madison Square Garden for the convention’s final, celebratory night, some carried signs urging Perot supporters to join the Clinton bandwagon. “I’d like to see the campaign capitalize on this opportunity,” said Rob Simmons, a young delegate from West Hollywood, who carried a hand-lettered sign proclaiming: “Perot People--It’s Not Too Late to Join Us.”

“If you’re still sore, vote Clinton-Gore,” said one sign held aloft near the California delegation. “One Down, One to Go,” read another.

Word of Perot’s withdrawal caught Clinton’s camp by surprise. About 15 minutes before Perot held his televised press conference, Clinton strategist James Carville entered the candidate’s 14th floor hotel suite to tell him of reports that Perot would be announcing that he was quitting.

Clinton, who had been working on his speech, quickly gathered his top aides around him to watch the televised announcement. As Perot said that “the Democratic party has revitalized itself,” several of the aides thrust their fists into the air in triumph.

“This is a weird year, and it just keeps getting weirder,” one senior strategist told Clinton.

As soon as Perot officially said he would not be a candidate, Clinton asked an aide to place a telephone call to Perot’s Dallas headquarters. About 15 minutes later, Perot called back, and the two talked for about 10 minutes.

Afterward, Clinton issued a statement saying he had been “moved” by Perot’s remarks. “Mr. Perot has said many times that this movement is bigger than any individual or any candidacy,” the statement said. “It is a manifestation of the American people’s deep quest for change.

“We have heard their message and share their hopes,” he said. “I ask them to give us a fair hearing.”

Clinton’s talk with Perot was at least the second such discussion between the two men in the last few weeks, Clinton aides said. Earlier this summer, Clinton had called Perot to discuss presidential debates.

And last year, the two men had a lengthy dinner meeting in Dallas while Clinton was there for a speech. During the last few months, Perot has on several occasions made flattering remarks about Clinton, just as he has excoriated Bush. At least some Democratic strategists hope that Perot may eventually follow up his complimentary remarks about the party with a formal endorsement of Clinton’s candidacy, although Clinton aides say they have had no indication of any such plan.

About 3 1/2 hours before the final session of the convention was to begin, Clinton, accompanied by Hillary, went through a microphone check at the podium where he would later accept the nomination and deliver his acceptance speech.

He seemed relaxed but intent on getting accustomed to the see-through TelePrompTers at the left and right of the podium and to another TelePrompTer screen about 75 feet in front of the stage, but out of sight of cameras. He smiled and sipped from a Diet Coke as shutters clicked and tape rolled every time he reached the podium.

For her part, Hillary Clinton gave her most strongly feminist address of the week, telling the National Women’s Political Caucus that women must fight for their right to be heard and to be elected.

Introduced by Texas Gov. Ann Richards as “the next first woman of the United States”--a phrase that Democrats increasingly have used in the last few days instead of the more traditional “first lady”--Mrs. Clinton paid tribute to women who brave the hostile political waters to run for office, and to those who raise the money to enable them to do so.

“We all have to believe in something or someone enough to fight for it,” she told a wildly enthusiastic crowd of delegates and activists, recounting a story from her childhood about moving to a new neighborhood when she was four years old and being beaten up each time she was sent outside to play.

“I began to develop the sense a lot of women get: why go out and get slammed again?” she said. But, she continued, her mother sent her back out to brave the bullies, telling the young child that “there’s no room for cowards in this house.”

“What my mother did is to send me back out every day since,” she said. “And this year, we’re getting up every day and going back out. We’ll be criticized and undercut. But do you know why? Because we’re trying to change what’s going on, we’re trying to change the status quo.”

Times staff writers Michael Ross, Stephanie Grace and Dave Lesher contributed to this story.

GORE LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN: Candidate says a new generation of leaders can bind the nation’s wounds. A9

MORE CONVENTION NEWS: A8-11, A27, 29-31