‘92 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION : Clinton Grounds Campaign in ‘Forgotten Middle Class’ : Speech: He aligns himself with the political center vowing to ‘offer our people a new choice based on old values.’

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton launched his general election campaign Thursday with a determined effort to ground himself and his party in the values and experiences of the middle class, the great battleground in American politics.

In a rhetorically spare speech Thursday night to the Democratic convention that nominated him for President, Clinton laid out both his challenge to President Bush and his defense against the Republican attacks that almost assuredly will intensify now that Ross Perot’s departure from the presidential race has reduced it to a head-on collision between himself and the White House incumbent.

In much of the address, Clinton reiterated the Democrats’ case against Bush’s economic record--the clear focus of this week’s convention.

But in the long run, the cultural signals he sent about his background and political priorities may be as important as his economic arguments and his attempt to wrap himself in the mantle of change. How those signals are received could determine the ultimate outcome of his quest.

As the nominee of a party that has suffered a hemorrhage of middle-class support over the past generation--and that saw the GOP successfully portray the last Democratic presidential nominee as a cultural elitist contemptuous of mid-American values--Clinton sought to paint himself as both a son and the champion of what he termed “the forgotten middle class.”

Describing himself as “a product of America’s middle class,” Clinton portrayed his economic and social agenda of “putting our people first” as the outgrowth of his own experiences as the son of a single mother.

And without ever directly mentioning in his speech the questions about his character that still linger over his campaign, he sought to defuse voters’ anxieties by talking--at greater length than at any point during the campaign--about his rise from modest roots.

With such an emphasis on his background, Clinton signaled his intention to engage the Republicans on a two-front war. Like the speakers that preceded him, Clinton lashed Bush for his economic performance and accused the President of lacking a plan for long-term prosperity. But with his speech’s repeated discussion of “values,” Clinton attempted to blunt the long-standing GOP accusation that the Democratic Party in general and the liberals who have led it for years hold middle-American mores in contempt.

The speech was a testimony to Clinton’s belief--which he held even before Perot quit the field--that the Democrats cannot regain the White House without reclaiming the political center, particularly on questions of values.

In a sense, Clinton sought to identify with both change and tradition at the same time. Even as he stressed that he would change government--and explicitly reached out to Perot’s “army of patriots for change”--he insisted he would steer his new course by the light of traditional values.

Twice he quoted what he called “Scripture” to reinforce his points. And, in a nod to Americans’ long-standing skepticism of abstract intellectuals, he said he had learned more from his grade-school educated grandfather than his professors at Georgetown, Oxford University and the Yale Law School.

“We offer our people a new choice based on old values,” he said in what might have been the speech’s philosophical center.

Republicans remain confident that they can challenge that assertion by highlighting Clinton’s liberal positions on some social issues--particularly his support for abortion rights and gay rights--as well as his advocacy of a substantial tax increase to fund an array of new domestic initiatives.

“There has been a lot of feinting back toward the center, back toward traditional values, but at the end of the day they are going to drag the government away from what most middle Americans want to see and people are going to see that,” one senior Republican strategist said Thursday night.

But the speech was as clear a statement as Clinton has made in months of his intention to move the party toward the political center. In that respect it reaffirmed the themes and arguments with which Clinton began the race. The speech announced no new programs or initiatives. Nor did it offer any fresh rhetorical departures; much of the language echoed Clinton’s announcement address and other speeches early in his campaign.

In those speeches, Clinton forcefully argued that the Democratic Party must re-examine its traditional economic and social agenda in order to regain the allegiance of the middle class. At times during Clinton’s bruising march to the nomination, that message lost its clarity and definition, as the candidate maneuvered for support from traditionally liberal elements of the party.

But the focus on change was unequivocal in Thursday’s address. “There is not a program in government for every problem,” he said, reprising language that had faded during parts of the primary season.

For all his talk of the middle class, Clinton also searched for an inclusionary tone. He made a strong plea for racial harmony. And as he has in recent weeks, he distanced himself from the Administration’s version of “family values,” declaring: “Our families have values. Our government doesn’t.”

Presidential acceptance speeches are often a map to the terrain on which the parties hope to contest the general election, and this one was no exception. In the speech, Clinton laid out the issues on which he hopes to ride to the White House: economic renewal, education reform, universal access to health care, streamlining of government, abortion rights, environmental protection, and efforts to limit the influence of special interests in politics.

But beyond the individual issues, Clinton also outlined several of the broad contrasts he hopes to draw with Bush.

Above all, he identified himself with change and new ideas, while painting Bush as the caretaker of the status quo--a man “caught in the grip of a failed economic theory.”

He reinforced that central contrast with several others: He has a plan to revive the economy while Bush does not; he is committed to a vigorous presidency, while Bush is passive and frozen in place.

Throughout the week, earlier convention speakers drew other contrasts central to the Democrat case. They presented Clinton as young and energetic while suggesting Bush was tired and spent; argued that Bush was out of touch with ordinary Americans while Clinton shared their experience; and said Bush favored the rich while Clinton would help average Americans.

But for the Democrats, this week has been like playing tennis without a net. Now, as the GOP moves toward its own convention, analysts in both parties expect it to accelerate efforts to define the election as a choice between an entirely different set of contrasts: an experienced President who has been tested by crisis, against a young governor whose character remains in question; a world leader against the governor of a small state; and a conservative against a liberal masquerading as a moderate.

In a climate of widespread economic dissatisfaction, some Republican strategists acknowledge Bush is unlikely to win even a two-man race unless he can convince voters to see the race through those lenses. But, for all the boost he has received from this week’s convention--and the long-term lift provided him by anxiety about the economy--many Democrats believe Clinton is himself unlikely to prevail unless he can prevent Bush from portraying him as too risky, both personally and ideologically.

With his speech tonight, Clinton fired the first shot in what is likely to be a long and bitter war to frame the choice facing Americans in November, now that the field has been reduced to two.