Clinton Urges Unity to Battle America’s Ills

In a somber and evocative address meant to provide a thematic framework for his prospective presidency, Democratic nominee Bill Clinton on Friday called upon a nation divided in “quiet crisis” to pull together to battle its spiritual and physical ills.

Speaking at the University of Notre Dame, Clinton threaded his remarks with implicit criticism of the Bush Administration for talking about moral values but failing to act upon them.

He called upon the memory of the nation’s only Roman Catholic President, John F. Kennedy, and Kennedy’s 1960 demand that America work to erase intolerance.

“Like so many Americans, I’ve been appalled to hear the voices of intolerance that have been raised in recent weeks, voices that proclaimed that some families aren’t real families, some Americans aren’t real Americans,” said Clinton, in a clear reference to Republican assertions that they alone represent mainstream Americans.

“America doesn’t need a religious war; it needs a reaffirmation of the values that, for most of us, are rooted in our religious faith.”

Clinton’s speech was the latest volley in the battle between him and President Bush for the high ground of moral authority, a battle played out along the cultural fault lines of the nation.

While his aim was directed keenly at onetime Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan, who told delegates to the party’s Houston convention that there was a religious and cultural war afoot in the nation, Clinton’s real target was the Republican implication that Clinton is on the opposite side of the cultural divide from middle America.

He also tried to answer weeks of criticism from Republicans that Democrats--and Clinton by extension--are not sufficiently religious. President Bush, for one, has criticized his opponent’s party for not including the word God in its party platform.

Clinton’s remarks, which drew rapturous applause from thousands of students and continuous catcalls from several dozen protesters, included numerous references to God and Catholicism. He praised the Catholic tradition of public service and said that it should be embraced by the nation as a whole.

“When I think of how I want to help change America during the next four years, I want most of all to restore the link between rights and responsibilities, opportunities and obligations--the social contract that defines what we owe to one another, to our communities and to our country as well as what we are entitled to for ourselves,” said Clinton.

“The American community should speak in a clear and certain voice that some things are right and some things are wrong,” he added. “On any day, in any time, in any place, violence is wrong, bigotry is wrong, abandoning children is wrong.”

Clinton has waged his campaign for President on a series of specific policy proposals huddled under the general theme of “personal responsibility.” But his Notre Dame speech broadened the thematic umbrella, saying that Americans also bear a responsibility to each other.

The address was also meant to quell concerns that while voters are growing more informed about his specific proposals, they have yet to ascertain his motivation and vision for the country.

“When I talk about training workers today for the jobs of tomorrow, when I talk about helping people move from welfare rolls to the payrolls, and when I talk about rebuilding America, I’m talking about fulfilling our moral obligation to help every one of our brothers and sisters enjoy the dignity of useful and productive work,” said Clinton, whose words frequently took on the air of a sermon.

The Arkansas governor said that his proposals for a college loan fund, stronger emphasis on education and support for services benefiting children were central to crafting an environment in which the nation will live up to its obligations.

In a passage that brought the crowd to silence, Clinton cited as an example of the American spirit the widespread volunteer effort that has mobilized since Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida. And he spoke as well of the quiet courage of a woman, met on one of

his recent bus tours, who had adopted a child with AIDS.

“Americans are brilliant at doing right by each other in a time of crisis,” the governor declared.

“All across this country, we must know, we are in a quieter crisis of a fraying society, a declining economy, of an education system unequal to the task of local competition, of an environment slowly coming apart in critical places,” he said.

“But most of all, a crisis of community, a spiritual crisis that calls upon each of us to remember to act upon our values to one another.”

As filled as it was with religious references, Clinton’s address had a sharp political tone. He went out of his way to tell listeners that “if elected, I will be the first President to graduate from a Catholic college.” The reference to his years at Georgetown University seemed meant to instill the same sort of pride that greeted Kennedy’s candidacy.

That remark, his plentiful remembrances of Georgetown and his repeated praise for what he called “the Catholic social mission” were aimed not only at his immediate audience at Notre Dame, but also at ethnic Catholics, who comprise a significant segment of voters in the industrial Midwest. That area, and that voter bloc, has swung toward the Republicans in recent years but is seen as ripe for the Democratic ticket this time around.

Clinton, a Baptist, came to the nation’s best-known Catholic university in a symbolic reversal of the fashion in which Kennedy in 1960 had spoken to Baptist ministers when seeking to blunt anti-Catholic sentiment.

While Kennedy argued that a Catholic candidate should be judged by his commitment to the Constitution, not his religion, Clinton sought a separate goal: to convince the nation’s Catholic voters that a Baptist stands in kinship with them.

“Both Baptists and Catholics are rooted in the spiritual riches of working people, people who know the pain of poverty and the bite of discrimination, people for whom life is a daily struggle,” he said.

But, he said, putting a religious spin on a line that frequently makes its way into his speeches, “Today, America has wandered far from the lessons of our faith and our history.

“Most people are working harder and benefiting less. We are becoming a nation of greater poverty and much, much greater economic inequality and that is straining the ties that bind us.”

Clinton’s appeals to the socially conservative voters in the Midwest have been occasionally rocky, balanced as they are with appeals to the liberal wing of the party. So it was on Friday when, hours before Clinton spoke of religious values, his campaign also passed around an endorsement letter from the head of the national Madonna Fan Club.

The singer, who did not endorse Clinton, soon will appear in a book of nude pictures titled “Sex” and will release an album called “Erotica.”

Notre Dame is a favorite locale for presidential candidates. President Bush spoke here a week before the 1988 election to present his vision for the nation’s future, and like Clinton he was faced with protests.

Clinton’s opponents greeted him inside Stepan Center by shouting “draft dodger” and various anti-abortion slogans.

The Democratic nominee brushed off the catcalls.

“We know that in this room, at least, our supporters can win the cheering contest,” said Clinton. “I would hope that in this great university we could also prevail in the civility contest.”