Clinton Tries Perot ‘Humility,’ Vows to Be People’s President : Democrats: Arkansas governor tells Michigan voters that he won’t promise to be a perfect leader but that progress will be made.

In a timely bit of political stagecraft, Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton appeared to metamorphose Sunday into the ghost of his increasingly competitive, non-politician foe Ross Perot.

Yes, that was Clinton, not Perot, standing in a grove of golden-leaved trees at an apple festival here using a variation of the Texan’s own words as he pledged to be the President of the people.

“I do not promise to be a perfect President. If you elect me, I will make some mistakes because, unlike the guy who’s in there now, I’ll do something. I’ll get up every day going to work and trying to get something done. I’ll tell you this--we will make progress.

“And I’ll wake up every day in that White House with the idea that it’s not my house, it’s your house. I am nothing more than a temporary tenant and your chief hired hand. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be there.”

The humility is hardly original--Perot has based his campaign on the contention that he alone among the candidates will be the public’s hired hand, not a politician intent on fleshing out his resume with the nation’s premier job.

“I don’t belong to anyone but you; you the people own me,” Perot told supporters on Oct. 1. “If you elect me, I go as your servant.”

The comparison to Perot--in words that Clinton has not typically used--was unmistakable. And to drive the point home completely, Clinton took pains to cast a brewing paternal fight between Bush and Perot as evidence that they are too involved in political nay-saying to care about the citizens of America.

Perot, who started the most recent verbal fisticuffs by alleging that Bush was investigating his children, has long contended that Bush and Clinton were too interested in their own political futures to solve the nation’s problems.

But, Clinton told several thousand people here: “I want to investigate your children, their problems, their promise and their future.”

In a day that took him across Michigan and into North Carolina, the Arkansas governor constantly maligned his competitors even as he contended that his victory would represent a triumph of hope over the politics of fear.

At least publicly, however, Clinton displayed little tension over new national polls which suggest that the race for the presidency is tightening with just nine days to go.

“If you look at what’s happening, a lot of this is natural for the end of a presidential election,” he said. “People think and rethink and they’ll go up and then our polls will go along.”

Later, Clinton added: “A win is a win. I’m not interested in the margin.”

Clinton was himself on the defensive briefly on Sunday as he denied a report in the Sunday Telegraph in London that he had a secret deal with the president of the European Community to delay a world-wide trade agreement, which is now being negotiated, so that President Bush could not claim credit for it.

“Nothing to that,” Clinton said, adding later: “I wouldn’t dare fool with this. . . . The Administration has done basically right by our interests.”

At a rally in Sioux Falls, S.D., Bush used the Sunday Telegraph story to suggest that Clinton might be “interfering” with U.S. policy to serve his own political interests.

Bush made clear that he had no separate evidence of Clinton’s alleged role. But he said: “If this report is true, and if the Clinton campaign is going over to Europe interfering with an agreement that would benefit all American agriculture, it is a sorry, pathetic thing to be doing a few days before an election.”

Throughout the day Sunday, Clinton’s treatment of Bush and Perot reflected his campaign’s assessment of current political realities: While he does not expect Bush voters to come over to his side, Clinton still holds out hope of attracting Perot partisans and thus is dealing with Perot more carefully.

Clinton’s criticism of Bush was edged with the sort of derision that leading candidates usually avoid in their efforts to look presidential toward the close of the campaign. But perhaps because of the polls, Clinton was going all out to douse any flicker of Bush momentum.

As he has for days, Clinton criticized the President for an Administration effort to check out the passport files of both him and his mother.

He also cited recent newspaper articles critical of Bush’s handling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and a New Yorker magazine piece that accused Bush of being more involved in the Iran-Contra scandal than he has admitted.

Clinton also accused Bush of using his Administration to aid “special interest friends.”

“A lot of people can say: ‘Well, vote for me, I’ll do better next time.’ That’s what Mr. Bush says. He says, ‘I’ll focus on America if you give me one more break.’ ”

His voice brimming with sarcasm, Clinton added, “Thanks a lot.”

The Democrat’s most pointed reference to Perot was muted in comparison.

“A lot of people can claim, well, they are outsiders,” Clinton said at a Saginaw rally. “Let me tell you the facts. Of all the people you could vote for for President this time, of all your choices, only one of them has ever balanced a government budget. Only one of them, only one of them, has never been part of the Washington lobbying scene.”

After a few more honorifics, Clinton announced that the single choice was--to no one’s surprise--him. The Democrat did not make clear in his recitation of “the facts” that he is required by law to balance the Arkansas budget. His second statement apparently referred to Perot’s lobbying of government officials for the benefit of his business concerns.

The campaign day sent Clinton hopscotching across Michigan from Grand Rapids to Saginaw to Sterling Heights, a Detroit suburb.

In Atlanta on Sunday, Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee. the Democratic vice presidential nominee, courted two Georgia constituencies--black church-goers in the inner city and suburban voters in largely Republican Cobb County.

Gore visited two black Atlanta churches Sunday morning, cautioning the faithful against complacency and urging them to vote.

Later, Gore urged suburban voters to elect Democratic congressional candidate Tony Center and to reject incumbent Republican Newt Gingrich.

Times staff writers Douglas Jehl in Sioux Falls, S.D., and Sam Fulwood III in Atlanta contributed to this story.