Clinton Uses President’s Words as His New Weapon

Driving toward Election Day with the outcome unnervingly in doubt, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton used President Bush’s own words Friday to cast him as an uncaring man out of touch with the yearnings of the American people.

Across New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio, Clinton took umbrage at Bush’s contention on Thursday that the Democratic presidential nominee and his running mate, Tennessee Sen. Al Gore were extremists. Bush called the team “crazy.”

“I’ll tell you what I think is crazy,” said Clinton, speaking before thousands of shivering supporters gathered in a bracing wind here.

“I think it’s crazy that unemployment is going up and incomes are going down. Crazy that a guy that said: ‘Read my lips’ and signed the second biggest tax increase in history is campaigning as somebody against taxes.

“Crazy that one in 10 Americans are on food stamps and there are more working poor people than there were four years ago.

“I think it’s crazy that 100,000 Americans a month are losing their health insurance and that every week elderly people in Ohio and Arkansas and throughout the United States have to make a choice between medicine and food. Now that is crazy.”

In the last hard-fought days before the election, Clinton’s message was not subtle in the least. To drive home his point, the campaign introduced a new song at the end of his rally here: “Crazy,” recorded by Patsy Cline.

He undertook the same attack earlier in the day in Pittsburgh, Pa., where he also appeared before reporters to all but accuse Bush of lying about his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.

His remarks came hours after the release of a report that said former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger attended a 1986 meeting where Bush, then vice president, joined in approval of the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for the release of hostages. Bush has denied knowing about the exchange.

“Today’s disclosure that President Bush knew and approved of the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran not only directly contradicts the President’s claim, but diminishes the credibility of the presidency,” said Clinton, who refused to specifically call the President a liar.

Clinton’s approach Friday was symbolic of what he has tried to do for weeks to blunt any surge by Bush--using the chief executive’s own words to leave a negative impression.

He also sent a clear signal that he intends to press his message until the bitter end. He announced that between now and Election Day he will hardly stop campaigning.

“I don’t even need to sleep for the next four days,” he said. “I wanna get out there and hit him again!”

Clinton’s strategy rides on the presumption that more than anything else the election will be a referendum on Bush’s presidency.

Earlier this week, he emphasized former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s comments that Bush told him to “not pay any attention” to campaign rhetoric about the end of the Cold War. Clinton said that proved Bush would tell the truth to Gorbachev but not to the American people.

On Thursday, after Bush had praised economic figures showing a small increase in consumer spending, Clinton used his words against him in an attempt to show that Bush was out of touch with Americans worried about their financial future.

And on Friday, Bush’s statements that Clinton and Gore are “crazy” were used to try to prove that it was Bush who was outside the mainstream, not the Democratic duo.

Even as he did so, Clinton said he really did not want to engage in character attacks.

“I don’t want to spend the next four days calling names and dividing people,” he said. “Let Mr. Bush talk about clowns and bozos and crazy. I want to do what I’ve done for the last 12 years.”

With all of his broadsides against Bush, Clinton has virtually refused to acknowledge the third major candidate in the race, independent Ross Perot. The only gibes directed at Perot were made at the expense of Bush as well.

“There’s only one person in this race who really comes from the great American middle class and understands the American Dream,” Clinton said in Pittsburgh.

Later, he implicitly criticized both Bush and Perot for leaping aboard the bandwagon of “change.”

“When I started talking about changing the Democratic Party and changing the country and taking us in a new direction, Mr. Perot was in business and Mr. Bush was telling us things were hunky dory.”

Throughout Friday, Clinton’s criticisms of Bush were whittled sharply into the sort of “sound bites” that play well on local television, the chief target of campaigns in the last few days of any general election campaign.

“He called us bozos,” said Clinton, his voice filled with sarcasm in Philadelphia. “Well, all I can say is Bozo makes people laugh and Bush makes people cry. And America’s going to be laughing on Tuesday.”

All day Friday, Clinton campaigned with the sort of bounce that belied the exhaustion that has beset his campaign entourage. Friday’s campaign day stretched from dawn until nearly dawn today.

According to draft schedules, the weekend will be a back-breaker. And when Clinton leaves Monday for his last full day of campaigning, he is not due to sleep until midday Tuesday, unless he naps on his campaign plane.

But in the last few days, Clinton’s instincts for combat are overriding the need for sleep.

The Arkansas governor, for example, began Friday with a 6:15 a.m. jog through a park near his Secaucus, N.J., hotel. He came back to the hotel, showered and left at 7:30 for a diner, where he appeared with local townspeople on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America.”

On the way to the diner, he engaged in several minutes of lighthearted sparring with New York City radio personality Don Imus, who played straight man to Clinton when the governor brought up Bush’s description of Gore as “crazy.”

“Well, we know Al is crazy,” Imus said.

“But I’ve been trying to keep it a secret. Bush blew our cover. We can’t believe he did that.”

Afterward, Clinton flew to the Pennsylvania and Ohio rallies; he later appeared at a televised town meeting in a Detroit suburb and about midnight set off for Atlanta. He was to arrive at his hotel about 3 a.m.--if the notoriously late Clinton was running on time--and start the whole thing over in a few hours.

Today, the tentative plans call for at least four rallies in at least three states; on Sunday, four appearances were penciled in.

Monday’s marathon is to begin shortly after dawn in the Northeast, aiming to hit every part of the nation except the Pacific Coast before he arrives in Little Rock, Ark., at midday Tuesday to vote. Early reports indicated that Clinton would spend Monday night in his airplane, flying around the country.

Clinton indicated late Thursday that the schedule does cause some wear-and-tear.

“I don’t always know where I am,” he said, “but I know who I am.”