Ordinary Folks to Join Clinton for ‘Faces of Hope’ at Inaugural

Demetrios Theofanis was scrubbing dishes at a New York hotel last February when he bumped into Bill Clinton, a presidential hopeful who was searching for a shortcut to a fund-raiser. Theofanis seized the chance to tell Clinton how he fled Greece for the “land of the free,” only to discover that drugs and violence would force him to keep his children indoors.

“Please, Mr. Clinton, try and make the streets safe for my children,” Theofanis said, patting Clinton on the back as he left.

The two never spoke again, but Clinton went on to describe the encounter repeatedly on the stump. Now, in an effort to honor ordinary people who impressed them during the campaign, Clinton and Vice President-elect Al Gore have invited Theofanis and 49 others to their inauguration, all expenses paid.

The group that will sit down Jan. 18 to a “Faces of Hope” luncheon, given by the Clintons and the Gores, includes senior citizens, sick children, former street gang members, laid-off laborers and environmental activists.

Jim Miller, the high-school senior who spotted a smoke bomb under the bleachers at a Gore campaign rally in Ft. Collins, Colo., is on the list. So is Kathy Gould, a police officer’s widow from South Carolina whose husband was killed by a mentally ill person who had bought a handgun that day.

Charles Hampton, the Vietnam War veteran from Arkansas who mailed his Bronze Star to Clinton for daring to stand up to media scrutiny, will be there too.

Charles Rachael, a former Los Angeles street-gang member who was imprisoned for three years on manslaughter charges, described attending the inaugural event as an “out-of-body experience.”

“Most people would want to write me off as a loser or a reject,” said Rachael, 28, who runs a youth outreach program in South-Central Los Angeles. “I have tattoos all over my arms, I don’t dress all fancy, I don’t have a great education and yet I am going to be up there with the man because he recognizes that I do have the ability to tell him some things about a world he’ll never see as President of the United States.

Inaugural planners say the Faces of Hope program is part of Clinton’s effort to expand the Jan. 20 inauguration beyond the Capital Beltway.

Richard Mintz, communications director for the inauguration, said that for Clinton, “there is this great frustration that the closeness he has with people will be removed because of the way the security bubble works. He is trying to pierce that.”

Inauguration officials said the idea is Clinton’s, that he wants something to help him keep his pulse on Middle America.