Clintons Drop in on Renaissance Weekend : Conference: First Family joins gathering of 300 intellectual leaders. Participants say the talk and mutual support is just what the President needs.

President Clinton, after suffering a political near-death experience in the November elections, came to this resort island Saturday seeking rebirth at the annual Renaissance Weekend.

The First Family is attending this three-day gathering of 300 business, academic, political and media heavies and their families for the 11th consecutive year.

Clinton reportedly almost skipped the intellectual house party because of its touchy-feely, elitist image. But he finally decided to pay a brief overnight visit “because it had become a family tradition,” an aide said.

“He just wanted a relaxing weekend with friends,” the aide added. “We have a serious year ahead of us.”

Participants said the weekend’s formula of talk and mutual support is just the tonic the beleaguered President needs to put a difficult year behind him and face the new GOP Congress that arrives in Washington this week.

“We all have to learn to disagree without demonizing the people we disagree with,” said attendee Deborah Tannen, author of “You Just Don’t Understand,” the best-seller about how men and women talk past each other.

“The President, too, is concerned about this atmosphere of animosity that is so pervasive and so demeaning to everybody,” Tannen said.

Before leaving Washington for Hilton Head Island, Clinton outlined his New Year’s resolutions in his weekly radio address.

He promised to work tirelessly in the new year to restore the American Dream for middle-class families if Republicans promise to put aside partisan differences and work with him.

“We are not enemies in this country,” the President said. “We are all in this together. We are going up or down together.”

Clinton reviewed his “middle-class bill of rights,” the $60-billion package of tax cuts and education incentives he proposed in mid-December and repeated his pledge to fund it with “dramatic” cuts in government spending.

“We must not go back to the irresponsible practice of the past, back to trickle-down economics and exploding the (federal budget) deficit,” Clinton said. “An important part of my New Year’s resolution is this: I won’t allow anyone to destroy the progress we have made in reducing the deficit.”

Freshman Republican Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, responding on behalf of the GOP, said: “If the President is sincere in wanting to join the Republican majority in supporting this new conservative agenda, we welcome him to our cause.”

But, Inhofe said, “if he reverts back to the path he pursued in the past two years, he may very well find himself increasingly irrelevant to the debates of the future.”

The President and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived at Hilton Head Island early Saturday afternoon after spending Friday night at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md. Daughter Chelsea arrived here earlier in the week.

The Clintons immediately retreated to an oceanfront villa loaned to them by West Virginia businessman Paul Bob Burge, missing one of the highlights of the conference--a session entitled “If I Were President What I Would Say to the Nation in Two Minutes.”

Among those presenting ideas were popular historian John Jakes, actress Blair Brown, banker Steven Rattner and Los Angeles Times Editor Shelby Coffey III.

The last two years, the seminar was called “Advice I’d Give the President,” but organizers decided Clinton was already getting more than enough unsolicited advice.

Clinton was scheduled to address the group at a New Year’s Eve banquet Saturday night.

All sessions are off the record to encourage candor, said organizer Linda Lader, who with her husband, Small Business Administration Director Philip Lader, created the Renaissance Weekend 13 years ago and applied for trademark protection for the name last year.

“We give people a chance to get away from their everyday lives and rub shoulders with interesting people in all fields,” she said. “It gives people an opportunity to step back and re-examine their lives and priorities.”

Among those spotted at this year’s gathering were Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer and former Justice Harry A. Blackmun, comedian Al Franken, singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter, conservative fund-raiser Richard A. Viguerie, White House domestic policy adviser Bruce Reed, Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and Charles S. Robb (D-Va.), retired Adm. Elmo Zumwalt and Wellesley College President Diana Chapman Walsh.

But Clinton is clearly first among equals here: While everyone wears name tags with their first names in large type, Clinton is exempt.

He expressed concern beforehand that his presence--along with the inevitable reporters and the Secret Service agents who accompany him--would disrupt the intimacy of the gathering.

But Philip Lader assured him that no one minded. In fact, the Clintons have been the biggest draw, so big organizers have had to set up alternate weekends for all Renaissance wanna-bes.

Clinton plans to play golf this morning before returning to Washington in the afternoon.