Clinton Wades Into Campaign for California

President Clinton unofficially opened his 1996 campaign to win California’s 54 electoral votes Monday, denouncing Republican stands on immigration and affirmative action and issuing a Labor Day call to employers to share more profits with their workers.

Addressing large and friendly Democratic crowds in Monterey and Alameda counties, Clinton assailed his conservative opponents and accused them of dividing the nation for political advantage.

“This crazy idea that somehow we can go into the 21st Century by weakening our middle class, by dividing our people against each other, by convincing hard-working, middle-class people that the reason they don’t have a good income is because of welfare or affirmative action or immigration. . . . That’s not what’s holding your wage down,” the President told a cheering labor union picnic crowd at the Alameda County fairgrounds.

“What’s holding your wage down is the inability to get a fair deal in a competitive global economy because we need more investment in education [and] more investment in training,” he added.

Aides said Clinton had California Gov. Pete Wilson in mind, although he did not attack him by name. “It’s still 1995,” White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry noted, explaining the President’s reticence to assail any putative GOP candidates more directly.

The President also said executive salaries have grown out of proportion with ordinary workers’ incomes, and urged corporations to raise wages voluntarily.

“Thirty years ago, in the biggest companies in this country, the average executive made about 12 times what the average shop worker did; today it’s 120 times,” he said as the union members erupted in lusty boos.

“I’m all for people becoming millionaires,” Clinton continued. “But the people of this country who make it go are the average working families, and they deserve their fair share of their own productivity and competitiveness.

“I think it is time for American business to follow the lead of our best employers and share more of those profits with their working people. The government can’t do that; business has to do that.”

In a Labor Day visit that looked distinctly like a campaign swing, the President also dedicated a campus for the California State University system at the former Ft. Ord Army base on Monterey Bay, calling it a model of how Cold War defense installations can be converted to new uses.

Clinton noted that California had “lagged behind” the rest of the nation in the economic recovery of the past two years “because California rose so much on the economy of the Cold War.”

“God just wanted to test you to see how strong you were,” he told the crowd of about 12,000. “But California is coming back.”

McCurry and other aides denied that Clinton’s visit to Central California--a rich lode of Democratic votes he must carry handsomely if he is to win the state--was a campaign event in official guise.

But the demands of his reelection campaign, which has not yet been formally launched, dominated the schedule.

The President stayed at the elegant Pebble Beach vacation home of Texas oilman Truman Arnold, finance chairman of the Democratic Party, and held several private meetings with campaign contributors. His public appearances were recorded by a video crew from the Democratic National Committee, to provide material for campaign commercials.

And the White House announced that Clinton will hit the road again in two weeks for a five-city fund-raising trip, which will feature stops in Philadelphia, Miami, Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Even the Cal State dedication, ostensibly a nonpartisan event, looked like a Democratic Party rally. Although state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren and Treasurer Matt Fong were on the guest list, the only politicians who spoke were Democrats, including Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, who said he was speaking as “acting governor” since Wilson was out of state, and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Some in the audience waved 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign signs, and the public address system played “Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow),” the Fleetwood Mac song that became the anthem of Clinton’s 1992 campaign.

The President used the occasion to rehearse some of his favorite campaign themes, as well--including his claim, after two years in office, to remain an “outsider” unsullied by the ways of politics in Washington.

“You couldn’t run anything in this country the way people try to run politics in Washington, where talking is more important than doing . . . and you have to be willing to sacrifice every good in the moment for the next election,” he said.

The dedication of Cal State Monterey was something of a personal triumph for White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta, who began working on the project as Monterey’s congressman in 1991. It was then that the Pentagon announced it would close Ft. Ord. The base was once a cornerstone of Monterey County’s economy, and its closing cost an estimated 17,000 jobs.

The new campus takes up only a small part of the sprawling facility, though, and local officials, interest groups and the Army are still waging spirited battles over what the rest should be used for.

Clinton drew cheers Monday when he threw his weight into one major controversy: the Army’s reluctance to give up Ft. Ord’s two championship golf courses to the town of Seaside.

The military headquarters have been turned into classrooms, and a military airfield is now a business airport, so soon, “the golf courses are going to be operated for the public,” Clinton proclaimed.

This week’s visit was Clinton’s 19th to California since he became President, according to White House officials--a number no other state, including his native Arkansas, has approached.

Clinton plans to fly to Fresno today to teach an eighth-grade history class in nearby Selma, give a speech highlighting his defense of federally subsidized student loans against Republican budget-cutters, and meet with two dozen Central Valley ranchers and farmers to talk about agricultural issues. The President is scheduled to return to Washington tonight.