President Finds Partisan Advantage in Nonpartisan Appeal : Clinton appeals to electorate by boosting fellow Democrats without citing party or GOP.

It was at a natural rock amphitheater in the Rocky Mountains that President Clinton displayed one of his key, if rarely discussed, traits as a candidate for a second term in the White House.

You might call him the nonpartisan partisan.

“I can’t go out there and ask them to vote for you just because you’re a Democrat,” Clinton recalled telling Tom Strickland, a candidate for an open Senate seat in Colorado. “Most people don’t care about it.”

Instead, and in a decided boost for his fellow party member, Clinton gave the crowd at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre an entirely different batch of reasons to support Strickland, ranging from his views on the environment to his ability to “grow into greatness.”

As the president enters the homestretch of a race he appears to be winning, he is devoting a greater share of his time to helping fellow Democrats, allocating his appearances, his endorsements, his fund-raising powers to the party of which he is leader. On Monday alone, he participated in three events for other Democrats in Ohio and Michigan; on Sunday, he showed up at four rallies in New Jersey and New York.

But even as he revs up his pro-party efforts, he consciously avoids old-fashioned appeals to party loyalty or to political warfare with the opposition. In the parlance Clinton favors, he rarely utters the word “Republican.” He likes to call members of the GOP, even those who try to disrupt his rallies with placards and shouts, “Our friends on the other side.”

And rarely does he give voice to that most fervent wish of Democratic loyalists: that their party wrest control of Congress from the Republicans. “That [plea] would actually hurt,” says Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “He’s wise not to be saying that.”

The practical reason for this approach, Mellman and other political analysts say, is that many Americans seem to have embraced the checks and balances that result when one party occupies the White House and the other controls at least part of Congress--a somewhat awkward reality that could doom an overtly partisan appeal by Clinton.

Nor would playing up his Democratic identity necessarily thrill the independent-minded voters whom Clinton has been wooing for the entire campaign.

“We don’t want to make this an election about a Democratic Congress,” Mellman said. “We don’t want to make this an election about party, for the most part.”

Indeed, listening to the president on the stump is to hear an entirely different sort of appeal, a post-partisan message crafted for a world in which party labels have lost much of their allure. And in recent days, as more Democrats seek to grab hold of Clinton’s coattails, it has become an increasingly difficult balancing act for the president, reaching out to Republican and independent voters while boosting fellow Democrats.

“I think what you’re seeing is a subtle approach to convince voters to support candidates who will support him in the next Congress,” said Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento), former head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and himself a candidate facing a tough race this year.

For all that, Clinton has surprised and pleased fellow Democrats with recent visits to places that his own election needs might not lead him--visits that add electricity to local rallies, push up attendance and generate a flurry of news coverage that presumably benefits Democratic candidates.

Just last week, Clinton stopped off in the California Republican turf of Orange County, where he joined hands with Lou Correa, a state Assembly candidate, and Loretta Sanchez, who is seeking to topple a longtime thorn in the Democrats’ side, Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove). “Give him a hand, folks,” Clinton said of Correa, offering a presidential plug.

In Massachusetts, a state where polls show Clinton leading in his race against Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole by more than 20 percentage points, the president recently devoted an afternoon and evening to appearances with Sen. John Kerry, a Democrat embroiled in a tight reelection battle with Republican Gov. William F. Weld.

Earlier that day, he stopped in Rhode Island, a state where his lead has been gauged by as many as 41 percentage points, to attend a rally with Democratic House and Senate hopefuls.

And on a swing through Texas, the one large state the Clinton camp realistically is not counting on, the president combined his own reelection quest with fund-raising for the state party (the take was more than $1 million) and a boost for Democratic congressional candidates who basked in the spotlight.

“It is exceedingly helpful for Democratic candidates to have the president in the state and to be campaigning with them,” said Jim Whitney, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “There’s no equivalent to it.”

When the president arrived one misty evening in South Dakota, Democratic activists drove for several hours to watch him pose for pictures with high school football players and speak before the homecoming game in Brandon (population 4,000). South Dakota was hardly an automatic stop for Air Force One: It offers a humble three electoral votes, and Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin D. Roosevelt are the only two Democrats it has supported in presidential elections in the 20th century.

“It always helps to get the activists excited,” said Rep. Tim Johnson, who is challenging Republican Sen. Larry Pressler in a race that Democrats are sorely hoping to win. “The better the president does, the better the ticket does, and that’s a good thing.”

Certainly, the tension between post-partisan politics and party loyalty is not absent from Clinton’s “new Democrat” campaign. Many veteran Democrats in Congress, itching to ascend to leadership roles, have been pushing for the White House to free up more party money for other races, given Clinton’s strength in the polls. Nor are Clinton’s positions always popular within his party; most notably, his support for legislation to overhaul welfare appalled major Democratic constituencies.

Those who know Clinton say the president’s post-partisan style reflects an assessment of political reality as well as his preference for de-emphasizing partisan warfare.

“It’s based in part on his personality, said Douglas B. Sosnik, White House political director. “It’s based in part on the times. It’s based in part on voter history.”

Political analysts say that one of the conspicuous facts about today’s electorate is its independence from any organization--be it a labor union, corporation or political party--that seeks to direct its vote. In 1986, President Reagan discovered this reality when he stumped the nation, calling on Americans to “win one more for the Gipper” and preserve a GOP majority in the Senate. Democrats captured eight of the nine Senate seats that Reagan had personally targeted for his protection.

In Fort Worth, Clinton demonstrated the post-partisan rhetorical style when he managed to slip jabs at the Republican Congress into a compliment for local Democratic Rep. Martin Frost.

Even without mentioning “Republicans,” it wasn’t hard to figure out who Clinton thought were the bad guys. He thanked Frost “for your unrelenting efforts to give the House of Representatives back to the American people and take it away from those who tried to destroy the Medicare system, take away Medicaid’s guarantee of health care to families with members with disabilities, to our poorest children, to newborns, to elderly folks in nursing homes.”

Minutes later, some placard-waving Republicans were spotted, sparking a hostile reaction from the boisterous Democratic crowd in Sundance Square.

“No, no don’t boo them. They’re welcome here,” Clinton exclaimed into the microphone. “This is America. Everybody’s welcome here. They’re welcome here. I’m glad they’re here.”