Clinton Launches Final Sprint; Dole Faults Economy

Like a runner breaking into a feverish sprint as the finish line looms, President Clinton scrambled for votes in Michigan on Wednesday afternoon, rallied loyalists in Colorado in the evening and planned to spend the night in Arizona as he set off on one final campaign marathon.

The president’s schedule calls for campaigning in at least 20 cities in a dozen states between now and Tuesday, crossing the nation from Washington to California, back to Florida, north to New Hampshire, before racing the sun across the country on Monday from New England through the Midwest to Los Angeles, only to end with a red-eye flight back to Little Rock, Ark., on election day--a flurry of 18-hour days and ever-changing time zones.

Bob Dole does not share Clinton’s evident love for campaigning, but he too was up early, walking halfway up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, wife Elizabeth by his side, to gaze into the face of his political idol--the father of the Republican Party.

“We had a word or two of silent prayer,” Dole later told a small audience at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn. “We are going to win this election, Mr. Lincoln,” he vowed.

Later in his remarks, Dole veered off into one of the occasionally dizzying verbal byways that his speeches sometimes travel. Talking of Clinton, he said, “Then he gave you the big medical care plan, the president, I mean Elizabeth, President Dole talked about, Elizabeth Dole talked about--she probably will be the next president. But in any event, that’s the way it works.”

In a television interview with David Frost, Dole also briefly discussed what he might do if he loses the election. “If it happens--I’m not suggesting it’s going to happen--but if it should happen, I’ll probably find work,” Dole said. “I’ll work with those with disabilities and do other things fulfilling. But I’m not going to stop and go off and say, ‘Well it’s all over.’ It’s not over until it’s over. Yogi Berra is one of my consultants.”

The race may not be over, but the relentless march of bad news for Dole continued. Ross Perot, in a separate interview with Frost, compared Dole’s campaign to movie character Forrest Gump, saying Gump was smarter. And on Wednesday alone, newly released polls showed Clinton leading Dole by 13 percentage points in Ohio, 12 points in Pennsylvania and an enormous 27 points in Illinois--all traditional swing states.

Those polls made a strange counterpoint to the relentless series of Air Force One flights, motorcades and noisy rallies into which Clinton has plunged--the sort of thing he would do if he were three points behind, rather than far ahead.

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Yet, while the polls may say Clinton need not do this, he is a man who has been campaigning for political office nearly all his adult life, and he could no more give up this final tour than stop eating and sleeping.

The frenetic schedule is “more grueling” than the presidential staff might have preferred, said White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry, but there is little doubt about the delight Clinton takes in it.

Other Democrats seem happy to see him as well. Clinton was flanked here by Michigan’s senior senator, Carl Levin, who is running for reelection, and the local member of Congress, Rep. Nancy Rivers.

In Tennessee, by contrast, neither of the state’s two Republican senators showed up with Dole, nor did former Gov. Lamar Alexander, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP presidential nomination and then campaigned with Dole earlier in the year.

The needs of Democrats running for other offices is a key factor shaping Clinton’s schedule in this final week. In addition to Rivers and Levin, Clinton planned to meet Wednesday with Tom Strickland, the Democratic Senate candidate in Colorado.

Today Clinton plans to end the day in Oakland, where he is expected to campaign for Ellen Tauscher, the Democratic candidate for Congress in an East Bay district currently held by Republican Rep. Bill Baker. Friday, he is expected to campaign for Democrat Walter Capps in Santa Barbara.

Wednesday’s campaign theme was the economic progress of women, a topic Clinton waxed on about in an appearance here at Eastern Michigan University, where he shared the platform with a onetime welfare recipient who now runs a home-building business, a Mexican immigrant who now owns an auto dealership and other female entrepreneurs.

“We have made unprecedented gains in the area of helping women to start their businesses, to stay in business, to expand their businesses, and that has helped to lift the rate of growth of the American economy and our capacity to create jobs,” Clinton said.

“I don’t deserve all the credit,” he added, “but our policies have helped.”

Dole also had his eye on the economy, seizing on the latest government statistics that showed economic growth slowing to 2.2% in the third quarter of the year. The numbers are “disastrous news for American workers and businesses,” Dole said, arguing that there is evidence of a “weak, limping economy across the landscape. . . . All the false talk about the so-called Clinton recovery comes to an end. Today America knows the economy is barely afloat.”

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Knocking Clinton for raising taxes while the economy slows, Dole warned: “It doesn’t take a team of economists to tell you what happens when you mix slow growth with increased taxes. That’s a recipe for economic collapse. For three years, we’ve seen the so-called Clinton recovery. If this is the recovery, I can hardly wait for the recession.”

Long-distance, Clinton gibed back: “I was a little amused today--my distinguished opponent said that we had the worst economy in 20 years,” Clinton told his Michigan audience. “Now, two weeks ago [during the presidential debates] he said it was the worst economy in 100 years, so we’re making progress--and I feel good about that. Not everybody can make up 80 years in two weeks, and I’m proud.”

Clinton’s spotlight on women and the economy was an example of his focus on a few key themes as his campaign reaches its conclusion. During the next several days, he has speeches planned on welfare reform, family issues and campaign finance reform.

Clinton is expected to call for a bipartisan commission to look at campaign finance issues, McCurry said, adding that the president “would have preferred to run this campaign under a different set of rules. But we had to run it under the rules we were presented with. . . .”

As the two men at the top of the tickets launched their final forays, Vice President Al Gore and Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp were also on the trail.

Kemp campaigned in Fairfield, Calif., hoping to boost the chances of Rep. Frank Riggs (R-Windsor). Wednesday’s rally was inside the same Jelly Belly candy factory that used to supply the Reagan White House with jelly beans. The aroma of watermelon, green apple, coconut and tangerine filled the air.

Standing beside huge portraits of former presidents Reagan and Bush--each constructed from 14,000 multicolored jelly beans, Kemp said, “We’re going to return Jelly Bellys to the White House!”

Gore, in Pittsburgh, Pa., poked fun at House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), noting that Gingrich had said he did not want to be minority leader and would resign from the leadership of Congress if Democrats regained control of the House.

“Can you think of a better incentive for a good turnout?” Gore said.

“Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole just went too far,” Gore said. “A lot of people are going to the polls next Tuesday to tell them that they made a mistake.”

Putting a local twist on the main metaphor of the Clinton-Gore campaign, Gore said he and the president want to build a bridge to the 21st century, “and we’re going to build it out of Pittsburgh steel.”

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Campaigning Coast to Coast

After running for political office most of his adult life, President Clinton is on the road one final time in what he has termed his “last campaign.” He will visit at least 20 cities nationwide in the seven days leading up to Tuesday’s election.

Day 1: Ann Arbor, Mich.; Denver, Phoenix

Day 2: Las Vegas, Oakland, Santa Barbara

Day 3: El Paso, Las Cruces, N.M.; San Antonio, Texas

Day 4: Little Rock, Ark.; New Orleans, Tampa, Fla.; St. Petersburg, Fla.

Day 5: West Palm Beach, Fla.; Union, N.J.; Springfield, Mass.; Manchester, N.H.

Day 6: Cleveland, Lexington, Ky.; Los Angeles

Day 7: Little Rock, Ark.

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Peterson reported from Ypsilanti and La Ganga from Clarksville. Times staff writers Marc Lacey in Fairfield and Elizabeth Shogren in Pittsburgh contributed to this story.