Countdown: Pulling Out All the Stops

President Clinton insisted on Friday that he and his party have “played by the rules” in raising campaign money, but in the face of brewing controversy over the issue he called for changing those rules--after Tuesday’s election.

During a rally at Santa Barbara City College, Clinton offered an outline of his prescription to end what he termed the “escalating arms race” for political contributions. “Everybody knows the problems with campaign money,” Clinton said. “There’s too much of it, it takes too much time to raise and it raises too many questions.”

Along with reiterating his support for a series of measures that were in a bill that bogged down in Congress earlier this year, Clinton called for a ban on contributions to federal campaigns by noncitizens and by domestic subsidiaries of foreign companies--the type of donations that have been at the center of the furor over fund-raising by the Democratic Party. But he did not address any of the specific questions that have surfaced over his party’s activities.

Indeed, his speech appears to fit the overall strategy that critics charge the White House and party leaders have been executing to minimize the damage from the revelations of questionable fund-raising tactics, particularly involving contributions linked to Asian business interests and from Asian American donors.

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As Clinton pledged action in the future, the strategy appears aimed at keeping a lid on the issue until after the election.

Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole has sought to keep that from happening, and Friday he unleased yet another attack over the campaign financing issue.

“The administration is in the midst of a growing scandal involving a flow of foreign money into the Democratic Party that bought access to the White House,” Dole charged at a rally in Ohio. “What we have seen from this administration in the last few weeks is the reason we need campaign finance reform.”

Dole also responded to Clinton by issuing his own campaign finance plan--one that contains several key elements that he successfully prevented from becoming law during his many years in the Senate.

Dole’s reform program would prohibit contributions from corporate or union political action committees, abolish so-called soft money contributions that go directly to parties and are not subject to the caps on candidate donations, allow only U.S. citizens to donate to political campaigns and prevent unions from using mandatory dues for political campaigns.

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As he criticized the president over the issue, Dole could not resist an acerbic crack, telling his audience: “Apparently all the money has been in and has been counted. Now [Clinton] can go ahead and make the speech. The receipts are in.”

Reform Party candidate Ross Perot, who increasingly has been assaulting Clinton on ethical issues, also took a swipe at the president’s Santa Barbara speech, calling it “one of the most cynical things I have ever heard.”

Speaking to an audience at Stanford University, Perot said: “If you believe a word of it, I’ve got stuff in my attic that’s been there for years I’d like to sell you.”

The reforms that Clinton promoted Friday that were part of this year’s failed congressional initiative include voluntary spending limits for congressional campaigns, free television time for candidates who adhere to the limits, restrictions on donations from political action committees and an end to “soft money” contributions.

Clinton made a point of noting that Dole, despite his recent enthusiasm for campaign finance reform, opposed the bill containing these measures. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), ran aground in June, shortly after Dole left the Senate to devote all his time to campaigning for the White House.

Clinton also took pains to explain why he did not consider his call for a ban on contributions from noncitizens to be “anti-immigrant.”

“There are many immigrants who play an important role in our country, and all of you in California know I have done my best to defend legal immigration and the rich contribution it makes to the United States of America,” Clinton said as he broke his silence on the finance issue before the friendly crowd on a scenic hilltop overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

“But if the essence of a democracy is its citizens decide, and only citizens can vote, then I believe only citizens should be able to contribute,” he said. “That’s not anti-immigrant. It is simply stating the fact. Those who vote should finance the elections they vote in.”

Apart from any political issues related to banning political contributions from noncitizens, any such measure would have to pass legal muster, White House officials noted. The details of restricting the role of noncitizens in campaign finance “would have to be worked out to make sure it meets constitutional tests,” said Michael Waldman, a White House speech writer who has focused on the campaign finance issue.

Current federal law allows contributions from noncitizens who have established legal residency in this country, as well as from foreign subsidiaries if the money they give has been generated in the United States. But recent revelations have sparked questions about whether hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to the Democratic National Committee came from foreign sources that did not meet these rules.

Much attention has focused on donations traced to interests in Indonesia, an unusual fund-raiser in a Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights attended by Vice President Al Gore and the fund-raising efforts of John Huang, a former Commerce Department official who had been raising funds for the DNC.

Clinton and Gore, as well as Democratic Party leaders and White House officials, have declined during the last few weeks to answer questions about these matters.

Like Clinton, Gore has told reporters to speak to the DNC. Although Gore was the guest of honor at the temple fund-raiser in Hacienda Heights, where the party received $140,000 in direct and in-kind donations, at least $30,000 of it illegal, Gore claims he was unaware that fund-raising was taking place there.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), the DNC chairman, also has deflected questions, directing reporters to his staff. Nor has Dodd followed through with a promise he made on a national television on Oct. 20 to make Huang available for questioning by reporters.

Dodd’s co-chairman, Don Fowler, also has declined interview requests.

Responding to Clinton’s speech, Ann McBride, president of the Common Cause citizen lobbying group, said his advocacy of the type of reforms in the McCain-Feingold bill is the “right substantive and strategic approach.”

But she added that if Clinton is reelected, he “must turn these words into real action by exerting sustained personal leadership in the public arena and with Congress, until tough, real campaign finance reform is signed into law.”

Clinton also used his Santa Barbara appearance to tout his economic record, seizing on the government’s job report Friday that showed an unemployment rate of less than 6% for the 26th consecutive month.

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Referring to Dole’s criticisms of the administration’s economic record, Clinton said: “In spite of what he wants you to think, when it comes to the economy, the sky is not falling. The sky is the limit.”

The president enthusiastically repeated the refrain later in the day as he campaigned in El Paso. He also appeared at an evening rally in Las Cruces, N.M., before flying to San Antonio. He is to campaign there today, as well as in Little Rock, Ark., and New Orleans as part of a final rush before election day.

Clinton’s staff, meanwhile, announced the cancellation of one last California stop--an appearance at UCLA that had been scheduled for Monday night. Instead, appearances in South Dakota--site of a close Senate race in which Democrats are hoping to knock off an incumbent Republican--and Iowa were added to his schedule for the final day of the 1996 campaign.

Clinton also is to visit New Hampshire, Ohio and Kentucky before spending the night in Little Rock, Ark. He will then cast his vote in Arkansas and await the returns there.

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Gore also continued to hopscotch the country Friday as part of the Democratic ticket’s eleventh-hour blitz, campaigning in New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine and focusing his efforts on helping elect Democrats to Congress.

In Massachusetts, the vice president pushed for the reelection of Democratic Sen. John Kerry, locked in a tight race with the state’s popular Republican governor, William F. Weld.

At a rally at Boston’s famed Faneuil Hall, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who was in a tough race for reelection two years ago, said he benefited when Gore came to campaign for him.

“He made all the difference for me, and he’s going to make all the difference for John Kerry,” Kennedy said.

Gore gave his usual stump speech, but perhaps in response to Kennedy’s praise, he gave it with exceptional enthusiasm.

Times staff writers Sara Fritz, Maria L. La Ganga, Bill Stall and Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this story.