He Has Knack for Looking Presidential

President Clinton has been spotted in recent days fawning all over Rep.-elect James E. Rogan.

He has been seen giving the Glendale Republican advice, arranging the young congressman’s schedule and bending over backward to help him adjust to the ways of the nation’s capital. In fact, records show, the president is even on Rogan’s payroll and, like Rogan, is registered with the Republican Party.

Confused? So are the many Washingtonians who have sworn they saw President Clinton, who is traveling overseas, at Rogan’s side last week. Welcome to another day in the life of Greg Mitchell, 29, part-time Clinton impersonator and full-time congressional aide.

From his styled coif, to his Clinton-esque facial features to the way he says, “I feel your pain,” Mitchell is a dead ringer for the president. So much so that he has moonlighted in recent years as a Clinton look-alike, earning between $250 and $1,500 each time he turns on a fake Arkansas accent, throws out some political humor and poses for unofficial White House photographs.

Mitchell has worked since 1992 as a staffer in retiring Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead’s Glendale office. Earlier this month, after being named Rogan’s chief of staff, he came to Washington, where his resemblance is being noticed even more than it was back home.

It was Valerie Moorhead, the congressman’s wife, who first noticed the similarity between Clinton, a young Arkansas governor, and Mitchell, a young campaign staffer just out of Cal State Northridge. It was early 1992, and Clinton’s presidential bid was just beginning to take off.

“Clinton was just beginning to appear on the news,” Moorhead recalled. “When Greg first started I kept looking at him, saying to myself ‘Where did I see this face?’ Finally, I told him ‘Did anyone tell you you looked like Clinton?’ ”

Mitchell’s reaction: Clinton who?

It was a week later that Mitchell saw a picture of the president-to-be in the newspaper. As Mitchell recalls the moment, it was not exactly like looking in the mirror.

For all his celebrity, you see, Greg Mitchell thinks he looks like Greg Mitchell.

“I can see the resemblance sometimes when I see Clinton at certain angles but I really don’t see us as being dead ringers,” Mitchell said.

Other people certainly do.

Where ever he goes, passersby do double-takes and yell out things like “Hey, Mr. President.” His friends have taken to calling him Bill. His boss, Rogan, jokes that Mitchell is a fine chief of staff but has a face that is difficult to trust. After cutting his hair to resemble Clinton’s and practicing the president’s gestures while watching him over and over on C-SPAN, Mitchell has signed on with 10 different celebrity look-alike firms and earned an estimated 100 appearances as the president over the last year and a half.

So close is Mitchell to the real thing--despite 21 years between them--that even Gennifer Flowers, the president’s alleged paramour, saw the resemblance. The fake Clinton and the real Flowers bumped into each other at a Glendale bookstore where she was signing copies of her autobiography.

“She looked up, saw me and then fell back in her chair,” Mitchell recalled. “She said, ‘You make my heart go pitter-patter.’ That was a little scary.”

Mitchell’s agents attest to his presidential aura and say they can continue to find work for him if he can find time in between subcommittee hearings and late-night bill-writing sessions.

“He’s not the top President Clinton in the country but he’s very good,” said Brian Mulligan, whose Mulligan Management represents 600 celebrity look-alikes, including a dozen Clintons, around the world.

Mitchell clearly takes his own political career more seriously than he does the president’s.

He turned down numerous gigs this fall because he was busy with Rogan’s congressional bid, leaving his agents exasperated. And he cast his ballot for Bob Dole on Election Day, even though a Clinton second term means another four years for both the president and his look-alike.

With his hair dyed to match Clinton’s silver locks, Mitchell has played Clinton in a Korean television commercial--although a make-up artist increased the resemblance even more by fitting him with a prosthetic nose extension and chin enhancement. He has appeared as the president on “The Muppet Show” in a skit that also featured Queen Elizabeth, Boris Yeltsin and Ronald Reagan impersonators.

In one surreal moment, he embraced President Clinton’s brother--the real-life Roger Clinton--on a television talk show.

Mitchell has even met the man from Hope himself.

As the president--the real one--shook hands with admirers earlier this year after a speech at Glendale College, he came across his body double. When Mitchell told the president that some consider them look-alikes, Clinton studied Mitchell face for a moment and then shook his head.

“Naw,” he told Mitchell. “You’re young and handsome.”