Clinton Decries System, Helps in Raising $2 Million

On Saturday, in his weekly radio address to the nation, President Clinton had this to say about the heart of the nation’s political milieu: “The way we pay for elections is broken. When it comes to fixing our campaign-finance system, let’s make this summer a time not of talk but of action, not of recrimination but of results.”

But on Monday, from noon until midnight, at a lunch in Boston and here at an after-theater, open-palm dinner at the Plaza Hotel on the edge of Central Park, Clinton was at the center of the “broken” fund-raising action.

And he talked, defining broadly the achievements of his presidency and waxing passionate about the goals of his party. In this case, that meant the reduction in crime that has occurred in recent years, the drop in the unemployment rate, the tobacco agreement, the cost of higher education, the value of volunteerism and his search for a course the nation can follow to become a truly multiracial society.

He did not talk about the problems inherent in the way the nation meets the cost of electing its leaders. But by the end of the day, he had helped the hard-pressed Democratic Party take in at least $1 million in each city.

Monday’s trip and the remarks the president made Saturday draw attention to the inherent conflict he faces: How to take part in the only system that now exists for paying the horrendously high costs of running for national office while decrying that system.

As campaign fund-raising has moved to a troubled center stage of the American political landscape--in large part because of the recent campaign-finance scandal plaguing his own party--Clinton’s approach has been consistent.

Throughout the last six months, Clinton has pressed publicly for a revision of campaign-finance laws. He has endorsed a bipartisan proposal by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) that would help address a primary reason for soaring campaign-finance costs--the price of television advertising--by providing some free TV time, as well as discounted postal and advertising rates for candidates agreeing to voluntary spending limits.

But until such reforms are adopted, the president says, he has little choice but to help the Democrats rebuild their financial reserves by taking part in the only system available for large-scale fund-raising: appealing to private donors able to make hefty contributions.

The Democrats’ fund-raising problems began last autumn, with the discovery of illegal foreign contributions that subsequently have been returned by the party. Full-blown investigations of fund-raising activities are underway at the Justice Department and in both houses of Congress; both political parties are finding some potential donors reluctant to open their checkbooks.

As a result, the Democratic Party is in the midst of a concerted campaign to retire a $16-million debt.

Such issues, although at the heart of the president’s day, went unmentioned in Boston.

Rather, he served up a luncheon buffet from the lectern, if anyone in the partisan crowd needed reminders, of his proudest presidential moments and his remaining goals:

“We’ve had a remarkable amount of success moving people from welfare to work. But we have to create about another million jobs in the next four years. . . . The crime rate’s going down--that’s the good news. The bad news is it’s still going up among people under 18 in many places. . . . We have to prove that we can become the world’s first truly multiracial, multiethnic democracy.”

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In moving forward with the balanced-budget agreement he reached with Congress and which has been built on the foundation of the economy’s recovery, he said the nation must “make sure this economic recovery reaches people who haven’t felt it yet.”

In Boston, about 500 guests paid from $500 to $25,000 to hear the president and partake of baby salad greens, chicken roulades with summer vegetables and fruit tarts.

In New York, it was a fund-raising performance of the Broadway hit “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” starring Whoopi Goldberg, and then a dinner crowd at the Plaza.

The Democratic National Committee made a point of announcing that more than half the Boston guests were not asked to make a contribution: grass-roots activists had been invited so Clinton could thank them for their party work.