Clinton Hails Gore; Donors Give $500,000

As the Democratic Party launches a new ad campaign for Al Gore’s presidential race, President Clinton tapped donors for $500,000 more Saturday and made a strong pitch for his vice president.

“There’s nobody that’s any better prepared, not only by virtue of past service but by virtue of future orientation,” Clinton said about Gore, speaking at one of two fund-raising appearances Saturday.

The appearances raised about $500,000 for the Democratic National Committee. The party earlier this week launched a major ad campaign aimed at promoting Gore, funded with unregulated “soft money” donations to the party.

Clinton in his appearances Saturday stepped up his level of support for Gore and declared it in personal terms. Earlier appearances have tended to focus more on bolstering the party as a whole in November elections.

“Most people who get to vote don’t ever come to an event like this,” Clinton told 700 donors at a Minneapolis nightclub. “And most people who get to vote may never hear me make this case for Vice President Gore.”

Earlier, at a lunch for 60 big-ticket donors, Clinton said: “I know Al Gore better than anybody but his wife, I believe--maybe his mother, who will chide me if I claim to know him better than her.

“I put him to work, and I nearly broke him a couple times. I never saw anybody work harder.”

Clinton said Gore would be a tax cutter but one whose tax cut would still allow for investments in education, health care, science and technology, and for paying down the national debt and reforming Social Security.

Clinton cited Gore’s annual family conferences in Nashville, where the vice president and his wife, Tipper, highlight issues such as family leave and mental health treatments. “Al and Tipper Gore have been working . . . for eight years on their own in a way that has changed the future of America,” Clinton said.