Act Two for Clinton May Dwarf Act One

It was a sparkling Labor Day afternoon, a perfect time to be on the golf course of the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, Va. And President Clinton was two-up on his friend and chief fund-raiser, Terry McAuliffe. Yet the president turned pensive as he slid behind the wheel of the golf cart.

“You know something, Macker,” McAuliffe recalled the president saying wistfully. “In 26 years, this is the first time I haven’t been in a Labor Day parade.”

“There are moments like this when he realizes it’s what he’s done his whole life, and it’s coming to an end,” McAuliffe says of the man who--despite the agonies of scandal and impeachment--has relished being president as much as anyone who has ever held the office.

“None of them has wanted to leave the White House when it came right down to it. Jimmy Carter even cried,” says Clinton confidant Vernon E. Jordan Jr., who’s known every president since Lyndon B. Johnson. “The morning of Jan. 21 will be the worst day for him.”

Does this mean William Jefferson Clinton, soon to become the nation’s sixth-youngest former president, is glumly contemplating the dustbin of history? Does he expect to be moping about in his Camp David pajamas while others play the great game--perhaps even overshadowed by his wife, if Hillary Rodham Clinton wins her New York Senate race?

Don’t bet on it.

Based on what some who know him best say, if even half of Clinton’s post-White House plans work out, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

His starting point is the redoubtable Carter, whose continual intervention in trouble spots around the world since leaving office has discomfited his successors--and almost eclipsed his own presidency. But Clinton, while vowing not to tread on official toes--especially if his vice president, Democrat Al Gore, wins the presidency--is thinking on a scale that dwarfs Carter, or even the elder statesman gambits of Richard Nixon.

Clinton sounds like a man determined to raise more money, talk with more world leaders and generally plunge deeper into the public fray than any of his modern-day predecessors.

Clinton Is ‘Positive About His Future’

From education and health care reform to bringing peace to Northern Ireland and the Middle East, Clinton envisions playing a high-profile role that will cheer his admirers and keep his enemies gnashing their teeth for years to come.

“He’s 54 years old and he’s in great health. He wants to continue with these causes,” says McAuliffe, who talks with Clinton frequently and is helping to raise more than $150 million to fund an ambitious presidential library and other elements of the second act of Clinton’s life. “He is upbeat, he is positive about his future, his spirits are great.”

Indeed, Skip Rutherford--another longtime friend and head of the Clinton presidential foundation--thinks it won’t take long for Clinton to eclipse his fellow living ex-presidents. Ronald Reagan is ill. Gerald R. Ford and George Bush are showing their age, and Carter can’t go on forever. Soon, Clinton will have that role all to himself.

“He will cut a wide path on the world stage, despite his detractors,” says former Sen. Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, who’s talked with Clinton recently about his plans. “He’s as well-respected worldwide as any leader since FDR.”

And history suggests that, although most former presidents subside into figurehead status, some--especially the younger ones--have played important roles after leaving the White House. Theodore Roosevelt became so angry at his successor, William H. Taft, that he bolted the Republican Party and ran for president again on the Bull Moose ticket in 1912--opposing Taft and helping elect Woodrow Wilson president. Grover Cleveland, another youthful former president, also ran for the White House again--and won in 1892, the only man to have two nonconsecutive terms. (The Constitution bars modern-day presidents from doing that.)

The other three who left office younger than Clinton, Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore and James K. Polk, played quieter roles. But John Quincy Adams, a venerable 61 when he left the Oval Office in 1829, won a seat in Congress and became a powerful voice against slavery.

So, Clinton’s determination to remain a player could be more than a pipe dream.

To be sure, big plans for the future are not the only things on Clinton’s mind in these autumnal moments of his presidency. He is still driving to get more done before he surrenders power. He’s involved in planning his presidential library in Little Rock, Ark.--right down to the sizes and shapes of rooms, although he’s threatened to relocate the facility if the state disbars him. And as always, he’s obsessed with politics--including Gore’s bid to succeed him and, most of all, with his wife’s Senate race.

Last Accomplishments While in Oval Office

One sign that Clinton is not banking his fires is the almost feverish way he’s working to strike new blows for cherished causes. Groups that share his views on the environment, education and other issues are trooping through the Oval Office to discuss what last steps Clinton might take on their behalf through executive orders, new regulations or other uses of executive power.

“He’s saying: ‘I have two, three months left. If there are some things we can accomplish, let’s accomplish them. . . . If there are some last-minute things, let’s get them done.’ He wants to ride this out the whole way,” one senior White House official says.

Immediately after leaving office, Clinton’s instincts tell him, he should keep a low profile for a while. He doesn’t want to wear out his welcome.

Then, according to Bumpers and others, look for an intensive schedule of paid speaking engagements. The Clintons will leave the White House in debt, with as much as $9 million in unpaid legal fees alone as a result of the Monica S. Lewinsky and Whitewater investigations.

Only the $100,000 or more per appearance that a former president can command--coupled with an advance of as much as $10 million for his memoirs (no firm plans or publisher yet)--can erase those debts and put Clinton on the strong financial footing necessary for what is to come next: his return to the arena of politics and policy.

By the time all that’s out of the way, plus a world tour--remember that Reagan received some $2 million for a post-presidential visit to Japan--the Clinton library should be nearly ready.

The trove of historical documents, the largest collection of presidential papers ever, is the least of it. The Clinton Center will provide the launching pad for his public agenda. It will house a research institute that planners see as a moderate counterpart to the Hoover Institute at Stanford, which provides intellectual ammunition for conservatives. Through a variety of educational programs, the center also aims at training cadres of future Clintons.

The complex will even include a penthouse apartment for the Clintons, to supplement the condo they already own in Arkansas.

But what associates think will set Clinton’s library apart is the way he will use it as a platform for influencing public debate. With the former president as a draw, for instance, the Clinton Center hopes to convene conferences of world leaders as a way of amplifying his voice.

Politics Are Clinton’s Vocation, Avocation

In part, Clinton’s untraditional vision of the traditional presidential library reflects the fact that he has lost none of his appetite for politics. The subject comes up all the time in conversations with friends. It is his vocation and his avocation.

“He knows every place in America and what they like and what they don’t, and different populations, and what they care about and how messages should be framed,” says one senior White House official. “It’s sort of like a star athlete still in the prime of their career. It’s like, ‘I’m leaving, I know I’m leaving, but I know I’m still good.’ ”

Nowhere is that continuing passion stronger than in the New York Senate race.

Clinton pushed hard for his wife to run. Over the course of her trial-by-fire candidacy, he never stopped advocating and advising. He talked regularly with her campaign staff and debriefed her pollster, Mark Penn, sometimes several times a day. Occasionally, he stepped out with her to campaign. But mostly he’s remained in the background, because his political experience told him voters would accept her only if she found her own way.

“Running for office is like applying for a job,” an aide remembers Clinton saying one day. “Lots of people can write recommendations for you, but when you go in for that interview, you’re in there by yourself and you either click or don’t click by yourself.

“It’s whether people, it’s whether the voters, feel you’ll fit in. . . . It’s a very personal decision; no one can do it for someone else.”

The president pointed to what he considered a blunder by his 1992 rival, former President Bush, for pressing voters to support his son. “That’s like the golden rule you cannot break. It’s George W. that’s running, not his father.”

Still, Clinton’s pride in his wife, watching her go from novice candidate to savvy and self-confident professional in a relatively short time, has been obvious to those around him.

McAuliffe remembered that after watching one of Mrs. Clinton’s televised debates, her husband delighted in her performance.

“He’d say, ‘Did you see the debate? She was fantastic. Do you see how well she does with people?’ ”

Underlying Clinton’s commitment to Hillary’s race is a welter of feelings that even his closest friends see in differing lights. Some see an unfaithful husband trying to make amends for his unforgettable, if not unforgivable, betrayal. “No question, there’s a sense of atonement about it,” Bumpers says. “He’ll go to his grave sincerely regretting the pain and mental anguish he caused her.”

McAuliffe, on the other hand, says it’s something broader: “He is there to support her because she has been there to support him in his 26 years in elective office.”

Either way, with election day at hand, her campaign also has been about repairing the family name. “In some sense, even though he’s not on the ballot, there’s a lot of him invested in this,” one friend says.

“Ultimately,” says Leon E. Panetta, former Clinton White House chief of staff, “I would not be surprised if he gets back into politics--runs for the Senate from Arkansas or takes some senior foreign policy post. I cannot see him staying out of the game and becoming the elderly statesman. That’s not his nature.”

“This story is going to go on and on and on,” agrees Rutherford. “It’s not over when he leaves office. It’ll just be a new chapter.”

Times staff writers Geraldine Baum, Alan C. Miller, Jack Nelson, Alissa J. Rubin and Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this story.

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Then and Now in the U.S.

A snapshot of some changes in American life since 1992:

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Sources: Office of Management and Budget, Labor Department, Commerce Department, National Center for Health Statistics, Census Bureau, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, Securities Industry Assn., Jupiter Communications, the College Board, National Center for Education Statistics, the Gallup Organization, Cellular Telecommunications Industry Assn., Motion Picture Assn. of American, A.C. Nielsen Media Research *

* FLIP-FLOP

Election day arrives in a campaign that has oscillated between the old and the new. A20

* WHAT TO WATCH

Graphic provides a tip sheet for election night viewers. A22