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Clinton "The Comeback Kid" - Campaign vignettes

By KENNETH R. BAZINET

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Nov. 9, 1996 (UPI) - President Clinton will always be known as ''The Comeback Kid'' after resurrecting a foundering primary election campaign in 1992 and now coming back to score a decisive re-election victory after having suffered a stunning mid-term setback when Republicans took over Congress.

Historians, however, may want to consider another label for the Arkansas Democrat: ''The Great Campaigner.''

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No president in the last 30 years could better convey the hope of his administration than could Ronald Reagan, ''The Great Communicator.'' And no other chief executive was able to get his message to resonate with Americans better than the actor-turned-politician. Despite a growing budget deficit and Cold War jingoisms that rivaled the ''Red Scare'' of the 1950s, Reagan sold the public on his belief that it was still ''morning in America.''

Some Democrats had hoped the charismatic Clinton might steal the ''Communicator'' label from Reagan, but the Republican victories in the 1994 midterm elections all but ensured that the former California governor's status would remain intact.

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Clinton's place in history was likely written when top advisers turned to the campaign book written by Newsweek magazine reporters that chronicled how Reagan sold issues and optimism to Americans. Clinton took a lesson from Reagan and his campaign manager Stuart Spencer on how to sell issues and ideas, as well as how to draw a consensus on benchmark issues like crime, welfare reform and raising the minimum wage.

In the closing weeks of his 1996 campaign, Clinton even went so far to borrow Reagan's ''morning in America'' mantra when he declared on the stump that ''it's not yet midnight in America.''

That in mind, it was easy to see why Clinton's top campaign officials became misty-eyed in Sioux Fall, S.D., at the president's last campaign stop of his political career. Clinton offered up a nostalgic look at his career while still making a plea to his supporters to turn out on election day. ''Needless to say, it was an emotional moment for many of us,'' said his spokesman Mike McCurry.

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With his Georgetown, Yale and Oxford education, President Clinton is clearly the product of the elite educational establishment, but when it comes to his politics he never forgot his Arkansas roots.

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And that apparently was behind the reason why he chose to watch the election returns from the ''Bill Clinton Suite'' at the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, Ark. Press secretary Mike McCurry said Clinton made the decision six weeks before the election, and the choice was never in dispute. His longtime pal and confidant from Arkansas, senior White House adviser Bruce Lindsey, asked Clinton where he wanted to be on election night, according to McCurry. ''The president looked at Bruce and said, 'of course it is Little Rock. Where else would it be?,''' Clinton responded.

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What goes around comes around, and that counts a lot with some people -- namely President Clinton and University of Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball coach Rick Pitino. The coach of the defending NCAA championship team visited the White House last spring along with his team as part of traditional festivities hosted by the president after the Final Four Tournament, and extended his own hospitality to Clinton as the campaign wound down.

Clinton rocked the campus in Lexington with a high-energy speech and rally before several thousand supporters, mostly students. White House spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters that the 11th-hour campaign event was not an endorsement by Pitino, but it might as well have been since the college basketball community -- which Clinton is a for-sure member of -- takes care of its own.

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Clinton is a knowledgeable, if not rabid, fan of both the University of Arkansas Razorbacks and the Georgetown University Hoyas hoop teams. Clinton taught law at Arkansas and studied as an undergraduate at Georgetown. Pitino said last year he was politically conservative, but did not agree with all of current conservative ideology. ''Who I vote for should have no influence on anyone else,'' he said at the time. ''If I comment on athletics, how good a basketball player is, maybe that has some validity.''

Clinton, meanwhile, had no problem tying his fate to Pitino's. ''We're both defending our titles,'' he told the rally, ''and maybe I'll see you in the White House again next year.''

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Where is pancake's house? Unless you have seen the film ''Fargo,'' you probably do not know. However, if you are a member of the White House press corps, or are a regular traveler aboard Air Force One, you surely know. Almost by accident, the press pool that travels aboard the presidential aircraft became experts on the film, watching it about four dozen times over nearly three weeks.

It all began when two wire photographers -- Luke Frazza of AFP and Win McNamee of Reuters -- argued over some language in the film. The two placed a bet, and were forced to view the film a second -- and then a third -- time to settle the bet. Frazza won, but by the time he figured it out, word had spread throughout a core group of reporters and photographers that the film was worth viewing.

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So, ''Fargo,'' an allegedly true dark comedy/suspense film about seven murders and some snappy dialogue popped up again, and again and again in the press cabin aboard Air Force One. It even became a prank for one popular reporter to try to get the film off the aircraft, and even first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton joined in on the gag by holding an impromptu interview with some of the cult film's followers on the final leg of the campaign trip into Little Rock on the eve of the election.

As for the pancake's house -- a reference to the most famous line from the film -- the press corps never made it there -- at least not physically.

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