Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 20, 1993 TAG: 9301200084
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
TODAY, CLINTON'S DREAM TURNS REAL
Citizen Clinton becomes President Clinton today, and he told an old friend at a luncheon for governors, "Doesn't it feel good?"All day Tuesday, there was a sense that Clinton was pinching himself to make sure that his longtime dream - to become president - was reality.
Clinton has often said his interest in a political career dates from the summer of 1963, when as a teen-ager he met President John F. Kennedy in the White House Rose Garden.
And it was Kennedy who Clinton invoked on what he called "my last day as a private citizen," particularly with an unscheduled visit to Arlington National Cemetery, where he joined Kennedy family members in laying a single white rose on the graves of the former president and his brother, Robert.
In the true JFK tradition, he partied late Tuesday with Hollywood's finest at a gala extravaganza. He even chatted with young people at the Kennedy Center at an inaugural "Salute to Children" and "Salute to Youth."
Clinton will take the oath of office today in a Kennedyesque fashion. A poem will be read, and the rhetoric will be of a generational guard changing.
But his luncheon in an ornate room of the Library of Congress with 80 governors and former governors, colleagues during his service as Arkansas' chief executive, was pure Clinton. The subjects - politics and policy - were less than glamorous.
He talked about the need for "waivers" to let states experiment with programs, the need to enact a health-care program this year, and the challenge of cutting the federal deficit.
"I did not run for this job just to warm the seat," Clinton said. "I desperately want to make a difference."
Appearing aware of the daunting task ahead, Clinton asked the governors for "constructive criticism," adding, "Please, please."
Clinton repeated a joke by Gov. Anne Richards of Texas about a dog that chased a pickup truck.
"Now, I've caught it," he said.
As Clinton made his final pre-inaugural rounds and spent a few hours polishing his address, his team also prepared to take the reins of power.
Half his Cabinet members won preliminary approval by Senate committees, and Clinton named dozens of lower-level aides at the State Department and elsewhere.
Clinton also asked several senior Bush administration officials to stay on, at least temporarily, to deal with current crises around the globe.
Though Clinton has sought to link his image and Kennedy's, most of his fellow politicians find the comparison strained.
Gov. Zell Miller of Georgia, who was a key Clinton supporter, said there isn't a good historical model for the new president.
"He's a cross between the scholar of Woodrow Wilson and the pretty savvy pol of Franklin Roosevelt - and then he has the charm of John Kennedy," Miller said.