ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, August 19, 1996 TAG: 9608190157
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press
BORN IN Year One of the baby boom, the president said he is comforted that ex-Beatles Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr are older.
Re-energized by his vacation, President Clinton burst full-blown into his campaign mode Sunday with a show-biz 50th birthday party and other events to raise $10 million for Democrats and subtly accentuate his age difference with Bob Dole.
He told a $1,500-a-person reception that as bad as it is to be a half-century old, he is comforted that ex-Beatles Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr are older.
``This is your birthday present,'' he said. ``You get a presidential election where you don't have to guess.'' He said the American people know what the Republicans will do because ``they've already done it once. I just vetoed it the first time.''
Joined by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and daughter Chelsea, Clinton stood next to a huge birthday cake in the shape of an American flag. Clinton tried to blow out all 50 candles but finally finished with Chelsea's help.
When he stepped to the microphone to speak, a protester held up a poster condemning the welfare bill that Clinton has pledged to sign. Some people in the crowd began to boo the protester, but Clinton said, ``Wait. They got their message. We heard them. Give them an applause and let them go.''
Clinton, whose birthday is today, is among three million born in Year One of the baby boom - in the vanguard of a generation that will profoundly affect the way America deals with an aging population.
``I never thought when I was growing up that I would get an AARP card,'' he said the other day as he was winding up his vacation at Jackson, Wyo. ``When the card arrives in the mail, I will know it happened.'' The president's father was in his 20s when he died, before Clinton was born.
Clinton is the most prominent American of the baby boom generation - some 76 million people born between 1946, the first full year after the end of World War II, and 1964.
LENGTH: Short : 46 linesby CNB