ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 28, 1996 TAG: 9608280064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHICAGO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
NOTE: Lede
The Democratic Party's liberal lions laid aside their differences with President Clinton on Tuesday night, joining First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in promoting family-friendly policies designed to sway America's 53 million married couples.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, spellbinding the 4,000-plus delegates to the Democratic National Convention, praised Clinton as ``the first line of defense'' against the Newt Gingrich-led Republican majority in Congress and called for ``protecting the big tent'' of the Democratic Party.
And former Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, who rallied his demoralized party in 1984, credited Clinton with freeing the Democratic Party from the big-government, anti-family stigma with which the GOP has tagged it.
``We are free to be Democrats again - progressive, constructive Democrats,'' said Cuomo, a last-minute addition to the program Tuesday.
But it was Hillary Clinton's long-awaited appearance at the podium that thrilled the adoring delegates, thousands of them wildly cheering and waving placards that read ``Welcome Home, Hillary.''
``Chicago is my kind of town,'' quipped the Chicago suburb native after spending nearly five minutes trying to quiet the delegates. ``And Chicago is my kind of village.''
Her appearance immediately kindled comparisons to the riveting Oprah-like performance of Elizabeth Dole, wife of Republican nominee Bob Dole, at the GOP national convention in San Diego two weeks ago.
But while Dole, who has no children, spoke of her husband's tenderness, Clinton sketched tender scenes of motherhood in appealing for children to be raised ``in a nation that doesn't just talk about family values, but acts in ways that value families.''
Clinton also responded to the indirect criticism from Dole at the GOP convention - that ``it takes a family'' to raise a child, not the ``village'' in the African proverb from which the first lady took the title of her book about the importance of supportive communities in child rearing.
``Yes, it takes a village,'' she said. ``And it takes a president ... who believes not only in the potential of his own child, who believes not only in the strength of his own family, but of the American family; who believes not only in the promise of each of us as individuals, but in our promise together as a nation.''
She added: ``It takes Bill Clinton.''
The first lady, widely criticized for promoting big-government health care reforms, repeated her belief in the importance of ``making health care affordable for Americans.''
The appearance of Clinton, because of the controversy over her past White House policy role, the criticism she received at the GOP convention and her entanglement in the Whitewater investigation, also overshadowed the keynote address of Gov. Evan Bayh of Indiana, a ``New Democrat'' moderate and one of the party's rising stars.
Even so, Bayh expanded on the themes that will dominate Clinton's fall campaign against Dole: ``opportunity for all Americans, responsibility from all Americans and a sense of community among all Americans.''
And Bayh spoke directly and compellingly of Clinton's concern for the ``quiet corners'' of America where middle class families ``still struggle to pay the mortgage, save for college, make ends meet.''
Clinton, advancing the same theme of America as a family caring for its children, promoted her husband's pro-family policies, rather than mimicking Dole's talk-show style testimonial to her husband's personal warmth.
In each case, each spouse accomplished the objectives of campaign strategists: Whereas Dole succeeded in softening her husband's dark public image, Clinton helped her husband reshape the pro-family debate that the Republican Party has long dominated.
But rather than take on Dole in a head-on competition, Clinton double-teamed the former Senate majority leader's wife with the help of Tipper Gore, the popular wife of Vice President Al Gore.
Tipper introduced Hillary as ``a woman who has had the courage to blaze new trails, who has the gift of a great mind, and the blessing of a compassionate heart - a woman who is a strong and unwavering voice for those who haven't yet found their voices - our children.''
A series of Democratic members of Congress also spoke to promote the ``Families First'' agenda they developed earlier this year as a response to the GOP ``Contract With America'' that ushered in the GOP majority in 1994.
For a quarter century - in fact, since the last time the Democrats held their disastrous, riot-scarred convention in Chicago in 1968 - the American public has overwhelmingly viewed the Republican Party as the party of family values.
The GOP achieved that status, and has largely retained it, with an agenda of cutting taxes and government and restoring ``traditional values'' such as ending abortion and curbing gay rights and restoring school prayer - the hallmarks of Dole's campaign again this year.
A recent Gallup poll indicates that the GOP's once huge lead as the ``party of family values'' has shrunk to just 45-41 percentage points over the Democratic Party, principally as a result of Clinton policies aimed at helping parents balance the demands of jobs and children.
The Democratic Party has closed the gap by appealing to the nation's 53 million married couples with family-friendly policies that Clinton has depicted as ``tools'' to help harried parents:
* The 1993 family and medical leave laws.
* New legislation requiring insurers to pay for 48-hour stays when women give birth.
* Direct government lending for college.
* Tax credits for children and tax deductions for college tuition.
* More educational television and the so-called ``V chip'' to screen offensive television programs.
* School uniforms and curfews for teenagers.
* Regulations restricting tobacco advertising and marketing aimed at teenagers.
In that sense, Tipper Gore was an important presence on the podium Tuesday night. Long before Dole took on Hollywood, she took on the recording industry to get voluntary labeling of products that were inappropriate for children. And she won.
LENGTH: Long : 118 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton addresses theby CNBDemocratic National Convention on Tuesday night in Chicago, in front
of a televised image of her daughter, Chelsea. Graphic: Chart.
color. KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENT