ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 29, 1996 TAG: 9608290074
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHICAGO
SOURCE: Associated Press
NOTE: Lede
Democratic Party Chairman Christopher Dodd placed Clinton's name in nomination. ``A new journey into the heart of America,'' Dodd called the campaign that will begin Friday with a reprise of the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign bus caravan.
Like Gore, Dodd saluted Dole's World War II heroism but said of his former Senate colleague: ``Sometimes a fine person has flawed ideas. This is such a time.''
Clinton said he was energized for the ``the first American campaign of the 21st century and the last campaign for Bill Clinton. ... The best has yet to come.''
He is to deliver his acceptance speech tonight, beginning an effort to become the first Democratic president to win re-election since since Franklin Roosevelt in 1944.
Looking back at their first term, Gore said Clinton's leadership had produced 10 million new jobs, a deficit cut in half, a smaller federal government, low unemployment and inflation and tough gun-control and other anticrime measures.
Abroad, the vice president said, there were no longer nuclear missiles aimed at the United States, and peace efforts are under way in Bosnia, Northern Ireland and the Middle East.
``Senator Dole offered himself as a bridge to the past,'' Gore said. ``Tonight Bill Clinton and I offer ourselves as a bridge to the future.''
On nomination night, the spotlight speakers followed a disciplined script.
They promoted Clinton's accomplishments as a boon to working class Americans and suggested Dole and his Republican Party had proven themselves out of step with mainstream America by, among other things, opposing the family leave law, trying to block an increase in the minimum wage, and trying to outlaw a woman's right to an abortion.
Taking aim at Dole's 35-year Senate record, Gore said: ``He voted against the creation of Medicare. Against the creation of Medicaid. Against the Clean Air Act. Against Head Start. ... He even voted against the funds to send a man to the moon.''
All this played out in a United Center hall where 4,320 Democratic delegates and thousands of party activists accustomed to losing presidential elections.
The unity in a party known for its destructive divisions gave delegates and Clinton reason to cheer. So did the polls: Clinton's lead shrunk significantly after Dole's convention two weeks ago, but fresh surveys suggest it was back in the 12-to-15-point range.
On Clinton's second-term wish list: banning ``cop killer'' bullets, finishing funding to put 100,000 new police on the beat and an array of tax incentives to help families pay for vocational or college education.
Before reaching Chicago, Clinton stopped his campaign train to make one more election-year initiative, following new proposals on gun control and literacy with a pledge to spend $1.9 billion more to clean up toxic waste sites.
Republicans said the more than $8 billion in new spending promised by Clinton this week proved him a big-spending liberal. ``There is no problem that Bill Clinton doesn't think there is a government program to solve,'' said GOP Chairman Haley Barbour.
Dole sent a bouquet on Clinton's big day: ``Please accept my best wishes on the occasion of your becoming your party's nominee.'' But it was a congratulations delivered with conditions.
One of the proposal in Clinton's speech draft is exempting home sales of up to $500,000 from capital gains taxes. Dole noted that his economic plan already called for that, as well as a $500 per child tax credit Clinton has promoted during his train journey.
``Welcome to the club,'' Dole said, asking, ``If they agree with me on everything why shouldn't I be the president?''
A recurring theme of the evening was that November's winner would be the president not just next January but at the turn of the century.
Clinton's campaign train was named the ``21st Century Express.'' Gore, 48, led a parade of nomination-night speakers making the case that the younger Democratic team was a better ticket to the future than the GOP pairing of 73-year-old Dole and 61-year-old Jack Kemp.
Inside the United Center convention hall, and at celebratory receptions across the city, it was hard to remember the despair that engulfed the party less than two years ago, when Clinton's unpopularity helped Republicans to a 1994 midterm rout.
``The Democratic Party is back,'' Hillary Rodham Clinton said.
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. President Clinton waves from his train, dubbed theby CNB21st Century Express, in Battle Creek, Mich., on one of its last
stump stops Wednesday. color. KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENT