THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 25, 1996 TAG: 9601250414
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
In a tour de force, President Clinton used his State of the Union address to launch his campaign for re-election.
Network news analysts praised the message. NBC's Lisa Olsen said Clinton swung so swiftly from being an exponent of big to small government that she nearly suffered whiplash.
Clinton hijacked some GOP issues. (He summoned radio and TV moguls to the White House to consult on how to launder the airwaves.) His ideas include scholarships for top high-school graduates and $2,000 vouchers for retraining workers.
Seated in the House behind the president, Newt Gingrich, the picture of dyspepsia, was forced to listen for an hour without retorting.
``If speaking was pitching, the president would be a 50-game winner,'' Gingrich said later. Clinton's rhetoric was at odds with reality, he added.
Usually glamorous, Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed peaked, tired, in a dowdy get-up. She looked her age.
In discussing family values, the president looked up at her in the gallery, called her a wonderful wife, a magnificent mother and a great first lady. As he began, the muscle in his left jaw tightened, and as he finished, he nodded slightly to her as if to say, ``So there!''
Analysts remarked that the president stressed the word ``together,'' but only a fraction of the 40 times that he issued a tight-lipped ``challenge.'' His tone was crisp, but a drooping left eyelid betrayed fatigue.
Four times Clinton employed a Reaganesque gambit of addressing people in the audience, one time presenting Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who has two Purple Hearts and three Silver Stars, to lead the war on drugs. The general saluted quickly.
Another time it was Richard Dean, a Social Security employee who went four times into the rubble of the Oklahoma City federal building to rescue victims and then lost his job twice in the government shutdowns. The second time he returned to work without pay.
``Never, ever shut the federal government down again,'' Clinton said. Democrats roared. Republicans sat glum.
Compromise is not in fashion with freshmen Republicans in Congress, but the founders, led by James Madison, provided checks and balances, a major one being the veto as the president's last resort, which can be trumped, finally, by a two-thirds majority of Congress.
The founders didn't envision that, during a stalemate, a faction would do an end run around the Constitution and close the government.
A third such closure would court disaster for the country and, as well, the Republican Party.
In concluding, Clinton asked that God bless the United States of America.
He bore down heavily on ``United,'' which ought to be the concern now of all parties and people. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
``If speaking was pitching, the president would be a 50-game
winner,'' Newt Gingrich said of President Clinton's speech.
by CNB