Days May Be Numbered, but Clinton Is Still Quacking

WASHINGTON —  For one of the few times in more than a quarter-century, he won’t be on any election ballot. Most days, Bill Clinton’s OK with that.

On the bad days, though, the president confesses: “I have kind of DTs about it.”

But not to worry.

The commander in chief has concocted an antidote for his political delirium tremens: He is transforming himself into Campaign 2000’s “surrogate in chief,” as he put it the other day in Beverly Hills.

From coast to coast, while indefatigably raising millions of dollars for other candidates, the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles and the party in general, Clinton with great relish is dispensing tips on how to run for office--from the White House to the remotest congressional district.

And the recipients are not just Democrats.

At Saturday’s $1.5-million fund-raiser for the Los Angeles Convention 2000 Host Committee--also attended by some of the city’s biggest GOP movers and shakers--Clinton served up some unsolicited advice on how the Republicans should conduct themselves in the campaign.

Indeed, the lame-duck president remains such a political junkie that he closely tracks the skirmishes on the other side. When he ran into Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at a recent dinner here, Clinton boasted to the vanquished candidate for the GOP presidential nomination: “I told them you’d win in New Hampshire--but that they were going to get you in South Carolina!”

Asserting himself on others’ campaigns is nothing new for Clinton. For more than a year now, he privately has been offering suggestions to Vice President Al Gore--for instance, telling him to let his hair down and shuck his business suit while stumping in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Taking His Show on the Road

In recent days, however, Clinton has honed the role of chief strategist to a fine art--and taken his show on the road in a big way.

After returning Tuesday from an overnight in Chappaqua, N.Y., where he and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton now own a house, the president attended two more fund-raisers, including one for California state Sen. Adam Schiff, the Democratic challenger to Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale). Clinton is scheduled to attend three more fund-raisers this week.

All this is on top of a two-day excursion to Arizona and Southern California last weekend, during which he delivered a dozen speeches while helping Democrats raise $4 million.

At one Beverly Hills event Friday night, Clinton even played the saxophone in a scene reminiscent of one of Campaign ‘92’s most memorable moments, when he donned sunglasses and played “Heartbreak Hotel” on “The Arsenio Hall Show”--”a turning point” of that campaign, as Clinton fondly recalled in a recent conversation aboard Air Force One.

Convention Role May Be Limited

Yet for all his frenetic energy--and angst about becoming politically irrelevant--it’s far from clear just how much of a role Clinton will get to play in coming months.

Senior Gore strategists have made known their desire to limit Clinton’s public role at the mid-August convention, so as not to steal the spotlight from the vice president.

But like the Maytag repairman, Clinton seems to be waiting for the phone to ring. He has even cleared his official calendar for that entire week--just in case.

In the meantime, as he rallies troops all across the country, Clinton is vigorously singing Gore’s praises--and articulating for the party faithful what he thinks would be the winning message.

“I want you to know three things about this election,” he told Democrats in Phoenix. “One, it is really big. . . . Two, there are real differences between the parties. . . . The third is, only the Democrats want you to know what the differences are!”

Then at some length, Clinton laid out what he sees as the differences--succinctly and persuasively in a way that few Democrats, including Gore, have done.

Boiled to its essence, Clinton’s message was this: “It’s not like we hadn’t had a test. We did it their way for 12 years and our way for eight years. And our way works better.”

Clinton praised Gore as “a person of extraordinary intelligence, extraordinary energy . . .” and said he is “by far the best vice president in the entire history of the United States” and “by far the best qualified person to be president who has run for office in my adult lifetime.”

At the bipartisan convention fund-raiser, hosted by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican, Clinton was understandably nonpartisan. But he was no less eager to dole out advice.

He urged the GOP to reject a negative campaign.

“We’ve got this enormous opportunity now to give America a gift, which is an honestly positive election. Not a saccharine election . . . but an election that is a genuine debate about the future of the country--at a time of the greatest prosperity and social progress we have enjoyed in my lifetime.”

Reflecting on Clinton’s performances in Arizona and California, Rep. Bob Filner (D-San Diego), who was with the president for much of that trip, marveled:

“He’s like an elder statesman already--giving advice and doing it in a way without an edge to it. And he’s absolutely right. I think he’s incredibly effective.”

The president devoted a huge chunk of the cross-country flight home from Los Angeles to talking shop with his newly departed Commerce secretary, Bill Daley, who quit the administration to become Gore’s campaign manager.

“[The president] has got some real solid ideas, as you can imagine,” Daley recalled afterward, chuckling.

And if there’s any doubt that Clinton intends to remain a player, the president himself put them to rest over the weekend.

Repeatedly, he told audiences that “a very distinguished citizen of the world” recently said to him: “Well, Mr. President, for a lame duck, you’re still quacking rather loudly.”

After the laughter dissipated, Clinton remarked:

“So that’s what I’m trying to do.”

He concluded:

“I’m not going to shrivel up. I’ll be around.”

Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this story.