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Clinton up and doing for Al Gore

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November 5, 2000 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Moving from rally to rally, President Bill Clinton campaigned for Al Gore among traditionally liberal voters who want the vice president to win the White House but might need a nudge to get to the polls.

On Friday, Clinton targeted voters in the cities of Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose on the second of a two-day, get-out-the-vote swing through California, where Gore's lead over Texas Gov. George W. Bush has slipped from double-digits in September to single digits.

"What's the problem? Why are the races even close? Because things have been good for a long time," Clinton told the crowd in San Jose. "We're all going along for the ride. The first question is, Do you want to keep this prosperity going? If you do, there's a choice."

Between rallies, Clinton told reporters he would encourage supporters of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader to choose Gore instead when they vote on Nov. 7, based on Gore's commitment to the environment.

"I think they ought to vote for Al Gore," Clinton said. "One of two people are going to be elected, and they have records and plans. And I think on the records and plans, if you care about the environment, Gore wins hands down."

Clinton told a rowdy San Francisco crowd that the election is close because the prosperous economy has put Americans in a comfort zone.

"This is an exercise in citizenship," he said. "You cannot let this election unfold unless everybody you know votes - and votes as a knowledgeable citizen.

"If you want to build on the prosperity; if you want to build on the social progress in the last eight years; if you want to keep going forward as one America - those are the three big questions. And if you want to do that, you only have one choice: Al Gore, Joe Lieberman and the Democrats."

He said he was happy to be out campaigning for his vice president.

But where Clinton is not campaigning - battleground states like Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania - best reflects the thanks-but-no-thanks attitude the Gore campaign has taken toward him. With fewer than 100 hours before the United States goes to the polls to elect a new leader, the Gore campaign is following a safe strategy: Don't stir up resentment felt by faithful Democrats upset over the president's impeachment ordeal, and don't give undecided voters any reason to cast ballots for Bush.

"Everybody knows Al Gore doesn't want to be seen with Bill Clinton. Clinton is a mixed bag. On one hand, he's good for whipping up the Democratic vote, but swing voters are turned off," Jon Fleischman, executive director of the California Republican Party, said Friday. "So you take Clinton to Democratic-rich areas here to turn out the vote because that's the only place you can take him."

California, which backed Clinton in 1992 and 1996, is friendly turf for the president.

Supporters at a rally in downtown Oakland chanted "Thank you, Bill! Thank you, Bill!" One carried a sign that said "Bill, you rock the free world." At the rally inside Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, people in the crowd of about 2,000 people waved signs that said "Score with Gore."

The U.S. presidential election is decided by electoral votes, with each state given a certain number of votes based on its population. California, because of its large population, has a large number of electoral votes.

In most cases, winning in a state by even by the smallest of margins entitles a candidate to all of that state's electoral votes. It takes a majority, or 270 of 538 electoral votes, to win the presidency.