President Highlights Campaign Goals, Vision

MANCHESTER, N.H.--Despite facing no opposition in today's Democratic primary, President Clinton last weekend hit the campaign trail in the Granite State in an effort to galvanize voters and stop the "cynicism and apathy and the division that occurs too often during election time."

During his final appearance Saturday at New Hampshire College just north of Manchester, Clinton faced more than 5,000 cheering supporters--but also a few detractors.

While the majority of the crowd interrupted the president's 40-minute speech intermittently with shouts of support, three or four members of the audience disrupted the beginning of the rally with angry accusations that the Clinton Administration has not provided enough funding to combat AIDS and support public health education programs.

Clinton answered the hecklers spontaneously by affirming his administration's commitment to public health programs and charged that "abridging my right to free speech is not the way to get a positive response from me or anyone else."

Despite the clash of opinions, however, Clinton said he "honor[ed] these people who came here to demonstrate. At least they care about something."

Clinton challenged the friendly audience to take an active role in this year's election campaign and the political process.

"This election is fundamentally about you," Clinton said. "The first thing you have to do is show up and be counted. The second thing is to go to your friends and neighbors and get them to do it too."

Reprising familiar themes from his State of the Union address last month, Clinton pointed to increased job availability, lowered crime rates and a drop in the federal deficit as evidence of his administration's success.

Clinton also highlighted four campaign promises that will top his new agenda if he is re-elected:

* Providing every school and library in America with access to the Internet

* Making college education available to all Americans by expanding the federal work-study program to encompass one million students, increasing the number of Pell grants and maintaining the National Service Program

* Providing American families with a tax deduction for the cost of college tuition.

* Creating a new "G.I. Bill" which would provide a lump sum voucher for $2500 for continuing college education.

In addition to these promises, Clinton pointed to what he perceives as the seven fundamental goals for the American government:

* strengthening family values;

* "opening the doors of education to every American for a lifetime;"

* guaranteeing economic security for all Americans;

* increasing environmental protection;

* expanding anti-crime efforts;

* providing world leadership;

* meeting the "challenge of making our democracy work" by giving the president a line-item veto, implementing campaign finance reform and streamlining government expenditures.

Clinton's speech, while favorably received by all but the AIDS demonstrators, was endorsed by one group of supporters conspicuous because they held a sign reading "Republicans for Clinton-Gore."

The group, comprised of senior citizens from Concord, N.H., supports Clinton because "he sees how important it is to work together, while [the Republican candidates] can't get out of the process of thinking 'conservative, conservative, conservative,'" according to Gail Church.

"I am a modern Republican and I firmly believe that there is more that binds us than separates us," Church said. "Bill Clinton is inclusive, not exclusive."

Her husband, Herbert Church '44, said he agrees but offered a slightly different reason.

"Who else is there?" he asked.

The event in Manchester marked the culmination of an effort by the campaign of Clinton and Vice President Al Gore '69 to involve college students in the re-election bid.

According to a press release from the College Democrats of America, students from the Northeast, Middle Atlantic and Midwest raised their own funds to visit the president in New Hampshire last weekend.

"The president has worked for students and now students are working for the president," said Kevin Geary, president of the College Democrats of America. "[W]e're excited about re-electing Bill Clinton, and we want to make sure that these events are accessible to college students."