President Clinton Returns To The Starting Point

President Clinton returned to Arkansas for a sentimental send-off rally for his re-election campaign Sunday night, addressing a throng of cheering supporters in front of the old state house, where he declared his candidacy the first time in 1991 and claimed victory in 1992.

“Oh, I’m so glad to see you,” Clinton told the crowd, which greeted him with chants of “four more years.”

He recalled that in announcing for president nearly five years ago, he had told a crowd in the same spot, “All of you in different ways have brought me here today.”

Sunday night he said, “I wanted to come here just as quick as I could get here as I begin the last campaign of my life” to give his long-time supporters an accounting of his four years in office “and ask you to rear back one more time.”

A crowd of more than 3,000 had gathered since midafternoon under threatening skies in front of the small, white Greek Revival building on Markham Street in the heart of downtown Little Rock to hear a lineup that included Judy Collins, the singer whose recording of “Chelsea Morning” inspired the Clintons’ daughter’s name.

It was a last chance for Clinton to pause a moment before heading off to Wisconsin for two Labor Day picnic rallies on Monday and the start of a fall campaign schedule that gives every indication of being as grueling as if he were trailing in the polls instead of ahead by double digits.

The president and his wife, Hillary, arrived from Memphis late Saturday night, after a two-day bus caravan through Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee with Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper.

They are staying at the home of Mrs. Clinton’s mother, Dorothy Rodham, in the Oakwood section.