Clinton Campaigns - For Congress President Urges State Voters To End ‘Republican Revolution’

President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, touring Washington’s rain-swept countryside Thursday, urged state voters to recant their 1994 decision to enlist in the “Republican revolution.”

Clinton, enjoying a double-digit lead in the state he carried in 1992, offered his coattails to the crop of Democrats who hope to oust the six Republican freshmen congressmen whose election helped install Newt Gingrich as House speaker.

Democrats have a more sensible, moderate approach to balancing the budget, protecting the environment and boosting the economy, education and jobs, the president told enthusiastic crowds on his “Road to the 21st Century” Seattle-to-Portland bus tour.

“Two years ago, this state joined Mr. Gingrich’s revolution” but lived to regret it, Clinton told several thousand people gathered in the town park of the rural Thurston County town of Yelm. “You knew it was no revolution, but a reaction.”

“Washington state can do more than any state in America to say you do not want to see Newt Gingrich in office,” Gore said.

“Just two years ago, our friends in the other party were crowing that Washington state had led the way in the Republican revolution” and it would be only fitting that the state lead the way in returning power to the Democrats, the president said.

Democrats need a net gain of 20 seats to take control of the U.S. House.

“We could take all six back,” said Joe Lockhart, press secretary of the national campaign. ‘It helps to have the wind at your back” with a popular nominee and growing unhappiness with the conservatives’ handling of Congress, he said.

The 12-bus campaign motorcade, which wound through country roads and stretches of Interstate 5 after a kickoff speech at the Tacoma Dome, drew boisterous, friendly crowds along the way - with school bands, clutches of people along backroads, and even business signs offering free coffee and dental checkups.

The tour took in hamlets that never see a president - towns like Roy and Yelm, Tenino and even heavily Republican Centralia, where an estimated 16,000 people jammed the streets.

“I’m Republican and I’ll be voting for Mr. Dole, but this visit is historical and so great for the kids,” said Dave Roberts, who owns an insurance agency along the parade route in Tenino.

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, wearing a Seattle Mariners baseball cap, and Tipper Gore, sometimes turning a camera on her fans, were big crowd favorites.

In Yelm, about a half-hour drive from the state Capitol, a choir of third and fourth graders charmed the First Couple by singing an original composition that takes its title from a sometimes-criticized book by Mrs. Clinton - “It Takes a Village.”

The president asked to have it sung a second time and made an impromptu decision to give the tune wider exposure: He invited the youngsters to sing at his second inaugural if he’s re-elected. The crowd roared its approval.

Several of the Democrats nominated in Tuesday’s primary to challenge the GOP freshman congressmen were along for the ride. Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gary Locke also was introduced at each stop.

The campaign was most pleased with the reception in deeply conservative Lewis County, which regularly gives supermajorities to Republicans.

“This is kind of a historic moment and we didn’t want to miss it. The last president to visit here was about 50 years ago,” said Steve Foister, a fourth-grade teacher from neighboring Chehalis waiting in the drizzle.

“That was President Truman,” piped his 11-year-old son, Alex.