Bill Clinton, from Only Slightly Closer Range

By J.F.O. McAllister

(TIME, November 21) -- It is 8 a.m. in fresno on Bill Clinton's 28th trip to California as President, and he is jogging. Bleary reporters gaze as Clinton and his Secret Service detail shrink to dots, then gradually return from the far side of the Leaky Acres Groundwater Recharge Facility, where the President and his entourage can run undisturbed. Their path will take Clinton past a growing gaggle of children and teachers at the Viking Elementary School. They are shouting for the President to come by. But the jogging path and the schoolyard are separated by a chasm of tight security: two cyclone fences, a four-lane highway and a water-filled ditch 15 ft. wide.

Incumbency is a powerful tool. Clinton gives a few big waves, then stretches to cool down and beckons to an aide. Things start to happen. Local cops block off the lanes nearest the school and slow down the commuter traffic in the others. The cumbersome motorcade column makes a giant U-turn and pulls onto the highway. Agents secure the area, and Clinton goes over and shakes a block's worth of hands. Little kids stick their tiny fists through the cyclone fence; big kids and teachers grasp high over the top. Fifteen minutes later, as the motorcade pulls away, hundreds of young voices are squealing "Bill! Bill! Bill!" and Clinton is beaming. Campaign aides are well pleased: before breakfast they've bagged half a day's worth of pictures they know will saturate local TV news.

For those of us covering the Clinton campaign juggernaut, it is the most revealing moment of this day. We may travel with him to three or four cities a day and have drinks with his aides. But as far as Clinton is concerned, the campaign machinery is designed to have reporters see--at only slightly closer range--just what the public sees. We duly observe the big, exultant crowds generated by expert advance teams, the Reagan-quality visual backdrops, the sound systems that never fail. Most of us dutifully report the torrent of bite-size initiatives his policy wonks are churning out, from free cell phones for neighborhood-watch groups to a Website for locating deadbeat dads. We come to both admire and resent his newfound discipline: be presidential, be centrist, be practical. The drama leaches away. Clinton commits few gaffes, raises millions and stays shockingly on schedule.

On the second day of the August train trip to the Democratic Convention, communications director Don Baer is glum as he paces with his cell phone. He has just been reamed out for allowing "too many people in the shot" with Clinton at the last stop, meaning that TV viewers will see a couple of extra faces besides the President's--as if that will make a difference to anything. But this is a campaign that issues a press release saying, "Unrestricted video of President Clinton's 21st Century Express train trip can be found beginning at 16:30 edt on Telstar 402, Transponder 9B (KU Band) Downlink frequency 11986 mHz, Audio 6.2/6.8." No image is left to chance, and the angst starts at the top. After the g.o.p. victory in 1994, says spokesman Mike McCurry, "I think basically the President has lived every day in fear of being fired."

Sometimes a whiff of real life blows through the exquisitely scripted royal progress. Riding his campaign train through Michigan, Clinton periodically dashes shoeless to the back platform to say a few amplified words to the people who are gathered by the tracks, unaware that seven cars ahead we are hearing, via loudspeaker, the disjointed and hilarious monologue from the First Extrovert: "Hi there! Thank you so much! How are you? Thank you for saying hello! Nice garden! That's the biggest satellite [dish] I ever saw!" (He says that twice.) "Be careful up on that platform! What a nice family, nice to see you! Nice bike!" None of his aides tells him we were listening in.

We spend a lot of time watching Clinton "work the rope line," shaking hands after speeches. He radiates the aura of a man complete. Back on Air Force One, he seldom reviews with aides where the audience applauded his stump speech but often mentions the personal stories he has heard, like the one told by a woman who thanked him for the Family and Medical Leave Act because it let her care for her cancer-stricken mom. On another day, after half an hour of clutching hands and signing scrapbooks that have his photo pasted on the cover, the back of Clinton's shirt is sweat-soaked from neck to beltline. Yet still he stops to bring a 90-year-old lady up onstage for a round of Happy Birthday to You. It is clearly the thrill of her life.

On that big scale, Bill Clinton is human and appealing. Up close he is more restless and off-putting. "I know you're all working very hard," he crabs to his staff after a day in Ohio. "But was there any good reason I spent two hours in a car today between events instead of putting them closer together?" When real catastrophe occurs, however, as when news of Dick Morris' affair reached the President en route to Chicago, he is disciplined, playing a few hands of hearts while his mind churns through his next steps.

The greatest catastrophe Clinton can imagine is being a one-term President, and it has made this man of big appetites a study in discipline all year. His advisers told him to act more presidential, and he has done it: keeping quiet when he used to think out loud, avoiding junk food in public and casual chats with reporters. His determined makeover omits no detail, as we are reminded each time he mounts the stairs of Air Force One. Bubba has become De Gaulle; he ascends slowly, gravely, arms stiff at his sides. He turns and waves and disappears inside, intentionally remote, en route to another four years.

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