ASHINGTON - With the races for the presidency and control of the House of Representatives excruciatingly close, the Democrats are planning to unleash their proven vote-getter - President Clinton - to rally the troops and help individual candidates.
In the last two weeks of the campaign, the president will do radio spots and record telephone messages to be relayed to voters, urging them to vote Democratic. Clinton will also travel to states to get out the vote and aid specific campaigns, said Jenny Backus, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee.
''You will definitely be seeing him in the last few weeks'' before Election Day, Backus said. Clinton will probably go to California, where the Democrats are eyeing five congressional seats that could help make them the majority party in the House.
The trip also frees Vice President Al Gore, who holds a comfortable lead in most California polls, from having to travel there to assist House candidates.
Clinton probably will not appear with Gore before the election, the vice president's aides said. It's not that Clinton is a liability, said a Democratic party official, but that ''Gore must be his own man'' and win the presidency himself.
With Texas Governor George W. Bush appearing to have gained ground in recent polls, ''I'm beginning to think the only thing Gore can do is to bring Clinton into the battleground states,'' said pollster John Zogby. ''Plan B is to bring the president in. And it probably has to be pretty soon, because there's a lot of ground to cover.''
Republicans insist that Clinton is a detriment to Gore, and that a presidential effort to boost Gore's support will backfire.
''I think they're tearing their hair out in Nashville, wondering what to do with Bill Clinton,'' said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer. ''The more President Clinton campaigns for Al Gore, the more it's going to remind the key independents in this election that Al Gore has not been a strong leader. And it's going to complicate Al Gore's efforts to break away.
''There's no doubt that the president is popular in the base of the Democratic Party,'' Fleischer said. ''But he's not well-regarded in the key middle, which decides elections.''
Still, Democrats speak longingly about Clinton's oratorical skills, and the crowd-pleasing ability that helped him win two presidential elections.
Even with the tarnish of impeachment, Democrats say, Clinton is a compelling speaker, a man who has the ability to make everyone in a crowded room feel as if he is speaking to him or her alone. It is a campaign advantage, Democrats note mournfully, that Gore does not possess.
The president went to Capitol Hill yesterday to meet with Democrats in the House and Senate to bolster their enthusiasm. During the private meeting, a Capitol Hill aide said, Clinton railed against Bush.
Noting that Bush has said that he didn't want to deny a tax break to any taxpayer, including the very wealthy, Clinton launched into what the aide described as an eloquent speech about how governing is about making choices.
''A lot of people were saying that if Al Gore made that speech, he'd be president,'' the aide said.
Clinton has been a huge financial asset for Democrats, raising an estimated $100 million this year for Democratic committees and candidates. The amount he has raised as a noncandidate is more than twice the $44 million Gore has raised for his presidential campaign, and nearly as much as the $106 million Bush has attracted.
''There's nobody in the party who generates as much excitement as (Clinton) does,'' said David DiMartino, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Clinton has pulled in about $10 million for the DSCC alone, DiMartino said, and the amount will probably hit $12 million by Nov. 7. That's in addition to the $16 million Clinton has raised for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the tens of millions of dollars he has garnered for individual candidates at the approximately 150 fund-raisers he has attended this year alone.
''He has a lot invested in this election,'' said Charles Cook, author of the Cook Political Report. ''His legacy, whatever it is, will be decided to a large extent on whether his wife (New York senatorial candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton) wins, whether Al Gore wins, and to a certain extent, whether Democrats take control of the House.''
The president has kept an event-packed fund-raising schedule, sometimes hitting as many as or more campaign events in a day than the two presidential contenders.
When the president arrived at Andrews Air Force Base Tuesday from peace talks in Egypt, he immediately sped off to two fund-raisers. On Sunday and Monday, the president is scheduled to appear at seven fund-raisers in New York state.
Tonight, Clinton plans to attend a $200-a-ticket fund-raiser for Representative Martin Meehan, Democrat of Lowell, and will appear at the Boston home of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who is hosting a reception for the high-tech industry.
''There's a lot of excitement'' in Lowell about Clinton's visit, Meehan said. ''Regardless of who wins the presidential race, the next president will not have the kind of people skills, and the ability to relate to people that he has. Frankly, I don't think we'll see it again for a long time.''
In Boston, members of the high-tech industry have paid $25,000 apiece to meet with Clinton, raising a half-million dollars for senatorial candidates. The president has made six appearances for the High Technology Council, a Democratic-led group in which Kerry is active.
Aside from raising cash for candidates, the meeting helps the Democrats nurture a relationship with the high-tech industry, whose influence in Washington is increasing along with its share of the national economy.
Most of the president's campaign activity has been private, in front of a controlled audience of supporters. Clinton has also done a few rallies when requested by candidates, said White House spokesman Jake Siewert.
As for the Gore campaign, ''we'll do whatever they want,'' Siewert said.
