ASHINGTON - Forget all that talk about Vice President Al Gore distancing himself from President Clinton and establishing his own bonafides as a presidential candidate.
With Texas Governor George W. Bush holding a 2-to-1 advantage over Gore in the hunt for campaign cash in the 2000 race, the vice president is turning for help to his party's most prodigious fund-raiser, the president.
Clinton will headline an Aug. 7 dinner for the Gore campaign at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock, Ark.
The event and four other fund-raising dinners will be held over the next two months, marking the first time Clinton has raised money for Gore since the vice president announced his candidacy and criticized Clinton's behavior surrounding the Monica S. Lewinsky affair. Gore said he was ''upset'' by the scandal and thought that especially as a parent, Clinton's behavior was ''inexcusable.''
Clinton will host two dinners each night for Gore on Aug. 10 and Sept. 22 in Washington. The events are expected to fatten the vice president's campaign coffers considerably, although Gore campaign officials yesterday refused to provide estimates. Fund-raisers featuring Clinton typically bring in $1 million or more.
Gore, who raised $18.2 million in the first six months of this year, trails Bush, who collected $36.3 million. Gore's rival for the Democratic nomination, former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, raised $11.5 million, an amount analysts said was impressive enough to compete effectively with Gore for the nomination.
Officials from the Gore campaign and the White House downplayed the idea that those figures were a factor in getting Clinton on the fund-raising hustings sooner rather than later.
''Our plan all along has been to get the fund-raising done as early as we can,'' said a Gore official. ''You don't want to be fund-raising while you are in the middle of a primary, and the primaries are coming up soon.''
White House press secretary Joe Lockhart said the idea of the president raising money for Gore was discussed as early as the beginning of the year. ''The president stands ready to help in whatever way he can. And this is certainly one important way he can help the vice president,'' he said.
Gore campaign officials denied that they were sending mixed signals by emphasizing the vice president's need to establish his own identity while having the president help raise campaign cash.
''I don't know that distancing is our policy,'' the Gore official said. ''The vice president has been very supportive of the president, and we are happy to have him help us in whatever way he can.''
