Wait Till You See The Car Chase In Chicago

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WASHINGTON, D.C.: Every President running for re-election enjoys the spectacular advantage of managing the news as only the Leader of the Free World can, but nobody does it better than Bill Clinton. Building the suspense in the final days before the Democratic National Convention gets underway in Chicago, President Clinton shot the latest scene from "Clinton II, The Re-Election" this morning in the White House Rose Garden. One day after signing the Kennedy-Kassebaum health reform bill and raising the minimum wage, the President picked up his pen to make the welfare overhaul bill law, fulfilling his 1992 campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it" despite the vehement objections of much of his party. Tomorrow, taking on the tobacco interests and throwing a hot issue back into Bob Dole's lap, he is expected to order the FDA, which has already branded tobacco as an addictive substance, to enforce new restrictions on its sale and marketing. This weekend, the President will whistle-stop his way to Chicago, arriving in an avalanche of publicity and news to accept his party's nomination in hopes of making the traditional convention bounce in the polls a world-class pole vault. "For the last thirty years, conventions have been scripted," says TIME's Eric Pooley. "The whole thing is a game where campaign officials try to control which image and sound bite appear on the evening news. The Clinton campaign has learned that if it embeds policy initiatives into speeches, as little news hooks, they get more play on the news. Overall, the news value from the convention will be low, since we already know who will be nominated. It's really a coronation, not a convention." And the bus doesn't stop there. In a reprise of his show-stopping 1992 campaign tour, Clinton will depart Chicago with Al Gore, Hillary and Tipper by bus, travelling through Missouri, southern Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee. Get out the hay bales. -->