Nov. 2, 1996
By David Sheppard
El Paso Times
President Clinton ended El Paso's 12-year drought without a visit from the commander in chief Friday, touting his record in office and appealing for unity at an overflowing campaign rally.
Squinting into the late afternoon sun, Clinton spoke to about 20,000 people squeezed onto the tarmac at El Paso International Airport.
As he has done since the Democratic convention in August, Clinton expressed regret for the heated rhetoric of the presidential campaign and appealed for less partisanship.
We're all Americans, he cried, his voice booming over loudspeakers, and you know this instinctively because of who you are and where you are and what your experience is.
Thousands of people were turned away as the rally crowd spilled past barricades at the U.S. Customs terminal.
Underestimating Clinton's support in heavily Democratic El Paso, campaign organizers distributed some 45,000 free tickets. But fire marshals, police and the Secret Service closed the gate when fewer than half that squeezed onto the Customs ramp, disappointing ticket-holders who had waited more than an hour to see the president.
After the El Paso rally, the president flew by helicopter to Las Cruces, where 35,000 people showed up to hear him at New Mexico State University.
He returned by helicopter to El Paso, boarded Air Force One and took off for San Antonio at about 9:30 p.m. In all, he spent about six hours in the El Paso-Las Cruces area.
Clinton received a boisterous welcome in both cities.
Treated to more than two hours of Tejano music and folklorico dances, the El Paso airport crowd cheered wildly when Air Force One taxied to within a stone's throw from the stage and delivered the president.
Clinton, amid a 20-state campaign swing leading to Tuesday's election, recited a now-familiar campaign speech that made little notice of his border location, other than a few lines to praise El Paso for its diversity and compassion for immigrants.
Thank you for proving that America could protect its borders and still be an honorable nation of immigrants, Clinton said in a plug for Democratic congressional candidate Silvestre Reyes, El Paso's former Border Patrol chief.
Perhaps befitting the hurried stop and Clinton's frenetic campaign schedule, there was little that was fresh in his 22-minute speech.
In Santa Barbara, Calif., Friday morning, Clinton renewed his support for a campaign finance-reform law that was opposed by Bob Dole and rejected by Congress this summer.
But he mentioned the initiative only as an aside in El Paso.
Today again, I called for a bipartisan approach to reduce the special interest in politics and give more ordinary citizens like (Texas U.S. Senate candidate) Victor Morales a fighting chance, he said.
Morales, waging an uphill campaign against incumbent Phil Gramm, introduced the president at the El Paso rally.
Other speakers included County Judge Chuck Mattox, state Senate candidate Eliot Shapleigh, U.S. Rep. Ron Coleman, former Texas Gov. Dolph Briscoe and Reyes.
Despite his call for less bickering, the president jabbed at Dole and Republicans for criticizing the 1994 Crime Bill and his economic policies.
He credited his administration for creating 10.7 million new jobs, reducing government to its smallest size since President Kennedy's administration, eliminating more regulations that Presidents Bush and Reagan, and cutting the deficit by more than 60 percent.
Let me ask you folks, if a Republican had been president (and had those accomplishments), do you really believe they'd be saying the sky is falling? he asked. The sky is not falling, the sky is the limit for America if we keep going the way we're going.
El Pasoans - deprived of a presidential visit since Reagan spoke to an American GI Forum in the city in 1984 - repeatedly embraced Clinton with shouts of four more years.
Delighting in his final campaign, Clinton cut short his speech and left the stage to press hands and trade one-liners with the crowd.
He was quick to display his knack for putting people at ease.
Secret Service agents warned admirers not to seek an autograph, lest they slow down the president. But Clinton ignored the advice when he spotted Davi Kallman with an autograph book.
I was just holding it out and he came up and asked, `Do you want me to sign that,' the 9-year-old said, grasping the treasured book after the rally. I said yes.
Clinton took the book, walked over to a press aide to get a pen, and scribbled his signature. He then handed it back to Davi.
It was fun, the Zach White Elementary student said. I'm going to show it to my class because my teacher will give me a good grade if I show it to her.
Democrats said such interaction is the ingredient that could increase Tuesday's turnout and swing close races their way.
Certainly it's going to motivate and increase participation, said Otis Hopkins, president of the Black El Paso Democrats. Look and see how energized this crowd is. This is history.
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