Bush Lifts Campaign to Presidential Degree : Republicans: The President graces ceremonial stages as he distances himself from Buchanan’s swipes.

MIAMI BEACH —  This is what happens when you mix the university commencement season with a presidential campaign: You get, live and in person, the queen of salsa music, a Jewish leader and human rights campaigner--and, appearing with these heroes of two key voting blocs, the President of the United States.

That was Monday’s cast of honorary-degree recipients--President Bush, singer Celia Cruz and Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, along with a hotelier and a manufacturer of suntan lotions, all decked out in caps and gowns at Florida International University. Bush spoke to a graduating class that was roughly 40% Latino.

Meanwhile, his rival for the Republican nomination, Patrick J. Buchanan, arrived in North Carolina for an eight-day campaign swing before its May 5 primary. Buchanan accused Bush of being out of touch with voters and reiterated his “America first” message.

Bush is close to clinching the nomination and Buchanan has yet to win a primary. He has hopes for North Carolina, home of conservative Sen. Jesse Helms. But even Helms, a longtime friend of Buchanan’s, has joined Bush’s state organization. By coincidence of timing, Bush planned a fund-raiser in Charlotte for later Monday as Buchanan flitted around the smaller towns.

The President’s latest campaign plan--to abandon for now the outwardly political approach and to appear “presidential”--has left him scrambling for issues on which to focus.

So on Monday, during his commencement speech, the President--who has spent most of his adult life in elective or appointive government office--decried “a discontent--a deepening cynicism about the way things work, or fail to work, in Washington; a doubt about one person’s ability to change, really change, the system.”

To the American people, he said, “government has grown more distant. Too often the government we get is not accountable. It is not effective, it is not efficient, it’s not even compassionate.”

“It’s not that people are apathetic; it’s that people are angry with government.”

It is time, Bush said, “to bring the ethic of responsibility back into government,” and with it will come, he said, a restoration of public trust.

In Mooresville, N.C., Buchanan took a jab at Bush’s three-hour visit to Charlotte for the $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser. “George Bush is coming here today with a vacuum cleaner. He’s going to scoop up $1,000 checks and go back to Washington. I mean, that’s his idea of staying in touch with America. I think that’s one reason he’s in real trouble.”

Buchanan spent most of the day meeting with small-town newspaper editors. He encountered only a handful of voters on a rainy Monday.

Buchanan said his original goal of defeating the President in the primaries and winning the White House in November has been put aside in favor of pushing Bush into more conservative positions and influencing the party’s platform.

“George Bush, by raising taxes, by signing a quota bill, has walked away from the Republican Party,” Buchanan said at the outset of his North Carolina foray.

“Gov. Clinton is a very weak candidate,” he said, referring to front-running Democrat Bill Clinton of Arkansas. “But Mr. Bush is threatened by Ross Perot for the simple reason that millions of Americans think that Washington, the White House and a corrupt Congress have lost touch with the American people, and they are dead right.”

Perot, a Texas billionaire and businessman, has said he’ll run as an independent if supporters can get him on the ballot in all 50 states.

Even one of Buchanan’s supporters in Morganton, Don McGalliard of Glen Alpine, was wearing a button that said: “Perot for President.”

McGalliard explained that he would vote for Buchanan in the primary and for Perot in November. “I would love it if Perot chose Buchanan for vice president,” he told a reporter.

Gerstenzang reported from Florida and Eaton from North Carolina.