Clinton Seeks Common Touch for Inauguration

WASHINGTON —  President-elect Bill Clinton will reach out to ordinary people during a five-day “American Reunion” inaugural celebration, beginning with a bus ride into town from Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello and ending with a handshaking marathon at a White House reception open to the public.

“We’re encouraging all Americans to come,” Inaugural Committee Chairman Ronald H. Brown said Wednesday in announcing that eight events from Jan. 17 to 21 will be free of charge, including a giant Sunday music festival on the Mall expected to attract thousands.

Striking another populist note, ticket prices for the 10 invitation-only inaugural balls will be scaled down sharply, from a maximum $1,000 at President Bush’s party to a new top of $125 for the Arkansas governor’s celebration. The overall cost of the Clinton inaugural, however, will be nearly $20 million and will be financed entirely by private contributions, Brown said.

President Bush’s inaugural four years ago was the most expensive in history, costing $30 million. Ronald Reagan’s inaugurals cost $16 million in 1981 and $20 million in 1985. The 1977 Jimmy Carter celebration, however, cost just $3.5 million. Inaugural funds are spent on invitations, putting up and transporting entertainers and politicians, food and drink and other expenses.

A total of 250,000 invitations are being sent to events that are closed to the public. A large contingent from Clinton’s home state is anticipated and one of the inaugural dances will be designated the “Arkansas Ball.”

Despite the President-elect’s preference for blue jeans at times, inaugural executive director Mary Mel French said that the estimated 65,000 who come to the balls will be expected to follow black-tie tradition.

Clinton has both borrowed from history and charted a new course in the events that will surround his installation as the nation’s 42nd chief executive and the swearing in of Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee as the 45th vice president.

Emulating John F. Kennedy’s invitation to poet Robert Frost at the 1961 inauguration, Clinton has asked writer Maya Angelou to compose a special poem for his oath-taking ceremony on the West Front of Capitol on Jan. 20.

In an innovative gesture to the world community, the President-elect has decided on a reception for diplomats at Georgetown University, his undergraduate college. He also plans to honor his fellow governors with a special lunch at the Library of Congress.

In addition, he and Gore will invite some of the rank-and-file voters they met on their campaign journeys to a pre-inaugural reunion lunch. Special performances will be arranged for children and young people at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The day after he becomes President, Clinton and his wife, Hillary, have decided to greet the public “at their new home” in the White House from 9 a.m. to noon, recalling a similar gesture by President Andrew Jackson in 1829 that left the mansion in a shambles.

According to historical accounts, the group of well-wishers became rowdy, standing on the furniture with their muddy boots and spilling punch on the rugs. Jackson is said to have left by slipping out a window. But Harry Thomason, the television producer who along with his wife, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, is co-chairing the inaugural, recalled a different precedent.

“Theodore Roosevelt held an open house and he shook 50,000 hands the day of his inauguration,” Thomason said in a telephone interview. “It’s fitting that Gov. Clinton do some of the same. He loves to be with people.”

While final details have not been worked out, Brown said that he assumes people who want to greet the Clintons in the White House will line up outside on Thursday morning without any special admission tickets.

Clinton’s aim is to demonstrate that he is a President who will remain in touch with ordinary Americans while restoring faith in a federal government that has come under increasing criticism for gridlock, his advisers said.

The pre-inaugural bus ride--reminiscent of the eight campaign trips that Clinton and Gore took by bus through small-town and rural America--will recall Jefferson’s trip from his home in Charlottesville to the new national capital before he took the presidential oath in 1801.

Rahm Emanuel, former finance chairman of the Clinton campaign who is one of two executive directors of the inaugural, reminded reporters that Clinton’s middle name is Jefferson and noted that the third President was the father of the Democratic Party.

Crowds are expected to line parts of the 108-mile route and the motor cavalcade is expected to stop at least once along the way before Clinton and Gore arrive at the Lincoln Memorial to preside over “A Call for Reunion” concert and fireworks on the Sunday before their inauguration.

Thomason said that music producer Quincy Jones has promised a “spectacular show” for that event, with some of the biggest names in show business taking part.

Earlier, performers from every region and every ethnic group will entertain in 52 heated tents at the Mall festival, designed as a gathering of people from all parts of the country who come to Washington for the festivities.

An “American Gala” on Monday, Jan. 18, will be open to the public but tickets will be required for admission to the 20,000-seat Capital Centre in nearby Maryland. Officials said that staff workers and volunteers will get preference for admission but that all spectators will be asked to bring food or clothing for distribution to homeless Washingtonians.

That show will be a dress rehearsal for the “Presidential Gala” on inaugural eve that the Clinton and Gore families are expected to attend. Producer Gary Smith will be in charge of the galas, Thomason said, adding that there are already so many volunteer performers that a clearinghouse has been established to place them at inaugural events.

“There’s not going to be a shortage of talent,” Thomason said.