Clinton Attends Birthday Party at Radio City Music Hall

NEW YORK —  Re-energized by his vacation, President Clinton burst into his campaign mode Sunday with a show-biz 50th birthday party and other events to raise $10 million for Democrats and subtly accentuate his age difference with Republican rival Bob Dole.

He told a $1,500-a-person reception that despite his landmark birthday, he is comforted that ex-Beatles Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr are older.

“This is your birthday present,” he said. “You get a presidential election where you don’t have to guess.” He said the American people know what the Republicans will do because “they’ve already done it once. I just vetoed it the first time.”

Joined by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and daughter Chelsea, Clinton stood next to a huge birthday cake resembling a U.S. flag. Clinton tried to blow out all 50 candles but finally finished with Chelsea’s help.

When he stepped to the microphone to speak, a protester held up a poster condemning the welfare reform bill that Clinton has pledged to sign. Some people in the crowd began to boo the protester, but Clinton said: “Wait. They got their message. We heard them. Give them an applause, and let them go.”

Clinton, whose birthday is today, is among 3 million people born in Year One of the baby boom--in the vanguard of a generation that will profoundly affect the way America deals with an aging population.

“I never thought when I was growing up that I would get an [American Assn. of Retired Persons] card,” he said the other day as he was winding up his vacation in Wyoming. “When the card arrives in the mail, I will know it happened.”

Clinton is the most prominent American of the baby-boom generation; about 76 million baby boomers were born from 1946, the first full year after the end of World War II, to 1964.

The changes in retirement, health and long-term care presaged by the aging of this large segment of the population have been likened to the effect on America wrought by the massive waves of immigrants arriving at the turn of the century.

Dole turned 73 recently. If elected, he would be the oldest man to become president. Dole’s acceptance speech at last week’s Republican convention indicates how he plans to turn that seeming disadvantage into a plus.

“Age has its advantages,” he said. “Let me be the bridge to an America that only the unknowing call myth. Let me be the bridge to a time of tranquillity, faith and confidence in action.”

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In an interview on CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes,” Clinton rejected suggestions that Dole can make headway by raising questions about the president’s character.

“I don’t think the Republicans can damage my character. . . . They can attack my reputation . . . but not my character,” said Clinton, adding that “God is the ultimate judge on character.”

Clinton also strongly defended his wife, Hillary, against what were perceived widely as personal attacks at the GOP convention in San Diego.

Clinton’s birthday party, in Radio City Music Hall, was being carried by satellite to festivities in 80 cities, each with its own entertainment. There were two other fund-raisers to mark the birthday, a reception and a late dinner.

Clinton and the first lady are scheduled to fly to Tennessee today to join Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, in symbolically helping rebuild Salem Baptist Church in Fruitland, one of 70 black churches burned in a rash of fires. Tipper Gore has the same birthday as Clinton; she will be 48.

Tickets for the Radio City show went for $250 each, with the money going to the Democratic National Committee to help in election contests across the country. Tickets to the dinner were going for up to $15,000 a plate.

As mistress of ceremonies, Whoopi Goldberg was presiding over a show featuring entertainment representing each of the decades in which Clinton lived. The 1940s were represented by Tony Bennett; the 1950s by rocker Jon Bon Jovi; the 1960s by Aretha Franklin and Smokey Robinson; the 1970s by Carly Simon; the 1980s by Kenny Rogers and Jennifer Holliday; the 1990s by Shania Twain.