Bill's Revival Hour

By NINA BURLEIGH/WITH CLINTON

At the Topeka Foundry & Iron Works last week, the setting was new, but the set was familiar: klieg lights, blue-draped dais, place cards, Congressmen, a sprinkling of average Americans and the President, headlining another health- care forum. The audience of 150 Kansas business owners was treated to the spectacle of the nation's President, looking every bit the Accountant in Chief, doing business math for a Mexican-restaurant owner, a flower-shop owner, an architect, a construction-company owner and a farmer. Their chief concern was how much money they personally would fork over if his plan became law. Regina Jaramillo was worried about insuring the part-timers at her restaurant. "At 7.9%," Clinton patiently explained, "then the real cost -- additional cost -- of doing business would be one-third of that because the payroll is a third of total cost, or something less than 3%."

That kind of calculation was not exactly what the President's staff had in mind when they planned the week-long, multistate health-care blitz. The goal was to jump-start the Administration plan while Congress was out of session -- and in the process put the President back on offense after weeks of answering Whitewater charges. One group of Democratic lobbyists and public relations executives who "want action, not gridlock; problem solving, not partisan bashing" even announced the formation of the Back to Business Committee to make sure that crime and welfare reform and health care did not get drowned in Whitewater. By the end of the week there were signs that the strategy was working. A TIME/CNN poll found that just over half of those surveyed felt that the media are paying too much attention to Whitewater. As for health care, after weeks of indifference or actual distaste for the President's plan, some voters came on board. Whether it is the absence of any clear alternative or a renewed attention to the specifics of Clinton's proposal, the number of people saying they favor the President's package rose to 48% last week, up from 41% a month ago.

That progress may owe something to Clinton's artful exercise in euphemism and paraphrase, an effort to avoid some of the phrases that seem to conjure images of a sprawling, socialist nightmare. At town meetings and health forums in Charlotte, North Carolina; Topeka and Fairway, Kansas; and Minneapolis, Minnesota, the President rolled out a new script with five simpler talking points. "Universal coverage," for example, is now "permanent private health insurance." But the President was hard-pressed to avoid minutiae. Like Oz, he was faced with a new wish list from every American he met. At the foundry forum, he talked with only six people but encountered six idiosyncratic sets of concerns.

The White House is worried about polls showing that many Americans agree with the plan's major points but are against Clinton's proposals specifically. Harvard health-policy professor Robert Blendon says this happened because for a long time a distracted White House allowed its health-care foes to spin the perception of the plan. What Clinton must do now, Blendon says, is get out and explain how it will really work. "But the worst thing he can do," Blendon says, "is get into the administrative details of the plan." That is precisely what happens when the President ends up calculating payroll percentages in front of live audiences. "We would rather that didn't happen," admitted a White House official. "But it's fine if he turns it back into one of the five points."

Throughout the week, the President was probably dogged less by Whitewater than he had been in several months. But it hadn't disappeared altogether, to the Administration's great frustration. On Tuesday night in Charlotte, the President faced an unusual number of hostile questions in what has been his favorite forum and lately his favorite way to prove to journalists that Americans don't really care about Whitewater. Clinton turned testy when confronted with questions he didn't like -- especially when he was grilled several times about his character and credibility -- and the sting was worse since they came from ordinary people instead of the detested press corps.

The latter group got a tongue lashing as well when Clinton's volcanic adviser James Carville addressed a breakfast meeting for journalists at a Washington hotel. He accused the assembled group of participating in a news cycle of Whitewater stories generated by Clinton haters. Carville has also attacked the Republicans: "They are the party of obstruction, the Whitewater party, and we are the health-care party."

One way to guarantee that the focus didn't shift to unpleasant topics was for the White House to suggest what kind of audience the President would prefer. In Fairway and Minneapolis, the host television stations agreed that only people with questions on health care would be allowed at the town meetings. Presidential aide Jeff Eller said Thursday night that he routinely suggests that stations invite at least one person from the area who has written a letter to the White House. In Fairway that woman -- Elaine Shaffer, whose mother had to wait for treatment because she had no insurance -- got to ask the first question. But, as usual, the best-laid plans went awry. The carefully selected letter writer didn't bring up the subject of her mother, but the President did, leaving the audience baffled at how he knew who this random questioner was.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: From a telephone poll of 800 Adult Americans taken for TIME/CNN on April 6-7 by Yankelovich Partners Inc. Sampling error is plus or minus 3-5% + Not Sures omitted

CAPTION: Do you favor President Clinton's health-care reform plan?

With reporting by James Carney/Charlotte