Clinton campaigns for wife's Senate bid before New York primary

DANBURY, Conn. - Calling himself the ''cheerleader in chief,'' President Clinton attended half a dozen events Monday, mostly in service of his wife's Senate campaign.

''This is an interesting time in my life. My family has a new candidate and my party has a new leader. I've become the cheerleader in chief, and I love it,'' Clinton said while in Connecticut to raise money for Rep. James H. Maloney, D-Conn.

On Tuesday, Clinton will go beyond cheerleader to voter, casting his first vote as a New Yorker for his wife.

Hillary Rodham Clinton faces Dr. Mark McMahon in the New York Democratic primary, and the family plans to vote together at a school near their suburban Westchester County home. They bought the house last year when Mrs. Clinton began her Senate campaign in earnest.

But until now Clinton had remained an Arkansas voter.

Clinton had six events to attend Monday - four political or fund-raising speeches bracketed by two events concerning New York's Jewish community. Although nominally nonpolitical presidential appearances, even those two Clinton speeches offered a veneer of policy over campaign-style politics.

The day's first stop was a Jewish community center in Westchester County. Clinton was ending his day in New York City, where Mrs. Clinton was collecting an award for work among Holocaust survivors.

Mrs. Clinton is lagging in her pursuit of New York's influential Jewish vote, a traditionally Democratic constituency.

Democrats outnumber Republicans 5 to 1 among New York State's Jews, yet polls show Mrs. Clinton is still having trouble reaching the 60 percent level of support among Jewish voters that analysts say is the minimum she needs to win.

Among all voters, the race between Mrs. Clinton and Rep. Rick Lazio, R-N.Y., is roughly even. Though hardly monolithic, the Jewish vote is considered capable of swinging a Senate election even though only 12 percent of the state's electorate is Jewish.

The apparently tireless Clinton's calendar was more full Monday than many candidates who are actually on the ballot in November.

He hopscotched from suburban New York to Connecticut and back to New York City to raise money for Mr. Clinton and two other Democrats.

He praised his wife for her long work with children during one stop, and delivered a history lesson on the political and economic cycles of the 20th century at the next.

As he often does, Clinton spoke without notes in a conversational style studded with facts and figures he pulled from memory.

The crowd at a fund-raising luncheon for Maloney nodded and applauded appreciatively.

Leaning professorially on his podium, Clinton made a joke at his own expense.

''This is not your standard political speech,'' he said. ''But I have been doing this a long time now, and I've got the hang of it.''