PRESIDENT Clinton officially launches his re election campaign here tonight with an acceptance speech intended to set out his vision for a second term in the White House. With his lead over his Republican rival, Mr Bob Dole, getting a further boost from this week's convention, Mr Clinton will warn his supporters against complacency.
He ended his four day train ride yesterday at Michigan and then flew here by helicopter as the 4,000 delegates were acclaiming him and Vice President Al Gore as the Democratic ticket for the November 5th election. He will spend most of today at the Sheraton Hotel fine tuning his acceptance speech.
The Minister for Finance, Mr Ruairi Quinn, has attended some sessions of the convention as a distinguished visitor. He is in Chicago for an IDA promoted function.
At a news starved convention, much attention was given on Tuesday to a celebrity party by John F. Kennedy junior to publicise his new magazine George.
The criticism from the liberal wing of the party over the President's signing of the welfare reform bill, which ends federal aid for poorer families, has been low key, even from articulate critics such as the Rev Jesse Jackson and the former New York Governor, Mr Mario Cuomo.
Street demonstrations against the bill have been poorly attended. And they were well policed: one woman who marched topless wearing a Hillary Clinton mask was taken into custody.
Mr Clinton is expected to head off further criticism tonight by promising to give employers about $3.5 billion over the next five years in tax breaks to encourage them to take on people forced off welfare under the new legislation.
The President has been encouraged by the warmth of the reception given to the speech on family values by his wife Hillary at the convention on Tuesday night. He watched it on TV from his train and interrupted an interview she was giving afterwards to congratulate her on a mobile phone the interruption was broadcast on TV, needless to say.
Mrs Clinton did not try to imitate the walk around performance by Mrs Elizabeth Dole at the Republican convention in San Diego. But most commentators agreed that it was a bravura Hillary Clinton performance which has helped to restore an image battered in recent months by continuing Whitewater affair revelations.
Former Senator George Mitchell, who has been chairing the peace talks in Belfast, referred briefly to Northern Ireland in a speech to the convention devoted to the President's record in international affairs. Mr Mitchell, who had the difficult task of following the accolades for the charismatic Jesse Jackson, said that Mr Clinton had been the first US president to visit Northern Ireland. He had "taken risks" for peace there and he was urging others to do the same.
Mrs Clinton's speech was given such priority by the organisers that it pushed the keynote address by Governor Evan Bayh from its prime time TV slot. The most eagerly awaited speeches by Mr Jackson and Mr Cuomo were also outside the prime time slots.
Some critics found Mrs Clinton's speech lightweight and too laden with references to her daughter, Chelsea, who was frequently shown in close up in the VIP seats. Up to now the Clintons have insisted that Chelsea be shielded from media attention.
Mrs Clinton refrained from mentioning the Republican contender by name but she delighted the audience when she rejected Mr Dole's criticism of her book on family values called It Takes a Village. He had made a scornful reference to it in his acceptance speech in San Diego.
Mrs Clinton wound up her speech insisting that to raise a happy, healthy and hopeful child, "it takes a village and it takes a President who believes not only in the potential of his own child, but of all children".