With fewer than 100 hectic hours to election day, President Bill Clinton walked into San Francisco's Moscone Centre on Friday to shore up Democratic candidate Al Gore's dwindling three-point lead in California and to get the vote out.
Judging by the roar of the 3,000-strong crowd, with over 2,000 waiting outside, he might have been running himself again. The Great Communicator ran down the shortlist of reasons to vote for the Vice-President in clear, simple language, and this time he remembered not to call Gore "the next best thing" to a third term, the off-hand words he had used on a Los Angeles radio show the day before.
Thanks to more huge, boisterous crowds in San Jose and Oakland, Clinton was late; but it was clear who the black, Latino and blue-collar crowd had waited two hours to see. Instead of calling for his Vice-President, the crowd shouted: "We love you, Bill." and "Thank you, Bill." and "Eight more years. Eight more years."
The President has not shed any of his familiar mannerisms. Biting his lower lip, his accent as southern as fried chicken, taller than the gospel choir beaming behind his head, he was almost a walking self-parody. He seemed genuinely happy to be there, standing next to San Francisco's equally beaming Mayor Willie Brown and state governor Gray Davis. African-American baseball legend Willie Mays was there too, a rare sight these days.
Al Gore has turned down Clinton's offers of help in the so-called "battlefield" states where undecided voters make predictions impossible. But in California, Clinton was drafted in by panicky local Democrats because he can deliver the 54 electoral votes out of the 125 needed to win the neck-and-neck national race. The President obviously relished the chance to strut his stuff again. Bill Clinton's 11th-hour roar through California coincided with the stories of Bush's drunk-driving record 24 years ago, but he studiously avoided mentioning that charge, or Bush, or the Green Party's Ralph Nader, who has made big inroads here; he mentioned Al Gore only in conjunction with Joe Lieberman and the Democratic Party.
"You don't have to say anything bad about anybody," he advised the crowd, while urging them to lobby relatives and friends in swing-vote states. "You should be happy that you don't have to. Just ask yourself - ask anybody - if you are better off than you were eight years ago. If you are, if you want to keep that prosperity going, there's only one choice, and that's for Al Gore, for Joe Lieberman and for the Democrats."
The crowd roared as Clinton went on to ask them to help win Congress back with six more seats. He concluded with a mini-lesson in economics. "Look, it's simple math. If the surplus is what our Republican friends say it is, and it's supposed to be $2 trillion - though I doubt it - but if you take out their $1.6 trillion tax cut and the cost of their social security privatisation programme, that's another $1 trillion and some more spending, it's - what is it? - $3.1 trillion. So, what's $3.1 trillion? Bigger than $2 trillion."
"Fuzzy math! Fuzzy math!" cried some of the crowd joyfully as Clinton went on to take Bush's larger tax cut apart to demonstrate it did not work and that Gore's targeted smaller tax cuts would lower interest rates. He pounded into Democratic selling points on health insurance, social security, the environment and education next, touching on pro-choice and equal pay for women and ending up with a clarion "Do you want to build progress for a better America? If you do there's only one choice, and that's Gore-Lieberman and the Democrats."
Clinton has been a regular visitor here and his daughter, Chelsea, attends Stanford. Earlier, he had confided to the other Mayor Brown - Oakland's Jerry - he wouldn't mind trying his hand at being a mayor himself. Then after Mayor Willie presented him with "a warm coat for canvassing in New York with Hillary" he left for the airport.
Record voter turnouts of 70 per cent and more are predicted here for tomorrow, although Democratic presidential candidates traditionally fear the effects of east coast exit polls. In 1980 west coast voters stayed at home when Jimmy Carter conceded three hours before polling stations closed over here, and Mike Dukakis blamed low turnout on TV-run exit polls in 1988. If tomorrow's voters continue to vote until west coast closing, come rain or shine, Clinton can take much of the credit.
Also on the podium with Clinton, Mayor Willie and the Glide Memorial gospel choir was local Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who has been prominent in relations with China and AIDS issues. Should the Democrats get the necessary six seats to win back Congress, she stands to become majority whip for the Democrats and then the next Speaker of the House of Representatives. She would be the first woman whip and Speaker on Capitol Hill.