CLINTON, GORE TAKE CONVENTION MESSAGE TO GOP HEARTLAND.

Byline: Associated Press 

Rolling confidently from his convention in a nostalgic heartland bus caravan, President Clinton visited solid GOP territory Friday to plug his second-term agenda and label opponent Bob Dole's big tax cuts ``just flat wrong.''

Clinton had Vice President Al Gore and his and Gore's wives along for the ride as the Democrats sought to re-create their 1992 post-convention bus magic and stoke the double-digit lead they carried from their Chicago convention into the Labor Day weekend.

``Hillary and I and Al and Tipper, we want to see the face of America,'' Clinton said at a steamy rally in Cape Girardeau, Mo., a Mississippi River town in southeast Missouri last carried by a Democrat in the 1964 presidential election.

Reprising the theme of his Thursday night convention speech, Clinton said, ``We want you to know that we are going to build a bridge to the 21st century that all of you can walk across.''

After their wives said a quick hello, Gore and Clinton gave speeches in Cape Girardeau that illustrated the Democrats' strategy for the 67-day sprint to Election Day: Remind voters of the 10 million jobs created on Clinton's watch, outline a laundry list of modest new proposals aimed at middle-class families, and paint Dole and his Republicans as bent on cutting taxes so deeply they would have to gut Medicare and education to balance the budget.

Gore called Dole ``a good and decent man who has served our country honorably.'' But he said Dole's $548 billion tax-cut plan would ``shift the focus away from working families back to trickle-down economics.''

Clinton said his modest, targeted tax cuts would give tax credits for two years of skills training after high school, or a tax deduction of up to $10,000 a year to help pay the costs of a four-year college.

``This is the right sort of tax program for America,'' Clinton said. Of Dole's plan, he said, ``It is five times bigger and sounds sweeter (but) it is just flat wrong.''

The president's 14-bus caravan was a sight to see in Cape Girardeau, a town of 35,000, which has a niche in national politics as the birthplace of conservative radio talk host Rush Limbaugh. ``It's history for our city,'' said 80-year-old Gladys Ritter of the hoopla of a presidential visit.

Indeed, about 20,000 people packed Capaha Park for the first stop on the Clinton-Gore ``Road to the 21st Century'' campaign caravan. Dozens more lined the streets waving their support. ``Give `Em Hell Hillary,'' read one roadside placard.

The Clintons and Gores were greeted by thousands more a few hours later in the southern Illinois town of Cairo. The buses stopped twice en route and the Clintons and Gores jumped out to shake hands with people gathered along the roadside.

Not that the Dole-Kemp campaign and other Clinton foes failed to make their presence felt: Five anti-abortion billboards greeted Clinton near the Cape Girardeau airport, and included criticism of his veto of legislation banning late-term abortions.