CLINTON TO VISIT AREA, DISCUSS FAMILY VALUES.

Byline: Lee Condon Daily News Staff Writer

Venturing into the kind of middle-class suburban area that could be critical for his re-election Nov. 5, President Clinton will visit Glendale today and deliver what aides call a major policy address on family values.

``It's the most thematic speech on the family since the State of the Union address in January,'' said Joe Lockheart, press secretary for the Clinton-Gore campaign. ``It's the first time he's come back to this in a systematic way.''

The 10 a.m. speech at Glendale College will touch on such issues as family medical leave, public school uniforms, curbing teen smoking and the ``V-chip,'' which would help parents screen out offensive television programs.

Political analysts said Glendale - whose electorate is traditionally conservative and leans Republican - is the perfect place for the Democratic president to stump on conservative issues.

``The battlegrounds in California are not going to be the urban areas that belong to the Democrats,'' said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, professor at the Claremont Graduate Center for Politics and Policy.

``The battlegrounds are going to the new suburban swing areas - Glendale-Burbank, the San Fernando Valley, San Bernardino County,'' she said.

Clinton's embrace of family values as a campaign issue helps position him closer to the center, Jeffe said.

``He started out with health care reform, he started out with gays in the military, he started off with offbeat appointments which seemed too liberal. He came out like a raging liberal,'' Jeffe said.

``He understands now that he can't be a full-blown liberal and still get that 20 percent swing vote,'' she said.

Lockheart said Glendale represents the constituency of moderate Republicans that Clinton hopes to take away from GOP candidate Bob Dole.

``A lot of moderate Republicans have been forced out of the party because of the extremist Dole-Gingrich agenda,'' he said, referring to Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia.

``The place they are coming home to is Bill Clinton and the Democrats.''

John Peschong, the executive director of the California Republican Party, said Clinton's embrace of family values is ``disingenuous.''

``It's nothing but positioning and posturing,'' Peschong said.

``People are not going to forget he's one of the most left-wing presidents we've ever had,'' Peschong said. ``His only chance of getting re-elected is to pretend he's something that he's not.''

Glendale has long voted Republican, although in 1992 Clinton out-polled then-President Bush here by 114 votes. It was the first time since Franklin Delano Roosevelt that Glendale voters chose a Democrat over a Republican presidential candidate.

Glendale Community College President John A. Davitt said faculty and students are thrilled that Clinton picked their campus to make his speech.

``We're very honored,'' Davitt said. Some 2,500 students came to campus Monday to pick up their invitations.

Lawrence Concepcion, a 20-year-old Glendale College student, said he is a Republican who intends to vote for Clinton.

``Dole seems out of it, he's too old,'' Concepcion said.

Besides school faculty and students, Clinton also has invited Glendale city officials, school board members and students from several elementary schools.

The latter include seven deaf students from Multnomah Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles, 31 students from St. Bede's School in La Canada Flintridge and four students from Lynette Miketta's second-grade class at Columbus Elementary School in Glendale.

Miketta, whose husband works at Glendale College, said she wrangled the invitation by calling Davitt herself.

``We've been studying about the president in our class, so it was perfect,'' said Miketta, who held a lottery among her most well-behaved students to choose who would join her. ``I'm probably more excited than the children are.''

Both she and her students will show up in their school uniforms, which the school put in place two years ago.

Clinton is scheduled to arrive at Glendale College's athletic field at 9:50 a.m. and will address students and staff at the San Rafael Common Area of the campus. In the afternoon he will head to Albuquerque, N.M.

A coalition of immigration reform groups - including Voice of Citizens Together - has announced plans to protest what it says is the president's lack of a strong policy to curb illegal immigration.

In San Diego on Monday, Clinton gave a speech praising the San Diego Police Department's community policing efforts and pledged to bring in more federal officers to battle illegal immigration.