DOLE APPEALS TO REAGAN DEMOCRATS.

Byline: Adam Nagourney The New York Times

The Republican field now all but clear, Sen. Bob Dole turned his attention Thursday to the general election in November, laying out a case against President Clinton and explicitly urging Democrats who strayed to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to vote again for a Republican presidential candidate.

Dole came to Michigan and Ohio as part of a four-state, four-day swing through the Midwest in anticipation of Tuesday's primaries that also will include Illinois and Wisconsin.

But Dole paid only fleeting attention to what have become perfunctory contests and instead took advantage of a calendar that had fortuitously landed him in the region of the country that will be at the heart of the struggle between Republicans and Clinton over the next eight months.

"There are those in the audience who may not be active Republicans," Dole told workers at a paint research and development plant in Auburn Hills on Thursday morning. "If you have children, if you have a job, if you want lower taxes, if you think there's too much government regulation and too much power vested in Washington, D.C., you ought to take a look at the Republican Party and the Republican candidate."

The senator continued: "I would say to the Republicans, our mission now is to close ranks. Unite behind the nominee, and Bob Dole will be the nominee of the Republican Party - there's no question about that. And focus our attention on what we believe we should do in November, and that is to beat Bill Clinton."

Dole, in a relatively leisurely 10-hour campaign day, did not limit his preview of the general election campaign to drawing ideological differences with Clinton. The Kansas senator paid a visit to what was, during World War II and the Korean War, the Percy Jones General Hospital, the U.S. Army medical center where he recovered from debilitating war injuries from November 1945 to July 1948.

In his primary campaign, Dole has invoked his war experience as part of an effort to draw a more textured picture of himself. His visit Thursday to the ward where he recovered - the first since he left there in 1948, and a campaign stop he proposed to aides - suggested that Dole intended to make his war record and injury a major force in the general election campaign.

Dole declined to make a direct comparison of his World War II experience with how Clinton avoided the war of his generation. But the political intent of Thursday's stop was obvious the moment he was asked the purpose of the visit.

"It is about character," Dole said. "It is about growing up in America. About knowing America. About knowing what made America great. About having made a little sacrifice for America. It is something that a lot of people didn't experience. It certainly changed my life and made me recognize that there are a lot of things happening out there that we sometimes overlook."