TIPPER GORE VISITS CAPE THIS AFTERNOON

President George Bush's veto this week of the family emergency medical leave bill is one of the topics the wife of Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Al Gore will discuss in Cape Girardeau today.

"At a time when families are under a great amount of stress anyway, this bill would help shape the workplace, with workers having the ability to hold their families together and maintain their jobs during time of crisis." said Tipper Gore, in a telephone interview from Chicago Thursday afternoon.

"I feel very strongly about the family leave bill. I think it puts substance behind the stated position that we value family. I think it strips away the Republican position, at least as represented by President Bush, as being empty rhetoric with no substance," Gore added.

Her husband was a sponsor of the family leave bill in the Senate and left the campaign trail Thursday to return to Washington to vote to override the president's veto.

Mrs. Gore will be in Cape Girardeau today at 3:45 p.m. to speak from the gazebo in the Common Pleas Courthouse Park. The event is open to the public.

Besides the family leave bill, Gore also will focus on health care and jobs. She said the Clinton-Gore ticket has definite ideas on how to deal with those issues, and referred to the visit here as part of the "campaign to change America."

Gore said she will make brief comments in Cape Girardeau, but wants to spend as much time as possible greeting people and listening to what they have to say. "We are conducting a back-to-the-people campaign," she remarked.

Gore said the need for legislation like the family leave bill was made clear in her family two years ago when their son was hit by a car and critically injured. For 30 days, they stayed at his side in a Baltimore hospital.

Unfortunately, Gore said, 82 percent of all American workers don't have the flexibility to take time off from work to care for a family member in crisis.

"That's why we feel so strong, personally, about this. We've been there," she said.

Gore noted that another couple, who had a child in intensive care the same time they were there, ended up losing their jobs and having to sell their home.

"There are a lot of people out there whose personal stories would tear your heart out," said Gore. "The serious illness of a child is one of the most devastating events a parent can experience.

"A family crisis creates new pressures, new worries, and new responsibilities. In these times, no one should be forced to choose between caring for their family and keeping their job; between losing critical time with a child or losing a paycheck and health care that is desperately needed. It's not right, it's not fair, and it undermines those values that once defined our country."

Mrs. Gore contends the Republicans are off base in their focus on the family values theme. "The way Republicans are presenting family values is to bash everyone else's family," she declared. "They have a very rigid definition: `We are OK and you are not.' The Clinton-Gore campaign and the new Democratic Party rejects that."

She added, "Instead of politicians who talk about family values, we need leaders and policy that values families."

Gore said the Democratic Party has a specific agenda for dealing with family issues, including the family medical leave act and reforms in the welfare system to eliminate provisions that encourages fathers to leave home.

She said Democrats also hope to encourage more day care, because 80 percent of the women who have children ages 11 and older are in the work force, and more than half of the mothers with children under the age of six are working.

"There are a lot of issues where Clinton and Gore have substantial ideas that would value working families," she said.

The 44-year old Gore grew up in Arlington, Va. and graduated from Boston University in 1970. She earned a masters degree in psychology from George Peabody College in 1975. She married Sen. Gore in 1970, and has been an advocate of children's issues.

While in Washington she helped form the Congressional Wives Task Force that has focused on such issues as the levels of violence children are exposed to on television.

In conjunction with the National Parent Teacher Association, Mrs. Gore helped found the Parents Music Resource Center, which was formed in 1986 as a non-profit clearing house of information on popular music. The group's major goal has been to encourage the music industry to voluntarily notify consumers through a parental advisory that a recording contains explicit violence or sexual content.

In 1987 she published a book entitled: "Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society," which is a practical guide for parents and consumers concerned with increasingly explicit material in children's entertainment.

Gore also has been active in efforts to increase awareness of the nation's homeless population.

Gore said she campaigns several days a week and then returns home to spend time with their children. The Gore's have four children, three girls ages 19, 15, and 13, and a son who is 9.

She will be coming to Cape Girardeau from Chicago. She started the day Thursday in Valdosta, Ga. and then went to Peoria, Ill. for campaign appearances.

"We are being greeted by extremely enthusiastic people who are ready for change and fed up," Gore said. "They are responding to the new Democratic Party as represented by Clinton and Gore. People are hungry for change; angry about unemployment, poverty and health care."

She added that the Democratic ticket "is promising to take a new approach to these problems."

Capt. Steve Strong of the Cape Girardeau Police Dept., said officers have been meeting with the Secret Service and campaign staff to prepare for Mrs. Gore's visit. The department is being assisted by the Cape and Scott County Sheriff's Departments.

Gore will arrive at the Cape airport shortly after 3:00 p.m. and be brought to the courthouse in a motorcade.

Strong said security needs for the wife of a vice presidential candidate are a little less than those needed last week when First Lady Barbara Bush visited the SEMO District Fair.