Edition: U.S. / Global

Mrs. Clinton Proposes Ban On Ads for Young Children

Published: September 27, 2000

Declaring that advertisers were directing a ''barrage of materialistic marketing'' at young children, Hillary Rodham Clinton today called on the federal government to ban commercials aimed at preschool children, and to prohibit advertising inside public elementary schools.

Mrs. Clinton, in the second of two days of campaigning directed at Jewish audiences, said the Federal Trade Commission should be authorized to ban advertising that it determines is intended for young children susceptible to manipulation. She also called for legislation that would prohibit the marketing of materials to children in elementary schools, as on book covers with advertisements.

''Too many companies simply see our children as little cash cows that they can exploit,'' Mrs. Clinton said as she introduced what her advisers described as a new theme in her campaign, a topic that she raised with increasing vigor throughout a day of campaigning on Long Island and in Manhattan and the Bronx.

''We know that advertisers target the youngest of our children,'' she said. ''Imagine. They are advertising to children who have not yet even reached kindergarten. They are trying to get these children to be influenced in what they want to buy and own.''

The first lady offered scant details of how such a regulation might be accomplished, including, for example, how the government would distinguish between an advertisement intended to influence adults and an ad intended to manipulate children. Mrs. Clinton's aides said that under her proposal, that determination would be left to the Federal Trade Commission.

The commission made a similar a proposal in 1978. Congress responded two years later by stripping its authority to issue such regulations, and Mrs. Clinton essentially called today for that authority to be restored.

Mrs. Clinton introduced her idea while her campaign was making a concerted effort to turn attention from her dispute with her opponent, Representative Rick A. Lazio, over the use of so-called soft money -- largely unregulated contributions -- in their campaigns.

Mrs. Clinton was to fly off Wednesday on a three-day trip to Oklahoma, Las Vegas and Los Angeles to raise soft money for the national Democratic Party, but not, she said, specifically for her campaign, given her agreement with Mr. Lazio to ban such money from their campaigns. Her campaign declined to release details of her itinerary which would have allowed reporters to follow her, saying that such events were considered private.

The proposal on ads is reminiscent of the kind of proposals that formed the bedrock of President Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign, in that it strikes what many politicians believe is a particularly receptive chord among voters on an issue that Mrs. Clinton's opponent is unlikely to dispute her on. One of Mrs. Clinton's chief advisers is Mark Penn, who was a pollster for President Clinton in 1996, and was described by aides as one of the driving forces behind her decision to embrace this idea.

Mr. Lazio responded to Mrs. Clinton's proposal not by attacking it, but rather by offering a list of contributions she had received from corporations that, he said, were guilty of the kind of offenses she criticized today. Mr. Lazio's spokesman, Dan McLagan, said that she did not have the grounding to make such a proposal.

''Everybody likes kids,'' Mr. McLagan said. ''Her program sounds nice, but it's difficult to take her seriously because she's a wholly owned subsidiary of Hollywood and the entertainment industry.''

Mrs. Clinton proposed her idea as both candidates made a concerted effort to nail down support from Jewish voters. A day after she received the endorsement of Elie Wiesel, winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize and chronicler of the Holocaust, she campaigned in the Bronx with Hadassah Lieberman, the wife of Joseph I. Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential candidate.

Mr. Lazio met today with Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Brooklyn Democrat. Mr. Hikind said that, as with Mrs. Clinton, he discussed the case of Jonathan Jay Pollard, the American convicted of passing secrets to Israel. Mr. Hikind and others have pressed President Clinton to grant Mr. Pollard clemency.

Mr. Lazio and Mrs. Clinton have signaled that they may support clemency, but both have said they need to review what is now classified information before offering an informed position.

Through it all, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Lazio clashed on their economic plans. Mr. Lazio asserted that Mrs. Clinton's spending proposal, which includes tax deductions for college tuition and the expansion of Medicare to include prescriptions for elderly Americans, would wipe out the nation's projected $4.4 trillion surplus over the next decade.

''The entire surplus would be spent,'' Mr. Lazio said at a luncheon of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. ''There is no question that my opponent would have to raise taxes to pay for all these new federal spending programs.''

Mrs. Clinton responded by attacking Mr. Lazio's record of votes on the economy and his own call for a large tax cut. ''This is part of his continuing campaign of diversion because he doesn't want people to look at his own tax plans, which total over a trillion dollars,'' she said. ''I've called it Bush Lite, and it truly is a fiscally risky approach that is not good for our country.''

The first lady, whose attacks on Mr. Lazio increased in volume as she campaigned, noted that Mr. Lazio opposed President Clinton's economic plan in 1993, which she and other Democrats have credited for the nation's economic revival, and that he had supported the economic proposals of Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker.

''You can be from New York and not be for New York, and if you look at his record, that's what you see,'' Mrs. Clinton said. ''And he'd do it again if he were given a chance.''

Photo: Representative Rick A. Lazio greeted supporters yesterday at Rocco's Pizzeria in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. (Ting-Li Wang/The New York Times)